#Harrow the Ninth

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 1

Book summaries and submitted endorsements below:

The Locked Tomb series (Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, Nona the Ninth, and others) by Tamsyn Muir

Endorsement from submitter #1: "An extremely fun, humorous romp! A heart-breaking, soul crushing catharsis inducing tragedy! A thoughtful piece on imperial structures and trauma. On queerness, Muir flawlessly and without announcement, cracks gender open like an egg and spills its disproven guts across the page. The Locked Tomb does it all also bones, bitch."

Endorsement from submitter #2: "Lesbian necromancers in space. So many fascinating, sort of fucked up sapphic relationships going on."

The Emperor needs necromancers.

The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.

Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead bullshit.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won't set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier.

Without Gideon's sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die. Of course, some things are better left dead.

Fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, humor, series, adult

The Javelin Program by Derin Edala (Time to Orbit: Unknown series)

When Dr Aspen Greaves signed up for the Javelin Program, humanity's first foray into colonising deep space, they expected to wake up to life in a thriving colony on a distant planet. Instead, they find themself five years away from their destination on a broken spaceship full of complex mysteries, dead astronauts, and a very unhelpful AI.

Aspen wasn't trained for any of this. But if they can't keep themselves alive, get the ship in working order, and find out what went wrong by unravelling a chain of mysteries leading all the way back to distant Earth, then neither Aspen nor the five thousand sleeping passengers in their care will ever see a planet again.

Science fiction, mystery, series, adult

[notedchampagne]

drawing them sleeping for the 3rd time

[thanergetic-hyperlinks]

And, of course, Mercy is a mirror of Harrow in that she's channeled her grief into perpetual bitterness and she reaches violently to anyone using her cavalier's name.

Mercymorn realizing what Harrow has done (HtN ch. 29)

[cbrcbbr]

htn stuff

[000vn0mn]

what do u guys think about lesbo dykes

[theablokhus]

“The Tomb I will serve till the end of my days, and then see me buried in two hundred graves”

This book is everything.

[cohortcasualty]

aaaaaAAAAAAAAA??????? HOLY FUCK???

One flesh, One end

[counting-stars-gayly]

harrow: I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it. *creates a reality in which gideon never existed so she doesn’t have to recognize her absence*

[harrowharksboner]

turning all arcane memes into tlt cause it fits so well

[karlathewitch]

Locked Tomb books in a nutshell

Gideon the Ninth: Butch jock lesbian stuck in a renn faire murder mystery, except nobody cares to solve the mystery, because their bone puzzle is more important, even tho they have zero idea what this bone puzzle is about. Also a ton of tsundere love/hate situation. And Ianthe, being a weird btch.

Harrow the Ninth: The space fantasy horror retelling of the Office, with God being a 37 years old teacher from NZ, and everyone else is on meds. There is actually a planet eating horror approaching, but tea parties, and making soup is more important, so we'll ignore it. Meanwhile Harrow writes her own headcanon for GtN. And Ianthe tries to fck Harrow.

Nona the Ninth: Isekai, apocalypse, slice of life, where the main character actually does slice of life things, like going to school, eating sand, making friends, etc. The family is made out of 3,5 people, sharing two bodies, and they are wrapped up in a whole resistance/terrorist/anti-gov military, except they don't have time to do that. Someone must play "Guess who I am" with Nona after all. The beach episode was there. Ianthe is now called Ianthe Naberius, playing dolls with the corpse of Actual Naberius.

And I love them all.

[elfieafterdark]

I think that speaks volumes about Gideon and Ianthe's upbringings compared to Magnus's.

Based on what little information we have on the other houses, Magnus lived a pretty normal life. He had school dances, he could ask a pretty girl out.

He got married and had a normalish life full of love and lessons and support.

Gideon got faces full of boot and scorn.

Ianthe? I have absolutely no idea, but being born the subjectively less attractive twin in the house that's all about beauty must do something to you. I imagine she's got a LOT of shit baggage in that pretty mayonnaise skull of hers.

ianthe: harrow cleaned her mind of you to forget you, she could never love you

gideon: yeah duh

magnus: "you're keeping her things like a lover keeping old notes... you keep her stuffed away in a drawer you can't look at. you're not waiting for her resurrection, you've made yourself her mauseleum."

harrow: shit u got me there

[anoes1s]

I’m so sick right now my head feels like it’s gonna exploded and you know who’s head exploded ?! Palamedes haha

(I’m sorry)

[gideonnavtheninth]

various nonagesimuses

[raspberry-arev]

hold your local necromancer today. give them forehead kisses. squish them to your boobies perhaps Palamedes & Camilla, Gideon & Harrow, Judith & Coronabeth, all from The Locked Tomb series. original sketches under the cut

these were made on a train so, it's not much but it's honest work

[transpidergwen]

God said, "Damn that sucks. You should make soup about it."

You said, "Bet."

harrow the ninth is so funny. her coworker/brother keeps trying to brutally murder her and her boss/dad is like “damn that sucks. you should make soup about it”