#Gideon the ninth is in fact influencing me

[artificial-condition]

I want to become buff

[katakaluptastrophy]

What do the Fifth House actually do?

Sure, yes, ghosts and tradition and the Heart of the Emperor, and Watchers Over the River - but none of those things give you the kind of assets that mean you can dress your cavalier in a coat that "probably cost more than the Ninth House had in its coffers" for a dinner party.

It's made clear very early on that the Fifth are a power to be reckoned with. When they first receive the letter about the Lyctoral pilgrimage, Gideon assumes it would be on the Third or Fifth. Harrow, meanwhile, has frequently-repeated anxieties about the Ninth being subsumed by the Third or Fifth, to the point that she worries that the anniversary party invitation may be an attempt to wipe out the other Houses. Teacher describes the Fifth's relationship with the Fourth as "hegemonic". The Fifth loom so large in the cultural imagination, they even inform the name of the made up porn magazine that Gideon offers to Crux.

The links between the Third and the Fifth that both Gideon and Harrow make seem to reflect both the fact that these two Houses have particular power and influence, but also that they frequently cooperate. Judith writes about the close cooperation of the Second, Third, and Fifth, a relationship which becomes a source of tension as the scions seek to establish authority after the Fifth are murdered. Judith says:

“The Fifth are dead. I take authority for the Fifth. I say we need military intervention, and we need it right now. As the highest-ranked Cohort officer present, that decision falls to me.” “A Cohort captain,” said Naberius, “don’t rank higher than a Third official.” “I’m very much afraid that it does, Tern.” “Prince Tern, if you please,” said Ianthe.

Which makes it sound as though Abigail might technically have been considered the highest ranking person at Canaan House (likely because she was head of her House and not an heir in waiting like Judith or Coronabeth), and that following her death there is some question as to whether the Second or the Third should take control, but notably no suggestion that anyone else might.

We know what the Second do: they are the leaders of the Cohort and the Bureau, the military and intelligence that forms the core of imperial expansion. Most of the information that we get about the other Houses talks only about their cultural or ritual roles in the empire - we get very little in the way of gritty details of what happens outside of the Dominicus system.

We know a little bit about what the Third does - according to Tor they are cultural trendsetters and players in soft power, but the one detail we get in GTN itself is revealing: when Gideon imagines her glorious future in the Cohort, one of the assignments she considers boring is the prospect of being "in some foreign city babysitting some Third governor." Which makes it sound rather like the Second are conquering the planets and the Third are then running them. But the books are even lighter in details about what the Fifth do, beyond ghosts and manners.

However, there is one suggestive detail: an important topic in HTN is stele travel - the necromantic FTL used by the Nine Houses. And Mercymorn, in describing a stele, specifically states that Fifth House adepts are required for their construction. Which rather makes it sound like the Fifth have a monopoly on the manufacturer of the technology required for FTL travel. Now that in and of itself could be the basis of their enormous wealth - selling aerospace tech to an ever expansionist military is probably quite lucrative.

But there's another element of House imperialism that only gets mentioned in passing that doesn't seem to be entirely accounted for, which Judith describes in As Yet Unsent:

"Their other line of attack is the business contracts. They claim that the services asked of them by the Emperor were set down in lifetime contracts by previous generations, who assumed the contracts would be terminated upon the Emperor’s death."

There are obviously some unanswered questions about the imperialist project of the Nine Houses - both Augustine and Coronabeth question quite why it works the way it does - but from the above it sounds like in many respects it functions exactly as you would expect an empire to: as a vehicle for the exploitation of others' resources.

Perhaps the Cohort themselves administer these business contracts. Perhaps they fall under the purview of the Third House planetary governors. But if you're exporting resources from the living planets of your empire to the mostly desolate planets of the Dominicus system, you're going to need some FTL ships and a whole lot of bureaucracy.

And if there's one other detail that we get about the Fifth, it's that there is something significant about the political power of their bureaucracy. As Judith puts it: "Quinn himself is a Fifth House bureaucrat with all that entails."

Are the Second, Third, and Fifth so close and so powerful because they form the bedrock of the empire: the conquest, control, and exploitation of planets beyond the Dominicus system?

[harrowing-of-hell]

I was looking at chapter 53 of Harrow the Ninth for other reasons, but it reminded me of something else.

I've seen the theory that Harrow, since she no longer is capable of remembering Gideon, is projecting her feelings for Gideon onto the Body and she isn't really in love with the Body/Alecto. Often accompanying this theory is the idea that this is why the Body has yellow eyes now when previously Harrow saw them as being black like her own.

I don't think that's true for several reasons that I'll go into, but here's the TLDR:

1.) The narrative treats the memories that Harrow has of the Body very different from how it treats the memories she has of Gideon.

2.) There's a lot of evidence to suggest that the Body and the way the Body has changed over time has to do with the fact that Body is an aspect of Alecto's soul, as opposed to those changes resulting from the lobotomy and Harrow projecting suppressed memories and feelings for Gideon onto a "safe" subject.

To start with, Harrow's feelings for the Body is not the result of her suppressed memories of Gideon:

This isn't the only time Harrow refers to the Body/Alecto as her "one true love" or something equally romantic. This, however, one of the times it's from Harrow's third person POV, completely absent of the influence from lobotomy. At this point in the book, she is fully herself again and remembers Gideon. I feel like the language is pretty clear cut so I won't expand upon this particular excerpt lmao.

The other reason I don't think that theory is true is because the lobotomy was very precise and indiscriminate about suppressing the memory of all things related to Gideon (even indiscriminately suppressing the existence of her name in every possible context).

Therefore, to make sense of things that otherwise wouldn't make sense without Gideon's presence, Harrow's mind is actively and clumsily trying to make sense of the events of the past (the Canaan House bubble). That, or it just conveniently skips over Gideon's involvement because she physically can't think about it too hard without her brain hemorrhaging:

There's either a surprising lack of detail or just complete falsehoods provided about situations we'd expect Harrow to remember clearly. On the other hand, the memories of the Body and Harrow's affection for her are all in pretty explicit detail, such that it'd be weird for this affection to also have been a consequence of the lobotomy.

There's also this other detail that I had completely forgotten:

So, Harrow hasn't even hallucinated the Body since she was just starting to enter adolescence. She would only see the Body when she was asleep (an interesting detail that has something in common with the Canaan House bubble in the River....).

There are also other changes that have occurred with the Body since Harrow last saw her:

Harrowhark only physically saw the Body for some time after she opened the tomb, and then only saw her in dreams or what I can only assume was some River dream bubble akin to the Canaan House one. She also hasn't heard the Body speak since then.

Now, Harrow is hallucinating her again, she's speaking to her again, and for some reason she has a different eye color.

With all of this in mind, I really don't think anything going on with the Body in HtN is about Gideon at all. I think it's only a coincidence that the Body's physical reappearance lines up with the lobotomy.

Unlike the memories Harrow has of Gideon or memories that are direct cause of Gideon's actions, there's really nothing to clue us into the fact that these memories of the Body might also be altered/fabricated. And, given the first excerpt I referenced, we know for certain Harrow's affection for the Body/Alecto is real and not a result of the lobotomy. Even the yellow eyes that the Body now has doesn't have anything to do with Gideon.

However, there is another big change in Harrow's life beyond lyctorhood and the lobotomy; the fact that she and whatever aspect of Alecto's soul that's attached itself to her are now both in the presence of John, who has the other half of Alecto's soul.

It would make sense that the same behavior the Body had when Harrow was last in direct contact with Alecto's soul, the same behavior that stopped as she got further and further from that moment of contact, is re-emerging now that she's in direct contact again.

It would also make sense that, where Harrowhark could only impose an eye color on the Body based off of what she was familiar with herself, the Body would now instead appear with her own, true eye color.

I do have more evidence for the Body being a part of Alecto's soul rather than just a hallucination like all the others Harrow experiences, but that will have to wait for another post.

[liesmyth]

I don’t think I’ve seen this discussion, but I noticed a lot of people saying that Harrows beef with Gideon was strictly romantic longing, but. There is definitely a “The Golden child vs the Scapegoat” dynamic between them, which is established basically in the first pages of the book, by showing that they are the only kids on the planet, or at the very least of that age bracket. I don’t believe that this didn’t influence Harrow, when she acts on that influence and enjoys it constantly. “Griddle is stupid, Griddle is weak, Griddle is useless” etc, she definitely enjoys that. And yes, she sure is afraid of Gideon leaving but is it because Harrow recognizes her feelings and emotions towards Gideon as romantic or even love, or because Gideon is literally her property? I know that this is me having the squeaks that are tazmuir’s kinks basically. But I feel like fandom made Harrow into someone she decidedly isn’t. I like Harrow by the way! A lot! I admire her perseverance and the fact that as soon as she is out of the Ninth House influence she rapidly becomes kinder and more compassionate. But uhhhhhh, the most romantic person in the books? Harrow? Towards Gideon? No.

I think any positive emotion or recognition of already existing positive emotions that happened between them happened in Canaan House. Like Ortus and Harrow probably had a more healthy relationship judging by their interactions in HTN.

I am firmly on Both Can Cohexist team! I think Harrow had a massive, heartwrenching, horribly painful crush on Gideon but also didn't miss a chance to treat her like her whipping girl. Because Harrow is Like That, with her parents, the weight of the Ninth, hyperawareness of the 200 dead etc. and the best way to deal with her misery was to make it go around.

I hope actually at some point we get Harrow's real POV of her childhood, because I just get the vibe that she took "pigtail pulling" to the next level. I think Harrow not being able to deal with Gideon's sacrifice to the point where she lobotomised herself IS romantic (in a terrible maladaptive way) but it's also the least she could've done.

Anyway I'm here to rec these fic about Gideon's childhood that I think nail their backstory dynamic: believing in everything (and knowing nothing at all) and when i call, will you come to me? by lesbianjesuslovesyou

[bookwyrminspiration]

popping out of a pile of sketchbooks (i am designing some new ocs... magical girl characters even. having fun) at all the notifications which have reminded to send you a couple more Thoughts even though unrelated to any of your responses!! hello again i have returned!!! and i do have to say, the fourth book in particular has DEFINITELY brought back a lot of memories of gideon the ninth, although i'm not entirely sure why...? one of my notes was "ah gtn but less fucked up. damn does communication do a lot to heal traumatized people" as like. gideon the ninth is indeed very fucked up and as much as the characters develop they do not really get shot with the therapy-inator beam, BUT they do get a similar fun situation of being a group of people stuck inside a dead/ruined thing and the occasional murder mystery/gothic horror-esque tone that both books take on. it was VERY interesting to observe the similarities, which were THEN added to by (in the fifth book) being reminded that the humans came to this universe FROM ANOTHER ONE and the other one was very likely similar to if not just our universe (although this is only based on the uhhh soft evidence that grizzst, one of the first settlers possibly, went to college & the previous universe had no magic), which is ALSO a thing that happens in the locked tomb. well. ish. it is so. just. holding these two book universes in my hands like oh when the sci fi/fantasy thing that seems so otherworldly is both that but also rooted SO deeply in a previous failure of humanity. and it is also hilarious because the destruction of the first universe is always followed by the most ABSURD names in the next it takes a minute to get used to it

Was very nervous reading through this because I haven't read the locked tomb yet, but fully intend to (I already own the first two books) and had no clue how much detail you were about to go into

But! that aside! very very fascinating. I wonder if the fact you've read tlt is influencing how you interpret the events of this one or not, because I did not make the "maybe the last universe was just ours" connection. But also it's entirely possible I just missed that detail; it's very easy to miss many many things.

And yeah!! Things being rooted in previous failure is so fascinating in the way you can't escape the past, you're always going to be affected by it moving forward. Even if you don't know anything about it. Kihrin & Co. were so completely and entirely affected by these past errors in the beginning without knowing shit about them! It shaped their entire lives--and it does for everyone else in the world, too, even though those people aren't super special main characters. something about balancing not looking back so much you can't see what's in front of you anymore while also knowing what's in front of you is completely and entirely shaped by what's behind you.

Also shout out to odd fantasy names! My bad, odd fantasy names + Janel. She's not the only more "normal" name, but when I first heard her name I had a moment of dissonance like...her name is what? I thought this was a super weird different fantasy world. I got used to it with time but it definitely caught me off guard when placed next to say, Teraeth and Thurvishar.

[iviarellereads]

Full TLT series to date thoughts on rereading Gideon the Ninth, chapter 36, through Harrow the Ninth, Parodos

A probably semi-regular weekly bonus to my reread blog, since sometimes you realize things on reread that just make you need to yell in a full spoiler space.

The way Cam's attack is described, "like the wrath of the Emperor", gives me some real big feelings about where Paul is headed in Alecto. I'm still not ready to go into my whole ramble about the ramifications of that choice of name, it'll come when it's time in Nona coverage, but wow.

I don't have a lot to say about the end of the book, really. Just… all the feelings. I had to go literally lay down and stare at the ceiling after the bit about Harrow under the big blue sky with Gideon's remains.

The glossary poses some questions I hadn't considered before. Not by way of things I think the story will end up doing, but now I can't get it out of my head that necromancers can't be born outside the home system, literally outside Dominicus's significant gravity range. Even as far out as Ninth, we might infer that Pelleamena's difficulty conceiving could have been down to reduced thanergenic influence from Dominicus. A baby's death releases enough power to destroy the planet… but what would it take to get a fraction of the power of the Sun?

Not much to say about the rest of the bonuses except that I hadn't thought about "Gideon is a prophetic name, someone named their own demise in her", and how Jod named G1deon. I have so many questions I want answered about the renaming and how that worked and how much of each version of the Resurrection story is true… but this one's sticking out to me today.

The way she points out so casually that Camilla and Palamedes share the "am" in their names in a specific, resonant way because necromancer and cavalier pairs in the book who love each other share a sound in their names. Abigail and Magnus revolve around their Gs, Camilla and Palamedes around the "am". But also, given where they end up in Nona, as Paul… "am" as in the conjugation of "to be" is hitting me as SUPER powerful in context.

The Doctor Sex Lyctoral love letter conundrum. I don't see it discussed very often, the short story only seems to come up in context of Juno Zeta being a bamf. How does this fit in with what we know of the official, and unofficial, accounts of the Resurrection? It bears thinking about, for certain.

Harrow's prologue offers a few truly choice nibbles of revelation. One of the big ones standing out to me is how Harrow thinks that Ianthe is beautiful, as a contrast to how Nona judges Ianthe at the end of the next book.

Also, Ianthe offering to undo what was done, the lobotomy. I wonder if and how much she really cares for Harrow, and if and how much she genuinely cares for her sister.

Ianthe showing exactly how little she ever cared for Babs. I love all the posts I see about how Babs is only there to be consumed, first Ianthe taking his flesh during the aftermath of Abigail and Magnus's murders, and then being the lamb to the slaughter for her Lyctorhood. Did she ever really care about him? Is that lack of love why she's a weaker Lyctor than the others?

Ianthe saying "Choke me, Daddy" when, in context, they're all about to find out Gideon, our Gideon, was in fact John's child all along. Chef's kiss, no notes.

The three different syllables always murders me. Gid-e-on. Sobbing forever. Not even death, not even lobotomy, can separate their love for one another.

Lastly for this post, do we think Alecto's spirit was really appearing in the River with them, or is the Body in the River sequences just a manifestation of Harrow's waking relationship with her?

[artbyblastweave]

Gideon the Ninth Liveread: Chapter 10

Harrow is still missing in action. Noted casually, because Gideon doesn't care per se, but this is absolutely a length of seperation that would be setting off alarm bells within any other necro/cavalier pair; for all her complaints about Gideon not being able to maintain the charade, Harrow's lack of regard for Gideon strikes me as the fundamentally weak link in their plan, most likely papered over only by the fact that the other houses have no frame of reference for how the Ninth conducts it's operations. Also, I’ve had the thought that the other houses might not care; the whole "fake cavalier" thing seems tailored to the scrutiny of a social environment much more heavily populated. Harrow was gearing up for some real court intrigue, but Harrow and Gideon are marooned with just 16 named characters, all of whom have their own shit going on.

Funny aside; Gideon doesn't know what Fish are.

More details on skeleton mechanics. Harrow's specific skill at boneology (and that line I've seen floating around, "we do bones, motherfucker" is shoring up my growing belief that each of the houses has a Hunger-games-like arbitrary speciation in their flesh magics; it's a sign of great skill when you can get skeletons up and running without the assistance of connective tissues or any other fleshy bits. This is potentially a cultural engineering thing- an attempt to delineate between living slave-and-indentured-servant castes and pure robotic servitors. An attempt to head-off the exact bullshit Harrow is pulling with her parents, in other words.

Trying to guess which house this new antagonistic house is. First, second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh and ninth are accounted for; this is either sixth or eighth. I get the sense that the necro may have artificially arrested their aging somehow, and with it possibly their emotional maturity/brain development? It would explain at least in part their Cav's disgruntlement. Or maybe the fact that the Cav has actually clearly seen a ton of use as a meat shield while the Necro is in silk and chain-mail too thin to fulfill its function. Actually, this looks like the only pairing thus far that’s seen real action. Most of the rest are kids, or Magnus, who does not, you know. Have the vibe of a guy who’s experienced true horror.

Gideon's reaction to the necro's thousand-yard stare is telling; her recollection of Crux, of Sister Lachrimorta, of the Reverend Parents, all emphasize this need to be wanted; to be of use; Crux's version is painful because it conveys disappointment, the Reverend Parents because they convey fear. And as she leaves the dining hall, her response to the Lyctor Trials is that she feels "suckered;" she isn't wanted here, she isn't useful here.

"The Stinging Slap in the face that she didn't even have Harrow." Okay, here we get a sign that Gideon views Harrow as a comforting absolute even if she nominally hates her. I've been wondering more than a little what the hell the grounds for a turnaround in their relationship were going to be; here we get a single inch of concession. (Also, open call to the peanut gallery- what does/did the insufferable discourse surrounding this relationship look like? Abuse apologia? Power Dynamics? This whole series feels like a hotbed of Facewearer discourse.)

Okay, my Bonesaw assessment of Dulcinea swells in its hold on my mind. She wanted in on Gideon's personal brand of suffering because it seemed like a romantic way to die, and lost interest because of the aesthetic mismatch. I'm inclined to say that this is callous towards Gideon's situation but given Dulcinea's state it feels like a grass-is-greener situation more than anything truly appropriative.

So the seventh house deals with... reversing aging? Arresting the spread of disease? Or the progression? This is mentioned to be a hereditary issue, so perhaps their brand of necromancy was influenced by 10,000 years of trying to counter what’s happening to Dulcinea. And, as a point of comparison, I can imagine that both Ninth and First House’s skill with bone automatons developed downstream of their chronic manpower problems.

Dulcinea twigged to the sword discrepancy. This makes sense; Her Cav is proportioned like a super mutant and seems unlikely to have exclusively trained with toothpick rapiers. I’m not sure if Dulcinea is the only necro who's capable of noticing this discrepancy at a glance- there are other fairly militaristic houses present- but she’s certainly the only one paying enough attention to Gideon specifically to notice.

Okay, Protesilaus is back. He reports that something is shut. What’s shut? Dulcinea sits and looks harmless, and she can afford to because she’s got her Cav off executing her plans for her, whatever they are.

So, final roundup! I sense a love interest. Noting, belatedly, that the very first thing Dulcinea does is give Gideon an opportunity to be helpful; and through this whole sequence it becomes clear that Gideon just kinda... does stuff if people ask nicely and make her, specifically, feel wanted and useful. She gets chased out of the dining hall, painted as a wrong and intrusive Thing, and moments later falls head-over-heels for the first person who makes her feel actively desired, even just for rote manual labor. Dulcinea’s appraisals of Gideon have this real.... charge, a suspicious charge, I felt like I was watching a spider wrapping up a fly with every request Gideon granted- and there’s a level on which it’s very sad, because a person less starved for affection would find being approached like this off-putting. Dulcinea is rotating her like a specimen! But to Gideon it’s a fantastic experience for reasons she doesn’t even have the vocabulary to articulate. I can’t picture her instinct being to confess everything at the slightest provocation to anyone else on this rock. 

Notably, however, I never have to hurriedly scroll past any posts about Gideon and Dulcinea being cute together- and unusually for this series, I have no idea why that is. This is one of the few elements of this story I’m experiencing completely blind, and I’m extremely excited to learn whatever fucked up circumstances lead to Harrow pulling ahead of Dulcinea as the intuitive romantic lead.

[aceofthegreenajah]

So I started finally reading Gideon the Ninth yesterday, continuing the trend where all the books I start are sold to me by tumblr mutuals gushing about them. (Someone gush to me about the chalion series once I finish the locked tomb, I’ve wanted to read it for years and have not gotten around to it.)

I read until end of ch3 and took a moment at each chapter break etc to write down my vibes.

Dramatis personae and epigraph: I’m very much vibing here. The epigraph very much reminds me of the in-world songs/poems/nursery rhymes I’ve written for one of my original works. I love this stuff. It’s shorter than mine, more vibes than facts, maybe I should try to write one to emulate this?

1: not sold on Gideon yet, but she’s interesting enough I think I’ll grow to like her. The world intrigues me somewhat, I kinda want to see more of how growing up in a place such as the ninth has influenced Gideon’s (and everyone else’s) thinking. 

2: still not sold, but I’m cautiously optimistic about this Harrow. I know Gideon thinks she’s the worst, but honestly, she seems like the kind of person who would be horrible to know in real life, but excellent to read about.

3: sold on Harrow. She is a delight. Manipulative, cold exterior, but I get the impression there’s more underneath. She does seem genuinely conniving and controlling, but also like she has a lot of pressure on her shoulders. That one line about her mother smiling gently like she never had in life gave me the impression she didn’t have a happy childhood, is very aware it messed her up, and is kinda wistful about how things could have been but too practical and too set on her ways, and doesn’t actually want to change. Like I said: not great company in real life, delightful to read about.

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

What Cristabel Did

EXTENSIVE SPOILERS for Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth below. If you haven’t read both books, skip the rest of this post. In fact just get off tumblr and go read them instead. I guarantee they’re better than anything else you’ll find here. 

I think I know why John Gaius didn’t tell his disciples about the perfect Lyctorhood, and I don’t think it had to do with sharing power or with AL. I think it’s the same reason why Augustine and Mercymorn hate each other, why Anastasia was the only one to figure out the Eightfold Word, and why Mercy doesn’t want to hear her cavalier’s name.

tl;dr I think Cristabel and Alfred tried to kill some number of the original disciples, forcing them to try for lyctorhood before the ritual was fully understood, and John kept quiet because he didn’t want to tell them they’d killed their cavaliers for nothing.

The handwritten note at the end of the sermon on cavaliers and necromancers says, “valancy says one flesh one end sounds like instructions for a sex toy. can’t stop thinking about that so can someone stop cris and alfred before the sex toy phrase catches on, thanks.” This early in the Nine Houses’ history the entire concept of necromancer and cavalier is still being figured out. It sounds like Cristabel and Alfred were the main drivers behind the idea of the cavalier-necromancer relationship as a formal, sacred oath, coming up with the phrase “one flesh, one end” in the process. Much much later Silas Octakiseron brands the ritual of lyctorhood a mortal sin and heresy as soon as he hears what it entails, because he treats the cavalier-necromancer bond as a sacrament akin to a holy marriage. To trespass against that bond, he declares, was to sin against the Emperor himself. The sermon before the handwritten note backs up that idea, talking about the combination as having all sorts of profound religious symbolism.

Therefore: what if the disciples were working on the ritual of lyctorhood and hadn’t yet figured the cavalier didn’t have to die, when Cristabel and Alfred decided they had to take action to keep any of them from trying? What if, like Silas in Canaan House, Cristabel decided the idea of the adept killing their cavalier was rank heresy and had to be prevented by any means necessary, and convinced Alfred of it as well? Cristabel was from the Eighth House, though early enough that it may not have taken on its hardline personality - then again, perhaps Cristabel’s actions are why it did take on that hardline personality. Augustine calls her an idiot, but also “a fanatic,” and his own brother someone who “regretted that he wasn’t.”

Augustine says that he became a lyctor “under scrambling pressure,” and when Harrow tells the Emperor that she became a lyctor under duress, he replies, “You aren’t the first.” Then when Augustine is talking to John about Alfred, he says, “I have built an entire myriad on the idea that I could’ve made him come around, given five minutes.” That’s in response to John saying, “No one could make him do anything he didn’t want to.” That could mean either Augustine thinks he could have talked Alfred into willingly dying to perform the ritual, or that he could have talked Alfred out of doing something else dire. The way John phrases it makes me think it’s the latter, because in the context of the conversation they’re discussing Cristabel’s influence, and John knows that the lyctoral ritual can be performed even if the cavalier is unwilling. 

So: Cristabel and Alfred decide that they need to do whatever it takes to keep the other disciples from performing the ritual. Either by accident or design, they put Augustine in a situation where he’s facing imminent death - maybe not intentionally on Alfred’s part, but it happens. Augustine chooses to kill his brother and take in his soul to survive as a lyctor, becoming the first to ascend. This fits with Augustine’s loathing of Mercymorn, who in his mind forced him to murder his brother; of his own immortality, since it was gained at the cost of murdering family; and of necromancy in general. He has to convince himself that he could have talked Alfred into making the sacrifice if there were time to ask because otherwise the guilt will destroy him.

After ascension, Augustine’s probably fighting Alfred’s soul, but he’s a powerful spirit magician. Like Ianthe he may be scattered but he’s still present. So now he rounds on Cristabel and probably mortally wounds her. He means to finish the job but Mercymorn intervenes, alerted to what’s happening by all the chaos. She finds her cavalier dying. Cristabel asks her to avenge her and kill Augustine and, since she’s already dying, to use her soul to do it. Mercy finishes Cristabel off and swallows her soul, becoming the second lyctor. So from the very beginning Mercymorn is absolutely set on Augustine’s death and blames him for Cristabel’s death and, in an indirect way, forcing her to become a lyctor as well.

After that it gets a little fuzzy. Events could go several different ways and we just don’t have enough info. I favor the idea that maybe the rampage continues - or maybe Cristabel and Alfred had set all of them up to be in mortal peril (possibly in space, where an adept’s powers won’t work but a lyctor’s would) - because of Mercy’s quote at Cytherea’s funeral: “I never saw her cry except once. The day after. When we put together the research. When she became a Lyctor. I said, There was no alternative. She said, We had the choice to stop.” Mercy saying “there was no alternative” and Cytherea answering with “we had the choice to stop” makes me think everyone was in duress. Mercy saying, “the day after. When we put together the research,” makes me think that they hadn’t fully pieced together the ritual even though six people had already ascended; Augustine improvised. “The day after” also makes me think that most of the lyctors ascended in a single night. If Augustine through Cassiopeia ascended in a group, only Cytherea and Anastasia would be left. Loveday volunteered for the rite in hopes of curing Cytherea, so that’s a non-distress motive for them to ascend as well. That leaves only Anastasia, who now has plenty of time to figure it out on her own.

Where’s John in all this? Remember what Ianthe said when she was trying to regrow her arm? She thought John would tell her to try it on her own first to build her own skill. Maybe John was letting his disciples work out lyctorhood on their own, expecting that they’d figure out the full ritual in time. If they’d planned to try the imperfect ritual, he probably would have stepped in and said, “No, no one has to die, yes now you’re mad at me because I knew the answer all along but it was a learning experience okay.” But because Augustine had to make a scrambling improvisation, John didn’t get the chance to intervene. So before he can do anything, Augustine and Mercy, plus some number of the middle four, have already killed their cavaliers and swallowed their souls (meaning no resurrection). He’s faced with the choice of telling them that those murders weren’t necessary, or keeping the secret and letting Loveday and Cytherea go through with the imperfect ritual. John tells himself that it’ll hurt them all too much if he tells them they killed their cavaliers for nothing, and Loveday’s willing to die already. He stays quiet.

That leaves only Anastasia. With the benefit of time and the others’ experience, Anastasia realizes the ritual can be done without killing the cavalier. She plays this close to the vest, uncertain of her results and unwilling to traumatize the others unless she’s sure. Just in case she’s right, she bans everyone except John from watching her attempt. If she succeeds and Samael lives, they can figure out how to break it to the others. But something goes wrong - or John sabotages her - and Samael dies, leaving Anastasia thinking she didn’t have it right after all.

A myriad later, John and the other lyctors have yet to allow or invite any other adepts to attain lyctorhood, believing the cost is too high. But now they’re down to four lyctors and three Resurrection Beasts, and those four lyctors are showing the strain. So John invites the heirs and their cavaliers to Canaan House. He knows his first disciples left the necessary information behind to put together the rite - only the imperfect rite, but that’s okay because this time there won’t be anyone making the choice under duress. As he tells Harrow, “I intended for the new Lyctors to become Lyctors after thinking and contemplating and genuinely understanding their sacrifice—an act of bravery, not an act of fear and desperation. Nobody was meant to lose their lives unwillingly at Canaan House.” If the cavaliers are okay with it, he’s not on the hook, he reasons. He’ll keep his secret and get new lyctors without any fresh guilt on his conscience.

Except of course it doesn’t work out that way. As usual, John’s future plans are sabotaged by his past plans coming back to haunt him. He ends up gaining one and a half lyctors at the unexpected cost of one old lyctor, so that’s a net gain of half a lyctor with several heirs dead in the process. And then an even newer plan gets sabotaged by an even older plan, leaving him with one and a half, possibly two functioning lyctors. Meanwhile Camilla and Palamedes are out there probably as a functional lyctor-cavalier pair that he doesn’t know about, because Palamedes has been stuck in freeze-frame hell for long enough to come to the same conclusions as Anastasia. It’s not gonna go well for John, ey?

[fredhnfruity]

Harrow's and her parents' decision making

Harrow comes up with the most batshit, dramatic solutions to her problems, and I've seen loads of great, in depth commentary on this. I think for the most part the reader gets why she's Like That, but her parents' influence on that really struck me. She watched them be the most unhinged.

They had to birth a necromancer heir. They had to perserve a dying House and a bloodline. They could have asked for help, but no... They did the horrifying and most complicated, extra thing they could have thought up. And they went all in. What if they had only sacrificed half the kids? Only sacrificed a hundred? They could have. It probably would have worked too. It would have been 50% less short sighted to have at least some population for the future. A totally reasonable risk assessment. But no. They sacrificed every piece of their House's future they had. Absolutely bananas decision making to essentially guarantee your dying House's population would drop to just an heir and a cav as the only people in remotely the same age range eventually all for one necromancer in the bloodline. As if she'd be able to just make something out of nothing later on. In their minds it would only be Ortus left and the child they would create. They were okay with reducing the Ninth's gene pool to just their precious bloodline. They saw this dead end and were fine with it. Figured it would be their heir's problem to solve and were totally on board.

And then when faced with the fact that their ten-year-old opened the tomb? They could have covered it up and just not let the congregation know. That's what Harrow did. It's not like it wasn't an option for them. It would have only been one more horrible secret amongst at least two hundred other devastating horrible secrets. They could have locked little Gideon away. Sewed her mouth shut. Something. She's just a kid, maybe an unkillable one, but still. They were adult necromancers, and not bad ones (at least Priamhark was, iirc). After everything they scarificed and chose to do to perserve the House, they decided this blasphemy made none of it worth it. Any amount of care about the Ninth disappeared, when prior to this, every horrible thing they did was out of devotion to the Ninth. They didn't even try to re-lock the tomb. They didn't try to do anything. They didn't even go down there.

They said, ok, guess we'll just die, it's all over. And they were so okay with that being the obvious solution that they just assumed a ten-year-old would go along with it. Harrow recounts that they were gentle and chill about it. Harrow watched them hang themselves -- which means, they got up in there and did the thing before making sure Harrow would. A reasonable person in that moment would have made sure the child in the situation was dead before finishing off themselves. They fully believed their idea was so obviously the correct solution that they didn't even feel the need to insure Harrow -- a ten. year. old. -- would follow suit. They felt the need to help her tie the noose, but no need at all to ensure a follow through. That's psychotic. That's unwavering dedication to the most dramatic solution possible as if it's a mundane, easy answer. No wonder Harrow goes with these wild extremes like puppeting her parents around for nearly a decade or self lobotomy.

Harrow's problem solving skills come from her parents' and they boil down to "I'd rather literally burn down everything than ask for help. The extreme and the short sighted are not off the table." Priamhark and Pelleamena demonstrated that extreme and self-destructive solutions are viable, and Harrow has just rolled with that. It's her frame of reference for everything.

[thetypedwriter]

Harrow the Ninth Book Review

Harrow the Ninth Book Review by Tamsyn Muir

This book is a pretentious trash fire. 

...in my opinion, of course. 

One of my favorite things to do when I finish a book is to look at reviews on Goodreads. Usually, I try to formulate and write down my own thoughts first, as I don’t want to be influenced by others’ thoughts and opinions, but I couldn’t help myself this time. 

As I envisaged, the reviews were mostly positive with sporadic one or two star ratings. Unfortunately, my review will emulate those fellow abysmal ones. Trust me when I say that no one is more disappointed than myself and my best friend. 

As I buddy-read Gideon the Ninth with her, so too did we also accompany each other while reading Harrow the Ninth. However, because of things like life and jobs, she was well ahead of me and warned me quite succinctly that I was going to hate this novel. 

And she was right. 

Now, I can still appreciate Muir’s writing skills, her creativity, her myriad vocabulary, and the sheer guts this novel probably took. Muir is a fantastic writer. She’s obviously skilled, highly detailed, and unimaginably creative. Her vocabulary is insane.

I don’t think I’ve ever read a book with so many unfamiliar words in my life. And just like the first book, Muir continues to advance her world-building, the magical universe of necromancy, her character base, and the conflicts. 

All of this being said, the book was still atrocious. 

You might be wondering how I could spout all these lovely compliments at Muir and then turn around and stab her book through the cover. It’s quite simple really. The book was absurdly confusing. 

Not confusing in a hahah, what a cool mystery! kind-of-way, but in a what the hell is going on for 2/3rds of the book kind-of-way. This feeling as a reader is dreadful. 

Now, I like mystery as much as the next person. I don’t like to be spoon-fed every morsel of information from an author that doesn’t think I can comprehend a little ambiguity, but this novel in particular takes this idea and chucks it off a cliff. 

Things are so ridiculously intentionally confusing from the get-go, a feeling I thought would go away once we got 15 pages in. Then 30. Then 75. Then 100. This book makes no goddamn sense until, no joke, maybe the last 100 pages. 

Now. The last 100 pages were phenomenally entertaining and especially titillating when we actually started getting answers, but for me, wading through 300 pages of absolute nonsense, over-the-top language, and purposefully perplexing scenes in which the readers are given no kind of payoff or even the chance to understand was not worth it to me. 

We see no hair nor hide of Gideon Nav until the end, we don’t even really get the real Harrowhark until too late in the narrative, the plot doesn’t make sense until near the finish line, and the payoff just isn’t worth it. 

I also especially loathed the second-person-point-of-view. I always wondered why more books weren’t written in the 2nd POV and now I know why. It’s the absolute worst. Even after the twist at the end in which the POV genuinely has an explanation, it didn’t make the fact that I had to read 300 plus pages from that viewpoint any better. 

I really wanted to like this book, I really, really did. 

And for the most part, it seems like Muir’s risks paid off as most people praise it highly and enjoy the jumbled mess that is the narrative, including my friend. I get that. I acknowledge that. I also acknowledge that this book isn’t for me. 

I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t get to see the characters that I had grown attached to. I didn’t understand the burgeoning whatever was happening between Ianthe and Harrowhark, disliked the idea that Harrowhark was incapable of loving anybody except “The Body”, and I abhorred the feeling of being in the dark for so long.

I grew bored, irritated, and uninterested, a feeling that lingered even when I started to see the light of the end of the novel. 

The only pinprick of hope for me was God. I found him almost sickeningly enjoyable. I have no idea why. I’ve always been a huge sucker for the all powerful character with immense stature that seems banal and ordinary on the outside.

I mean his name is John for god sake, John when we have other characters called Harrowhark and Mercymorn. I found him unironically enjoyable. 

Other than that, however, this book was quite an unfavorable experience for me. 

Now, the question begs: will I be reading Alecto the Ninth?

Honestly...I’m not sure. I’m still strewing over the train-wreck that I found this sequel to be and the thought of the third novel makes me want to cry. Unless it’s more reminiscent of the first novel. If that’s the case, I’d be more than happy to read it. 

I suppose I’ll have to wait for it to come out, read the reviews, and then ultimately decide if the next installment of The Locked Tomb will belovedly return me to the universe of Dominicus or end it for me permanently. 

Recommendation: Read Gideon the Ninth, then read my review, and then peruse many more before deciding to pick up the sequel. Maybe read an Amazon sample before purchasing. I highly recommend you taste a sampler of this story before deciding to purchase it yourself.

Or, better yet, check it out from your local library and save yourself the cash and the potential heartbreak. If it ends up being your next love, you can purchase it after-the-fact and not before like me. 

Score: 4/10 

[shadaofallthings]

Harrow is thoroughly haunted (also very mentally unhealthy due to her parents/culture’s practices)

There are a couple points to this theory crafting I have, but the basic statement is as such: Harrow is haunted by more than one revenant, at the very least The Sleeper and AL/The Corpse but likely way more, potentially including every one of the 200 ghosts Harrow’s parents killed to make her. I’d also like to note that this theory will discuss mental health a main subject of its theorizing. Having mental health issues or possessing certain traits that society deems mentally unhealthy is not a mark against your own character, or a reason to try and be normal by society’s standards. This theory will also discuss potential physiological causes for mental health issues. If you are sensitive to such discussions, this is probably not the theory for you to be reading on a bad day for your own mental health.   The first thing this theory hinged on is Ortus’ ability to contribute to the summoning of Matthias Nonias through, as Abigail says without the narrative challenging her, passion alone. This establishes that while most works of passion and people’s attempts to connect with their departed loved may not be enough to create a link, a notably obsessive work of passion and focus, one worked on for years, can have effects on The River, and Revenants summoned from it. Pretty simple, all you gotta accept for this one is that people with certain obsessions or fixations, the kinds that keep them thinking about someone for years, can help summon ghosts. The second thing this is hinged on is that when you summon/forge a bond through the method that Ortus did, you shape how the ghost will be summoned into reality. This is most easily demonstrated by Matthias Nonias commenting, multiple times, on the fact its strange that he is speaking in meter, that his behaviors in his duel with The Sleeper were not the normal ones of a trained, legendary fighter, and that as people took on/professed the belief in that work of epic poetry fanfiction was legit and could summon Matthias he actually managed to be summoned to the reality bubble they were in and impose specifically that fanfic’s rules on both Matthias and The Sleeper.  Third, this theory is hinged on the actions and mental state of Harrow the First/Ninth, and the actions/culture/beliefs of people surrounding her. First off, I would like to establish that Harrow has been exposed to conditions that would cause her to be likely to develop symptoms that are on the schizo-spectrum of disorders (schizophrenia, schizotypal, etc etc). The first of such conditions is actually the most important from a biology perspective: Harrow’s immediate family has a practice for keeping their secrets. When they wish to discuss the family business they draw a bath of cold saltwater, get in it, and do it from there. It is explicitly described as “freezing” in both Gideon the Ninth and Harrow the Ninth by Harrow herself. Repeat hypothermia is a physiological trigger that can cause a person to develop schizospectrum disorders, and I would argue that her parents exposed her to repeat hypothermia, and Harrow would confirm these baths have been going on since she learned to keep secrets (likely around 5-7). Second, we have contributing factors to this mental state, most notably is the Incense that is described in Gideon as being used by The Ninth House in their worship. If, and this is a big if given how little we know specifics, this incense was Frankincense or uses similar molecular structures (possible given the influence of Christianity over the Dademperor’s Cult), we would know that Harrow all her life has been exposed to a mild hallucinogen (and also antidepressant, but that effect of frankincense isn’t relevant), which while unless overexposed significantly (to the point it would cause some lung damage if done repeatedly) she would’t have hallucinations NORMALLY, we have already discussed why Harrow’s brain chemistry wouldn’t be normal and this could have an affect overall on the development of her mental health. We also know from Harrow’ behavior and information about her parents that she herself gives that she has been instilled with a rather potent guilt complex over the 200 dead who were sacrificed to make her (One of her prayers included “and let me be buried in 200 graves” ffs). More miscellaneous stuff to include in contributing factors to Harrow being predisposed towards guilt and hallucinations and fixations as well includes Harrow being around the dead and dying for her entire life, being a Necromancer, both bad ventilation due to the infrastructure of the Ninth House as well as exposure to a nerve agent that canonically throws your brain into destructive overdrive, and discovering The Corpse in The Locked Tomb (this last one being notable as having happened around the beginning of puberty or during giving her a reason that her death fixation might become what is in cannon called Corpse Lust). She’s a kid, basically, in a hormonal shitstorm of growing up: she doesn’t know how to stop her head from doing fuckshit to itself). In addition to her fixation on The Corpse however is the sheer amount of time she spent worrying about it, lusting after it, being comforted by hallucinations of it, and otherwise spending a large amount of her mental effort thinking about The Corpse one way or another. Now, lets braid these threads into a rope. We know that passion and obsession can make a legitimate metaphysical link to a revenant, allowing them to find their way back into Shallower waters or even the world through objects and ideas (such as an epic poem fanfic, and potentially people, but DEFINITELY prayers [poems and phrases repeated that cause certain patterns of thoughts) given the nature of what we’ve seen). We know that Harrow has spent a large amount of her life giving worship, strong emotion and most importantly obsession towards The Corpse/AL. Also, we know from Harrow the Ninth in direct statements by some spirit focused allies that Revenants can use any connection they have to the world to get back into it, even if that’s in a limited capacity. For good measure, we also know that Harrow’s been giving this treatment to a more nebulous idea of All The People Who Died To Allow Her To Be Born/A Necromancer, and we also know that she has more connections spiritually which likely support that 200 people as well. As such, my claim is this: Harrow is both mentally affected in a way similar to what she thinks is her stated insanity in that she does experience hallucinations, moments of paranoia and panic over very little/nothing, and so on (worth noting is that Harrow would be exceptionally well adapted for coping with this. These changes are physical almost purely, as Gideon while inside Harrow’s head and getting a show of her perceptions either can not tell that Harrow didn’t have a corpse under her bed, or didn’t know that a potentially fugue state ridden Harrow moved a corpse there (its very unclear what actually went down in that scene and there’s a lot potentially going down but Gideon experiences life as Harrow does and that is what’s important). On the metaphysical side of things though, Harrow is Haunted by at least 2 ghosts, likely many more. She wouldn’t know because she is bad at Spirit magic, and potentially could be having her ghosts give her an aversion toward learning it, but it is commented on by more than one capable spirit necromancer (Dademperor and Abigail). She has to be haunted by The Sleeper, as the plot literally revolves around that being a thing, but she also shows more signs of a haunting. Harrow loses one of the hallucinations that always has been present with her in times of stress when she leaves her physical body behind during the Resurrection Beast fight, but the same hallucination is also present when Gideon rides her body into The River, potentially being a saving factor for Harrow’s original body, the body that would actually have the connection to The Corpse. In addition, Harrow when she emerges from The River had a connection that she followed back to her home in the form of the tomb, and where her obsession previously slept, a body that could never have been moved by anyone but her, the Dademperor or the revenant herself. In addition, the Corpse gives her advice on things she could have never known about more than once, and generally tries to do things that Harrow would find helpful or supportive (even if that would be creepy to her, like “bringing her tea” during a conversation with someone). As such, we can say without a shadow of a doubt that Harrow is haunted by two people, The Sleeper who is latching onto her thoughts through magics, likely, and The Corpse/AL who is entering our reality primarily through Harrow’s thoughts as she figures out how to be a person again and is exposed to more things that would give her connections (note how she becomes more coherent and proactive after Dademperor reminisces about her, her only other strong connection to the world beyond Harrow and her corpse). We can also infer that after so much time thinking about all the people who died for her in terms of guilt and their lost lives that she might also have the revenants of a few angry children/teens/young adults holding on.  TLDR: Harrow’s got a ghost “girlfriend” (wildly unhealthy for her) that possesses Harrow’s hallucinations of her, is haunted by The Sleeper for the course of at least Harrow(the book) and is potentially haunted by the revenants of every person who died to make her birth/magic possible.

[starstuffandalotofcoffee]

You mentioned earlier that you'd be willing to give book recs? If you still are, what would you recommend for fantasy/sci-fi not about straight white guys? Got a lot of recs for those already.

while I take umbrage with your url, I have many recommendations! In fact, most of the sci fi and fantasy books I have read as of late feature nonwhite and/or LGBT characters and many are not written by straight white guys either, which tends to help. Here’s an incomplete list thereof. Other people looking for recs, this is a pretty broad list ranging from fairly classic fantasy to modern urban fantasy to a couple different forms of sci fi, so you can probably start here.

Currently I’m reading the Foundryside series by Robert Jackson Bennet (I read book 1, I’m mostly through book 2, I don’t think book 3 is out yet) which is best described as cyberpunk, but in an otherwise low-tech fantasy world. The plot and themes are great, the characters are great, the exposition in the first book is a bit heavy-handed like dude we get it you program but the second book is much tighter. Most of the characters are described as being nonwhite, and the main character of the first book (who’s still a major character in the second; it’s just more of an ensemble) is a wlw. Note: I  think these are the only books on this list written by a white guy, so again, look for women and LGBT and nonwhite authors and often they will make characters who are like them.

N. K. Jemisin is a good author not only to read but to follow in that as one of if not the most prominent black sci fi/fantasy authors she makes recommendations of other authors and pushes for recognition (basically, her point is that she did not come in to take Octavia Butler’s seat and you can have more than one black woman writing sci fi). The City We Became is based on a phenomenal short story that she wrote, about the city of New York coming to life through various human avatars; almost all are nonwhite and several are gay, bi, or lesbian (there’s a minor supporting trans character who I hope gets a larger role in the next of the series but the first book just came out). The Broken Earth trilogy is maybe one of my favorite series I’ve read in the last few years; most of the characters are black and a decent number are LGBT.

Speaking of Octavia Butler, most of her characters are black and she’s also just a modern classic sci fi writer for a reason. I’ve only really read short stories (the Bloodchild collection), the Patternist series, and Kindred. She does dip into horror themes at times and I respect if people aren’t into that, but she was a brilliant author. Most of her characters are black and The Patternist series includes shapeshifter characters who have romances with people of various genders.

I was frustrated by the pacing in The Priory of the Orange Tree, but not the characters. The worldbuilding could also stand to be a little better in that it’s clearly like, Europe and Asia of our world circa 1600-ish but with different names for things and also some magic. Plenty of nonwhite characters, some lesbian romance. (Author is Samantha Shannon).

You have probably seen stuff for Gideon The Ninth on Tumblr and for good reason; it’s very good. The tagline on Tumblr is often Lesbian Space Necromancers which is true but also it’s just incredibly funny and dark and well-written. (Author is Tamsyn Muir).

You may have also seen things for the Shades of Magic series on Tumblr; it’s a really cool conceit, one of the two main characters is a woman, and there is significant gay romance among the supporting characters. It’s got epic battle vs. evil for the soul of the universe stuff as well as interdimensional portals but also pirates and the elemental magic olympics, somehow. I do feel sort of ambivalent about the author saying one character is likely genderfluid but doesn’t know that it’s an option because on the one hand I do not like the author saying things and it counting as representation, but on the other said character comes from early 1800s London and this would not be an unreasonable way for them to feel. (Author is V. E. Schwab)

The Raven Tower is super interesting and I only read it because my mother had it out of the library when I was home for Thanksgiving and she said ‘here you might like this’. It’s sort of a retelling of Hamlet, it’s got weird deity lore (which I happen to love in fantasy), and the main character is trans. (Author is Ann Leckie).

A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is sci fi and while there are challenges and real plot involved it’s just like...kind of a fun adventure book? I just remember finding it fun, despite the seriousness of elements of the plot, and I say this as someone who often does like a good epic good vs. evil plot but it’s kind of nice to read a book where the hardships are like, needing to fuel your spaceship in a weird place. Some of the human characters are nonwhite (I’m of the opinion that aliens don’t really count as representation), and several characters are not straight. (Author is Becky Chambers).

The Golem and the Jinni is about the early 1900s immigrant experience in lower Manhattan, but through the eyes of a golem woman living in the Jewish community and a jinni in the Syrian community who become friends due to being displaced magical beings. (Author is Helene Wecker).

Alif The Unseen is by G. Willow Wilson of Ms. Marvel fame and is a technological fantasy novel that takes place in an unspecified Middle Eastern country in roughly the modern day. It came out in 2012 and was clearly (and thoughtfully) influenced by the Arab Spring of 2011; most characters are Middle-Eastern or South Asian Muslims.

Finally on this list, though not of the many books one could read, Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is by Samuel R. Delany, a gay black man, and while it’s been a couple years since I read it it was so brilliantly written and different than a lot of space sci fi that I’ve read and it hit me in such a way that I keep meaning to reread it. The main characters are also black gay men.

[mrverymello]

LGBT Genre books for Pride Month

As a reader I mostly lean towards Scifi, Fantasy, and Paranormal or Gothic Horror books, so I tend to be dissapointed that when most LGBT book rec lists I see are mostly Contemporary Lit (or magical realism which usually isn’t for me) So I want to start a list of queer lead genre books. I’m just gonna add books I’ve read, books where a main character is cannon queer, and books where that characters queerness is addressed outright in the book (nothing with like, one throwaway line that never comes up again or an author confirming outside of text or anything like that) So the list will start of kind of small, but I intend on adding to it as I read more. 

First up is Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. A Science Fantasy book about Necromancers in Space. This book has a lot of humor in it, but also elements of horror, mystery and action. The characters are varied and you’ll love some, and love to hate others. Also the main character is a buff lesbian rebel. It’s over the top in so many great ways, but also knows how to punch you right in the feels. 

The prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden is a Scifi book set in future South Africa with some fantasy elements in the form of old (and some new) gods mixed in with a robot uprising and a hallucinogenic drug that awakens latent powers in its users. This book follows a diverse cast as their story lines all tangle together throughout the narrative as they try and stop a violent demigoddess. The cast includes a gay character and a transgender character.

American Hippo By Sarah Gailey is actually 2 novellas, River of Teeth and Taste of Marrow. True fact, in the early 20th century the American government almost imported hippos to the American bayous to eat invasive plants and be an alternative source of meat. This series is an alternative history for if that actually happened and is a story about hippo riding cowboys pulling off a heist. It’s wild and I love it. The main character is bisexual, theres a nonbinary character, and a wlw character (I think shes a lesbian but she has had at least one relationship with a man so could be bi)

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is one of the original Vampire stories. A gothic horror novella that predates (and was one of the major influences of) Dracula. As a modern reader the mystery of the book my seem obvious but its a worthwhile read for any fan of vampires, gothic classics, or lesbians! (Heads up, there is a brief scene scene with some very racist descriptions towards the beginning of the book that might be uncomfortable to read.)

One of my more recent reads, Sawkill Girls by Claire Legrand is a Young Adult Paranormal Horror. On an island where teenage girls have gone missing throughout the years, three girls find power in each other, themselves, and the island itself to face a monster that threatens them and everyone they love. All three of the main girls are queer, one being asexual and the other two being wlw. 

There are a few more queer genre books I’ve read that I can add later, but these are the ones I liked best and would recommend the highest right now, anyone can feel free to add more 

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

Since you mentioned the Locked Tomb trilogy, any thoughts on the characters' mbti/enneatypes? How do you think the Houses align to enneagrams?

For the characters, I didn’t really go that far because I wanted to like, read the book and also I recently read Harrow but I read Gideon late last year and don’t have a thorough recollection of everyone by any means. Gideon is definitely an Se-dom though and quite possibly an 8, and Harrow has some real high Ni vibes. Palamedes is a 5; Ianthe is a 3. It’s hard for reasons I won’t go into but people who read Harrow the Ninth know to fully type Harrow, and the Lyctors are also sort of hard to type because of the perspective we see them from and the fact that a 10,000 year old person is going to be really screwed up and weird.

I was, however, as you caught on, thinking about the houses and enneagram. And so:

House 3 sort of fits enneagram 3 with the competitiveness, but also as the social house and the spymaster house, better fits enneagram 7. So close to matching, and yet so far.

Houses 5 and 6 are switched in terms of enneagram (5 being Tradition and Memory and Community, 6 being Fucking Nerds) and this annoys me greatly.

House 7 is extremely enneagram 4. It’s like a parody of enneagram 4. I love it.

This leaves houses 1 (technically), 2, 4, 8, and 9; and enneagram 1, 2, 3, 8, and 9, and at this point things get messy.

The First House is actually, despite being made up of people from all different houses, ultimately full of people of a particular ruthlessness and ambition and so is best embodied by a kind of unhealthy 3.

Houses 2 and 8 both lay claims to elements of enneagram 1, (duty and discipline for house 2, morality and self righteousness for house 8). Really, House 2 doesn’t totally fit an enneatype and is more generally xSTJ house, which means it probably has a lot of enneagram 1 influence, but also 6s, 3s, some introverted 5s, and some extroverted 8s. House 8 is, unfortunately (in that I’m an enneagram 1 and the Eighth House is not really portrayed in a kind light), probably the more correct enneagram 1. But also like a pretty fucking unhealthy version thereof.

House 4′s main thing is “brave” and “cannon fodder”; there’s a little bit of cp6 to the Fifth’s p6 here (it’s about fidelity, after all), but it’s also kind of high Se house. I feel like the Fourth House sort of gets the short end of the stick here. I’m not terribly mad about it because so frequently in fantasy, Brave=The Heroes and I like how the protagonists of the Locked Tomb books are a lot less impulsive and a lot more weird and complicated, but it does mean The Brave Ones are kind of static characters.

The Ninth House meanwhile is deliberately supposed to be the special, mysterious, weird one. In actuality, other than our heroines the ninth house is sort of in a rut and could fit as enneagram 9 but in spirit (pun not intended but appreciated) the Ninth House doesn’t fit well with the enneagram. I should also note that it’s heavily implied the houses align most with the planets of the solar system instead, and while Pluto is technically not a planet it is a body in our solar system and the Ninth House is almost certainly Pluto.

No house is really a 2 or an 8 enneagram, which is interesting - no one is dependent enough to be a 2, nor independent enough to be an 8.

[antivan-beau]

Tag meme! Thanks for thinking of me, @idylleigh :)

Nickname: Liv! Also, one time someone on tumblr called me Skully (main blog: skullhaver) which was charming.

Zodiac: Gemini sun, gemini moon

Height: 5′5″ (165.1 cm)

House: Gryffindor

Last thing I googled: How to spell Gryffindor.

Song in my head: Blinding Lights by the Weeknd. What a goddamn earworm.

Amount of sleep: Last night: four hours, two hours awake, then four more hours. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Lucky number: N/A

Wearing: Black t-shirt and boxer briefs. It’s quarantimes.

Favorite songs: Tine Bealtaine by Omnia, Sleep Drifter by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Tam Lin covered by Fairport Convention, Mr. Invisible by Thank You Scientist, Under Bergets Rot by Finntroll. (Typical genres are folk, prog rock, and metal.)

Instruments: I play guitar and sing in a folk rock band :) I’ve also dabbled with piano, violin, and cello.

Random fact: I spend a lot of time in the woods and I’m good at identifying native plants in my area.

Favorite authors: N.K. Jemisin rekindled my interest in SFF after years away from the genre. I always hold up her Broken Earth trilogy as one of the most nuanced explorations of oppression in a fictional setting. Of course I also adore our collective SFF grandmas Octavia Butler and Ursula LeGuin. My own writing is majorly influenced by Scott Lynch. His Gentleman Bastard sequence is secretly my number one book fandom. As she’s a fanfiction writer I have been following for about eight years, I am particularly chuffed by the success of Tamsyn Muir’s fabulous novel Gideon the Ninth (lesbian necromancers in space!) For non-genre, Louise Erdrich’s prose is a huge inspiration. For non-fiction, I recently read and loved all the books written by Caitlin Doughty (of Ask a Mortician fame.) 

Favorite animal sounds: The dawn birdsong in the woods near my friends’ farm :’)

Aesthetic: Soft butch, short-sleeved button-downs, knee-length cutoff jorts and hiking boots, leg hair, flannel tied around my waist, but with the front of my hair french-braided and pulled back which obviously betrays the fact that I wanted to be an elf prince like Legolas at a young age

@degenerate-perturbation @slothabed @ravenqueen89 @sadmagecentral @sapphirescience @nokedli-power - if you feel like it!