#House of Muir

[beneathathousandskies]

Book Review: House of Muir (Shadow Twins #2) - Luke Tarzian

Hello! Today I am delighted to be reviewing House of Muir by Luke Tarzian, the second book in the Shadow Twins which is out in the wild today! This book was one of my most anticipated books of 2024, and it more than exceeded that anticipation and is very firmly my favourite book of 2024, it has also been incredibly difficult for me to review because there is no way I can do this book justice in…

[sffinsiders]

Review: House of Muir by Luke Tarzian — SFF Insiders

[rhera]

THE INNOCENTS (1961) THE OTHERS (2001) CRIMSON PEAK (2015) THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (1947) THE VVITCH (2015) THE BLOOD ROSE (1970) BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946) THE HOUSE THAT SCREAMED (1969) THE HORRIBLE DR. HICHCOCK (1962) THE SPIRAL STAIRCASE (1946)

[mariellavee]

Utterly blown away by the kind words and responses to the previous Harrow piece everyone! ❤️

Here’s the matching Gideon Nav, in the same Alphonse Mucha x The Locked Tomb series! (I know, armour isn’t strictly canon, but it’s badass, so yeah. No apologies) Enjoy!

PS: Both this and Harrow will be available in 11” x 17” print form at Otafest this upcoming weekend! (I’ll be at the charity Sketch Drive all three days)! If you’re planning on coming out to the Con, stop by and say hi! :)

[sableeira]

2025 sounds like the perfect year for the release of a fourth and final book in a sci-fi fantasy tetralogy with lesbian necromancers in space and a beautiful, strong, and angry barbie titular character

[artac13]

Welcome to Canaan House! Come meet the crew! We have:

A bone-obsessed goth nun

A jock forced to dress up as a bone-obsessed goth nun

An autistic nerd

An autistic nerd whose special interest is knives and what they can do to human flesh

A valley girl

An evil valley girl

Douche-y Elvis with a sword

An awkward scene kid

An awkward scene kid who's definitely listened to Angel With a Shotgun an unhealthy amount of times

An evil cancer patient

The end result of that laser grid from the Resident Evil movie

The dad you wish you had

The mom you wish you had

An ROTC kid

A worse-adjusted ROTC kid

The bleached leader of the Spanish Inqusition In Space

The actually-very-nice older nephew of the leader of the Spanish Inquisition In Space

And last but not least, the souls of the damned, eternally trapped in torturous servitude!

[meraarts]

We see the aviators Gideon wears as anachronistically modern for this archaic world, and Harrow reacts to them accordingly, but we must not forget that they are an ancient artefact, pre-resurrection. For all we feel like they mess with her Ninth image they must actually strengthen it to the other houses. This Ninth cultist is wearing ten thousand year old glasses to block out the light. I dare you to think of something more Ninth than that.

[hareblog]

Indubitably, warden!

Myself as Cam, @cafffine as the fantastic Pal.

[nina-the-ninth]

If I get the motivation I’ll do the whole chapter

[thanergetic-hyperlinks]

Tamsyn Muir's writing beyond The Locked Tomb

Y'all, turns out there's lots of imagery and themes in TLT that Muir was already playing with in her earlier fiction. A lot of it is easily available online, in which case I'll link to it. (The short stories that aren't can also be easily read if googled, to be quite honest—that's how I read The Deepwater Bride and Why the Mermaids Left Boralus). • The House That Made the Sixteen Loops of Time (2011)

5K. Short sort-of-cozy romance (?) with (you guessed it) a time travel loop. Explores a very queer potential relationship. CamPal enjoyers might find a similar sweetness.

• The Magician's Apprentice (2012, Lightspeed Magazine)

5K. This is the one that stopped me dead on my tracks. It features an older, male mentor figure called John (a “very ordinary man” with “dark eyes”) who introduces the young, female main character to magic that has a terrible cost—and to literature such as Lolita. This excellent post by @familyabolisher does an incredible job of analyzing the very deliberate intertextual links between TLT and Lolita.

• The Woman in the Hill (2015, Lightspeed Magazine, originally for Dreams From the Witch House anthology of Lovecraftian horror by women)

4K. Possibly my favorite! It's a straightforward Lovecraftian horror, centered on the image of the woman (is it human though?) trapped in an unnatural pool inside a cursed cave. Chain imagery too. It does something different from Alecto, mind, but you can see links, ways of playing with facets of a strong central image. It's fun to consider how reliable the two narrators are. Here's an analysis and afterthought from Reactor Mag.

• Chew (2013) 4K. Zombie abuse and cannibalistic revenge story ft. an uncanny woman revenant, told from the eyes of a traumatized German boy. I was strongly reminded of Harrow's conversations with the Body. Tamsyn gave an interview on the themes and her intentions. Interesting to read in light of Alecto, I think, although I don't think she's going the same route in TLT: “the idea of post-war rebuilding connecting to rebuilding the body of the zombie; a Frankenstein who once rebuilt doesn’t act as planned or desired. […] I love cannibalism […] it’s innately spiritual […] any afterlife she goes to, he’s going too.”

• Apothecia (2014, published on Tumblr and tapas.io)

Short webcomic where an alien monster tries to corrupt the ruthless human girl who holds it captive. Musings on responsibility and murder, mention of child abuse. The alien's speech patterns remind me of a Resurrection Beast. You get wonderful dialogue like “Murder is a profession. Job. Employment, you tiny leg dog. There you are, walking along. Walk walk walk. Now you are a walker. Good job. Special child. Murder is like this.” Art by Shelby Cragg.

• The Deepwater Bride (2015, Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine)

The opening line is: “In the time of our crawling Night Lord's ascendancy, foretold by exodus of starlight into his sucking astral wounds, I turned sixteen and received Barbie's Dream Car.” Need I say more? Extremely fun. A novelette where a young queer girl from a clairvoyant family struggles with an apocalyptic event while being annoyed by another very plucky girl. Lots of descriptions with nerdy marine zoology terms. Close in tone to Gideon. In the background, someone dies EXACTLY like that one death at the end of Gideon, which makes me wonder what happened to make Tamsyn interested in this particular image. I also liked that Tamsyn is aware of Nightwish. No link, but you'll get a PDF immediately if you Google.

• Union (2015, Clarkesworld Magazine)

5.5K. Very weird, extremely Kiwi story about a town that gets sent lab-grown wives by the government, but they're not made the usual way so they're Weird and people have feelings about it. Fascinating and eerie description of non-human (in some people's eyes, sub-human) women (?) who cannot be observed to have recognizable feelings or thoughts, yet have some sort of inner life. Quite touching, very uncanny.

• Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower (2020)

Short novel (~200 pages). Very funny. I was reminded of Coronabeth because the whole plot is “princess finds herself branching out into decidedly non-princess-like activities”, but other than that—this is a fairytale for adults about people who make eachother worse. No particular links to TLT but a very fun read with some gut punches. Extremely Tamsyn through and through, what with the dubious morality and all.

• Why the Mermaids Left Boralus (2021, in Folk & Fairy Tales of Azeroth by Blizzard Entertainment)

Set in the World of Warcraft universe. Haven't read this one yet, will report back lmao. As with The Deepwater Bride, no link but I easily found a PDF of the entire compilation. It's illustrated!

• Undercover (2022, from Into Shadow, Amazon Original Collection)

Haven't read it either. Will edit once I do.

[peachesobviously]

Harrowhark Nonagesimus from Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

p.s.: again took, some artistic liberties, mainly with colours because im still not a fan of working with greys and blacks so i went with deep bloody red and a deep burgundy for her hair which i reallyyyy like how it rendered out all together. i also changed the design of her bone collar/necklace because i had fun playing around with it and her bone earrings, again, sorry for the sacrilege

[beneathathousandskies]

Cover Reveal: House of Muir (Shadow Twins #2) - Luke Tarzian

[leafspiritz]

III; three for the gleam of a jewel or a smile

[glassesanddisasters]

Nine for the Tomb, and all that was lost.

Over the latter half of last year and the first half of this year I put hundreds of hours into crafting my Harrowhark cosplay, it consisted of hand embroidery, beading and bone crafting. It may be my one of my favourite creations.

Harrow means the world to me and I'm so glad I am able to bring her to life. Hope ya'll enjoy my design of this little necromancer. More photos of her to come (Including more detail shots).

Photo Credits to my wonderful friend.

[henreyettah]

Nona bath + conditioner time! 🧼 🫧 🛁