#i'll still read alecto

[scarlct-vvitch]

love tamsyn muir. love the books. never have any idea what the fuck is going on but love them

[eerna]

the rat circle of hell book club was truly the thing I needed after TLT wrecked my standards. I needed to be forced to read bad books again to clean my palette. now, 6 months in, instead of whining that not all books are TLT I can read anything and reach the end and call it a good time

[billyshakesp]

How Tamsyn Muir Uses Information

I've been trying to pinpoint exactly why I've been so obsessed with The Locked Tomb for the better part of a year by now, and I think I've finally been able to draw some useful conclusions. Here's my analysis of Tamsyn Muir's writing, and, specifically, how Muir uses information to drive a plot.

For me, and for most fiction writers, one of the most critical elements which drives the plot of a story is the information you choose to give to the reader, and the information you choose to withhold. It is my opinion that no one uses (and arguably misuses) information as beautifully as Muir does. Muir is surgical both in the way she delivers information to the reader, and the way she fails to deliver information to the reader. Most writers aim to feed the readers information about the story, bit by bit, letting the reader finish the picture. Muir uses this idea, but her writing is so lush and so sharp is that the information she gives us is distorted almost beyond recognition, but just coherent enough that the reader can guess at the bigger picture. This method of delivery persists from the inciting incident, basically up until the climax.

By the climax, we, the readers, have recieved just enough information to guess at the direction of the story, but we recieve so little information that we are still scrambling for more. It is at this point where Muir finally reveals one or two critical pieces of information, and when she does, the true stakes of the conflict hit the reader with, as Muir would put it, the inexorable weight of a gravity collapse. The truth is that Muir has been building suspense for an entire novel, but it's hard for the reader to conceptualise truly how dire the situation for the characters is because we have been left in the dark. We were crawling at a snail's pace, and so we didn't sense the danger until we stood before the precipice.

I was going to include specific examples of what I've just described, but I changed my mind, and I'll explain:

If you've read The Locked Tomb, you know what I'm talking about (my heart shall never be whole again).

If you haven't read The Locked Tomb, read it! It is lush, dark, vivacious, and many other adjectives which make it unclear whether I'm describing a book or a person.

Ahem. Anyway. TazMuir, I love your writing, and Alecto the Ninth will be my end, as swift and sure as the hammer to the oxygen-sealant machine of my childhood.

[jods-duplicitous-sluts]

Alecto the Ninth News

Part One

Alright friends. We are all chomping at the bit for any Alecto news at all. So here is what I've compiled from interviews, podcasts and AMAs. Sources are linked and screenshots have alt. text.

I've also included a little commentary or speculation on some points but ultimately that's not the focus of this collection.

Under the cut because I feel like it's going to get long.

So many screenshots, it turns out I'll have to split it into 3 posts.

If you enjoy this post please reblog so more people can see it!

Jump to part ■ Two of the post

Jump to part ■ Three of the post

I'm making this post on mobile, so forgive any wonkiness. Also tumblr ate this post once already *screams into the void*

• The book starts with Harrow in Hell. A reference to the Harrowing of Hell. Based on the presence of a porn mag I'd guess it's her own little river bubble inside Alecto but still just speculation.

Source: Tamsyn reads to us! Video with written description

• There is a wedding of some sort. Possibly other excuses to dress up the characters in formal ware. Some people have expressed concern that this was referencing the N- and C- wedding in Nona, but nope. We have confirmation that it is in book 4.

Source: Twitter

The next series of screenshots are all from the same tor.com interview: TM on Lyctorhood and Genderfuckery.

• This first one again confirms allusions to the harrowing of hell/ the decent of Christ. For those out of the loop the tldr:

The harrowing of hell is an Old English and Middle English term referring to the period of time between the Crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection. In triumphant descent, Christ brought salvation to the souls held captive there since the beginning of the world.

A lot of speculation has gone on around about Harrow and her role in freeing the souls trapped in the river/reviving the river from whatever is poisoning it. [ *cough*JOD*cough*].

Also another reference towards formal outfits for the cast. So at least the wedding if not multiple formal functions.

• The question of Harrow and Gideon's souls will continue into Alecto. Looking forward to info on how enmeshed they've become and/or if they can be separated.

• I mean this quote is infamous by now. Which of our faves is it in reference to? All of them?

•I feel like we haven't seen enough about the differences between rebirth [a la Paul and Nona] vs Resurrection [Gideon/Harrow?! Someone else?] So while not a direct promise of anything in Alecto, I feel like the implication is there.

•The next two screenshots are about the Alecto cover, which is complete[the first from the above interview:]

•and the second is from an AMA from Aug. 5 2020

• The cover is definitely done since she was talking about it in 2020 and reaffirmed right before Nona’s release. I feel like they are waiting until they have a better idea of a publishing date before release. Maybe we'll get news in Q4 after the Nona paperback release and excitement dies down?

• From the same 2020 AMA. As this is pre-Nona, it could be possible that the heist mentioned deals with Gideon's body [either the Houses heisting it from BOE which happened off screen or the heist of Gideon's body from the barracks]. But I included it just in case that isn't what is being referenced.

• Same 2020 AMA: Again this could be covered in Nona as being what the John chapters were about, but also maybe not.

Source: TazMuir tumblr post from April 2020

• Another infamous quote at this point. Definitely feels like this is about the 'Third Most Toxic Polycule' of Harrow/Gideon/Ianthe and maybe Alecto is in this loop as well. With all the references to weddings and relationships I'm wondering who out of these four is marrying who...[maybe it's someone totally different, but my money is on someone in this situation]

Click to see part two!

[lady-harrowhark]

*trying not to think too much over the fact that we still don't have Alecto to read, after wrapping up Nona*

I have so many thoughts. So many feelings.

God is an all powerful entity in which everyone depends on and he's just some guy. Normal looking and bad puns and all. He's awkward. He's trying his best and failing is hilarious.

Palamedes and Camila WILL make me shove my whole foot down my throat oh my goodness their relationship is so. IS SO. SOOOOOOOOOOOO. And I love that is was never romance-implied cause is so much beyond that. Dulce was never treated as a disturbance for them, Tamsyn when I catch you (positive)

If I think too much about Gideon I'll cry. Uglyly. Or Harrow. My pookies. Oh no my dork pookies. They do not deserve it. Tamsyn when I get you (threatening)

Pyrrha got me all hot and bothered 😳😳 *twirling my hair* my good sir have mercy on me. oh I have a type, and it shows and it shows.

I'm also fascinated for the structure of the story. Is so brilliantly made without being overwhelming. The change to 1st person > 2nd person > 3rd person depending on what's going on with who, the theater play model at the end of Nona, the books being careful not tell you, dear reader, information that the characters themselves don't have because YOU will know what THEY know, and sometimes that's jackshit.

I'm thankful for me, for taking the step of trying something new for a change, and thankful to you 🫵 for taking your time to explain what the series was about and linking me the stuff 🫰 oh my heart is full, really what a time to me alive 💕

There is not a single aspect of these books that does not cause me to feel shrimp emotions and I'm so so so glad that you are having the same experience 🥹 It's been so fun getting to see your reactions - watching other people react to the series for the first time is this fandom's national pastime tbh. And now you get to join us!

[harrowharks-iliac-crest]

Gideon Nav

Characters

<< Previous: The River | Masterpost

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I don't have thaaaat many questions left with regards to Gideon, which is why she is first, and this post will be fairly short. (I love her though. Her bits in HtN are just so lush. Looooove Gideon.)

During re-reading, I sometimes questioned whether Gideon was really Wake's baby. It's made clear by Wake that she was. She could have been lying, but their physical similarity is stated, so I'll believe it.

For a moment though, I was gung-ho on the idea that she might have been Alecto's genetically, that somehow BoE/Lyctors had gotten a hold of Alecto's eggs. It would explain... some things.

But the red hair. Is Alecto's hair colour ever mentioned?

But the fact that she's frozen forever and only Harrow ever opened the tomb, as far as we know. Though they could have had eggs extracted and preserved somehow - before Alecto went into the tomb? She's immortal; God's sperm was immortal; if there were eggs, they would easily survive a myriad years. Still kiiiinda a theory, just one I find very unlikely at this point.

Gideon's body doesn't rot, ostensibly, cus she's part God. Though I have found myself wondering if God's perfect-preservation power is John's, or Alecto's? We'll get to that.

I was also wondering if a part of Gideon died, back when she was nerve gassed with the other kids. A part which would have gone on to live in and as Harrow. Perhaps this explains Harrow's unwillingness to ever die.

I have a feeling that Gideon's soul and body will stay relevant, even though I don't know exactly how.

>> Next: Wake

[paradoxcase]

Chapter 26 of Nona the Ninth

A fourth skull, so another skull that corresponds to zero characters in this book that I know of. Aim/The Angel/The Messenger also isn't in this one, it's just the kids

Dark and blueless night - heh

Good on Palamedes

What is their plan, here? Camilla is going to have some conversation with Gideon/Kiriona while hopped up on a ton of pain meds? If they planned this out earlier, Nona didn't report it. And I see Pyrrha trying to get in a probably-family-related conversation with her there. Actually, I think everyone else other than Judith probably has more to talk about with Kiriona than Camilla does

At this description, I was like, oh, yeah, the Convoy was definitely 100% some BOE shit, wasn't it? Also, more of Pash's weird fear of Gideon/Kiriona's body

I really hope Judith makes it out of this book alive at this point

I'm sorry, Corona, Linkin Park has permanently ruined that line for me

So that is stuff that Honesty said when telling his story about the Convoy, and in that scene he was eating Nona's fruit, which was described as

but Nona gave away all of her fruit, just like she always does, she didn't eat any of it. Maybe she's eaten that kind of fruit before and knows what it tastes like, she seems to know how to eat it, anyway - but why would she associate the memory of tasting this fruit with this story when she didn't actually eat that fruit here? Like it sounds like she was somehow experiencing Honesty's tasting of the fruit in this scene. Maybe additional evidence of some telepathy thing?

You know, I think this ship could be a lot of fun, actually

I don't know if this means that Alecto's like, OG resurrection beast form is going to turn out to be some kind of cosmic spider, or if Nona is just missing normally being a lot taller than Harrow is, which seems likely if the body that John made for Alecto was approximately average

I need more scenes of Pash interacting with these two

Honestly, my first reaction to this was "earlier this week? That was like a month ago, wasn't it?" But no, this really is still just day five from when this book began, the whole thing has happened in less than a week, it just was like a month ago when I read that part. God damn

Does Nona know about something that could be termed "double death" at this point? I don't think she knows anyone or anything who's died twice, has she? There are some people who died once and came back (although, I'm not sure if she actually knows that Palamedes and Pyrrha died), and there's Naberius's corpse that's been wandering around lately, but I don't think she's seen anyone die twice yet, unless you count herself getting headshotted twice, but that "double death" was not final

So this is not some weird translation that Nona did, her name actually means "hot sauce" in the language that she speaks natively

I think this is probably the end of Hot Sauce and Honesty in this book. We've tied up the story behind Hot Sauce's name, the Convoy story, the map from the classroom, and Hot Sauce telling Nona she was out of the gang, so I don't think there are any remaining plot threads to resolve with them. I wasn't real invested in these characters originally, but I think I'll miss them now. I wonder what Hot Sauce would think if she ever found out that Nona wasn't just a "zombie" but actually like Varun the Eater's sister? Would she be out of the gang again?

[docholligay]

Obviously we're different people with different life experiences and tastes, but reading your HtN review I think we had a very similar takeaways. I hated the first book, but found the second a vast improvement (aside from Gideon). I hope one day you read Nona, because I think it's my favorite of the bunch (though it has its own stupid bullshit, but it's truly a book about love, devotion, and the burden of that) -- but it also made me think I'll never read Alecto. I don't trust Muir, I guess?

I think "I don't trust you" is the perfect takeaway I have from having read Gideon and Harrow. If I had to put up with another book full of ridiculous memey bullshit I would have to throw myself into the sun. I know there can be beauty in her work because I HAVE SEEN IT WITH MINE OWN EYES, but so much of it is wrapped up in her weird "I was very oniine in the same time Holligay was also in online fandom and it shows" stuff and that GRATES on me.

So, there is stuff i loved in Harrow! I still think about Mercymorn and how much I love her as a character and even UNDERSTAND her on a base level. It is unflattering, but she is the most 'tag yourself' of the entire bookverse for me. ANd even in Gideon, which I much more out and out hated, I will scream until my DEATH how much I fucking LOVE the necro/cav thing, and that it can be used to describe so many TYPES of intense relationship. It's also fun to think about with one's blorbim*! Love it. I think it's great.

But yeah, I have 0% faith that the third book would be good, because I have read the first book and the first book at a certain point made me APOPLECTIC. Absolutely LOST MY SHIT about how mad it made me. So do I want to risk that, when I have a huge backlog of books to read and basically never find myself wondering what to read next? Not really, no.

*Lena is a cavalier and Michiru is a necromancer. Fucking obviously.

[skydaemon]

Necromancing the Crane Wives: Safe Ship, Harbored (2011)

I happened to be listening to TCW when i first read the books and now they are inexorably linked in my head. So, I'm going through the Crane Wives' discography and seeing how each song can be linked to the Locked Tomb series.

Contains spoilers for the Locked Tomb series!!

Can't Have It All: getting Alecto vibes from this one, with "you won't find me where you left me / I'm long gone / you can't bind me in the state you kept me / for so long" and "my mind's made up, though my head still aches and / all my love you tried to take, but / you can't have it all" - which contains a neat little Harrow lobotomy reference to boot! You can see this as Alecto talking to Jod, a warning at the end of Nona.

The Diving Bell: GIDEON!!! This song is wholly about sacrificing yourself for another person out of love, there's water imagery ("i will drown for you", "hold your heart like waves / open my lungs to let you in", "water rushes in / and i will welcome it"), and lines like "swallow my heart whole / seek me like a soul" and "i am not afraid / to give you everything" !!! It aligns perfectly with the part of HtN where she begs for Harrow to consume her and go full Lyctor.

New Colors: this one's a bit more vague, but i connect it to John pre-resurrection, especially the lines "to climb up in the sky / and steal new colors / away from the sun", plus the chorus literally saying "don't tell me that i can't" - very mad scientist/cult leader/twitch necromancer. Also it opens with the line "orange, yellow, green" which in my TLT brainrot i always link to a) Gideon's hair - and by extension, Wake's - b) gideon's eyes - and by extension John's and Alecto's - and c) the fact that Canaan house was the first time Gideon and Harrow saw vegetation.

Caleb Trask: Gideon to Harrow in GtN. The song's about feeling too guilty and inherently evil - specifically because of the actions of your family ("so you got bad in your blood") - to accept love and comfort. There's even a line saying "there's no reason to live out in chains". Slam dunk.

Counting Sheep: this song is about living a humdrum existence in a world that's falling apart ("as the sunlight filters in / then your daily dread sets in / the cycle's beginning, and in your head alarms are ringing"), so i link it to the world of New Rho and the lives of the people there. Also, there's a section at the end where they repeat Frere Jacques in english, which they translate as "are you sleeping, Brother John?". Could be linked to his absence in NtN and the way Alecto finds him in bed.

Hole in the Silver Lining: this one's very simple, with only really two sections that repeat. I link the first section to Palamedes and the rest of the Sixth House, especially "i'll be the one (...) to find it / i take it upon myself to make sure / i do" and "but i turn it over in my hands until / my fingers wear it through". These lines strike me as very Pal, with all the scientific curiosity he shows but also the responsibility he takes for dangerous information.

Safe Ship, Harbored: Harrow in Harrow the Ninth. "things i forgot i cannot do", "i wasn't born a safe ship / something wore me down", "don't waste your blessings on me"? Very Harrow. The chorus (specifically "i am a safe ship, harbored / losing all of my good years to the shallow water") also makes me think of the fact that she's being severely coddled by Jod and unable to leave the Mithraeum without supervision.

Naked, the Night Falls: strikes me as a Harrow love song to Alecto. "into your arms / sell my sorry soul" is basically what Harrow says to the Body, "been enraptured and tied" definitely aligns with Harrow's devotion. Also, the first line is "softly, a cold wind paints my face", which is such a fun Harrow line.

Ancient History: Ninth House vibes because this one has bones!! ("my dream keep digging up the bones of memories / discarded remnants of former times / now every skeleton is slapping its knees") Weirdly, I kinda think of Anastasia, even though I know we don't have much of a canon personality for her. - we know she was a failed ascension and the line "and my poor heart is an open wound / it's ancient history / that's bleeding out of me / so what am i supposed to do?" has some juicy angst for just such an occasion. This song has only two verses, so not tons to say.

October: oooooh Griddlehark! Interestingly, this one can be taken from both sides. Lines like "i know you, you're the daughter of a lonely man" and "I am naught but a scar upon your breastbone" cut both ways, although at slightly different times. Very cute, very sad, very Griddlehark.

The Crooked, the Cradle: this one uses the word "mercy", but unfortunately doesn't make any sense for her or the OG lyctors. Another Harrow the Ninth song, it seems! "and the devil won't know all the love i just couldn't let go", "this cradle still burns like a hole in my chest", and "but i pray / when it's done, when it's through, i'll have something left for you" are all very Harrow-having-feelings-about-the-lobotomy lines.

I Ain't Done: Tridentariiiiiii!!! "i am a pretty young thing / i am consumed with selfish wanting / carelessly broke you down but i ain't done", "a woman in love has no regrets", "wreckage in the wake of cruel betrayal / paid my sins in blood, but i ain't done". The actual narrative of the song doesn't align with her very closely - it's about the ghost of a woman killed by her husband for infidelity - but there's a real Ianthe + Corona vibe to it.

[xellandria]

A couple weeks ago I was listening to the Nona the Ninth audiobook (as you do, for nearly a year straight) and noticed something towards the very end of it where (spoilers for NtN) the events at the end of the book don't end being frantic until Alecto's name is said exactly three times in Nona's hearing. I didn't grow up with many spooky stories or folk tales or whatever, but I DO remember a tumblr post where they were joking about looking into the rear view mirror of a car and chanting "Bloody Mary" three times to summon her behind them as they're going 50 mph or whatever. Something like that, anyway, but my brain made the connection.

Today, @spaceswordblaster reblogged one of those "have you seen this movie" polls about a Bloody Mary movie. That reminded me that I had wanted to go to the wikipedia page and read up on the common way(s) the legend is invoked, because if it actually worked the way that I was vaguely remembering, that would be a neat parallel that I could ramble about sometime!

The wikipedia page itself gave me a lot of related ideas but it also linked to a similar myth from Japan about "Hanako-san." Having only cursory exposure to horror movies and the like, I was like "is that the Ring girl?" and clicked on that link; it was not (I think the Ring girl starts with an S but anyway).

At the top of THAT wikipedia page was a disambiguation section, which included "if you're looking for the manga, see "Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun" and I was like w h a t (until I read the Hanako-san page, at which point is still sounded hilarious but made sense).

So then I went to the Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun page, as you do, and saw it had been adapted into an anime in 2020 and there was a reboot coming out in 2024 (I think?). So I looked THAT up and it's free on Crunchyroll and I was like "okay I'll watch one episode just to see what it's like, then I can go do the things I need to do for the day" and now I'm on episode 7/13 or something like that.

So that's how my day is going, rofl

[witchstone]

3, 16, 17, 20 for the books ask! (I want some recs basically)

hii!!!

3. what were my top five books this year? i really did not read a lot or broadly enough to have a guaranteed top five, but i loved the vampire lestat by anne rice (quite literally everything i ever wanted in a vampire story), i also really enjoyed the manga yakuza fiancé (unhinged protagonists!), technically my nona the ninth reread ended at the beginning of this year so i'll include that annnd i'll toss the luminous dead by caitlin starling in there (great psychological story imho. pity about the literal last page of it)

16. what is the most overhyped book i read this year? christ above, the answers can only be a court of thorns and roses (i can see why people like it. i struggled with the fact that it's masquerading as a professionally published book) and my year of rest and relaxation. strongly neutral on this one. don't get why people hype it up so much, especially from a 'feminine rage' angle (it's apathetic!!) but nor did i get why people hated it so much. went in expecting something truly gross and did not get that

17. did any books surprise me with how good they were? honestly the vampire lestat. interview with the vampire dragged on and on for me (louis is somewhat something of a drip) so opening up tvl after that was truly a surprising experience

20. what was my most anticipated release and did it meet my expectations? the only book whose release i was anticipating was alecto the ninth which. well. still waiting lol.

[muninnhuginn]

For character bingo: Camilla Hect

Thanks for asking! I accidentally deleted my initial response to this so I'm going to go hide in a corner, I think. Anyway, I used little spiral things so hopefully it's clear what I went for.

Honestly, when I first read GtN, I liked Fifth and Sixth House but it was in a kind of "we hardly knew ye" way. So I thought Cam was neat and I thought Pal was super neat, but I was much more into the mystery aspects of the book. It actually took me until NtN for me to actually become properly attached to Cam, but I suspect I'll understand a lot more about her when I get around to a full reread of the series.

I think with Cam, she's generally the most sensible person in the room, unless it's about Pal and then her objectivity goes out the window. But her objectivity goes out of the window in a self-aware way? She knows she's biased here and she doesn't care to shield herself against it, which is why it's so tragic when she has to face the consequences of that. You can't talk about Cam without also talking about Pal because they're so codependent. That's why Paul was inevitable.

"If anything happens to them" and "canon isn't real", well, let's just say I have some mixed feelings about Paul. I'll have to see what happens with them come Alecto, but at least as of Nona, it feels like both of campal are gone and it's an irreversible reaction as far as we know. And yes, it was their choice. It seemed like their only route to some form of survival.

But Paul still told Nona that they would pick an option that neither Cam nor Pal would. What is it like to lose yourself to the very one you would dedicate yourself to? To mutually subsume each other until you're neither pink nor blue but purple? They aren't either of Cam or Pal. They're gone and someone entirely new is in their place.

[empty-pizza]

I gonna miss your life blogging. It's a shame that we'll have to wait until Tor releases the new short story in Fall and your Alecto acquisition to have more of it.

Thank you! It makes me feel nice inside that people enjoyed my posts, both for good reasons and just because I crave attention and love. I have successfully pivoted my consumption of media into something slightly creative and expressive of my own, and used it for internet validation. Honestly feels great.

I probably will post here when Alecto's out as well, though I'm sure that will be a different experience.

Guess I'll reply to some of the comments I got as well:

Thank you too! I feel somewhat proud of the number of things I guessed, but it definitely felt like there was way more I had no idea about. I think there were only a few where I really locked in a prediction instead of just raising possibilities. I did get totally hooked into trying to figure out all the lore, and that combined with the liveblog inciting me to go slowly and think through everything that happened so I could post something about it, really made me figure out a lot more than I would have otherwise.

Good to hear! I'm hoping that as time goes on I feel rewarded as well. I think that with lore-driven series like this, one's relationship with them is really different when you compare reading it to think about it afterward, and I'm just hoping the positivity carries through for me.

I do feel like I probably should have called that Nona was Alecto way earlier, but that's for meta reasons. I knew that it grew from one book into two, and I could see how Nona could have been conceptualized as an arc only to turn into a full story. Following that logic it's kind of obvious that it'd have to be the same character, since the book probably wouldn't have been planned with a protagonist switch, I don't think.

It's insane that you and others were able to predict Alecto being the earth though. I don't even remember the speech very well. I'll have to find that again.

You know, a really tragic part of the end of this book was that Nona is just... gone. I really liked Nona. Second best character, after Palamedes. I know she had come to terms with her own death and accepted it was coming (ironic compared to how much Alecto feared death), but still, the idea that she's just... gone, a subsumed personality below a more complete person, is just hard to accept. So if Noodle becomes relevant, then maybe I can hope that this also brings something of Nona back out. She did love dogs.

I hate to break it to you guys (and I hate to make a joke that I'm sure has been done too many times by now) but it's:

[gardenofshadcws]

Voyage of the Nautilus Day 82

The Devilfish Part 2

Gigantic animals!!!!

Squid!!!!!!

Squid!!!!

Ordinary squid from the class Cephalopada!!!!!!

Of large dimensions!!!!!!!

Wait, is kraken actually pronounced with a long A? Is Ned's joke a jab at Conseil? Krayken - fake-n? Am I reading too much into this?

"Nobody will ever make me believe that such animals exist" Ned honey after all the things you've seen this is where you draw the line?

I love the description of the squid the Alecto encountered. Really ups the "sure would suck if that happened to us" quotient

HERE WE GO ONE OF THE FUNNIEST EXCHANGES IN THE ENTIRE BOOK

Consiel you sassy boy I love you so much. And Arronax is just like "oh shit he's right behind me"

SQUID TIME SQUID TIME SQUID TIME!!!

There's a reason this is the most famous sequence in the whole book, the terror is palpable, and it makes for a really exciting fight

Even when Aronnax can only think of science, there's a major "oh shit" quotient here

Disney has rotted my brain, I forgot there was a whole school of them

And even now. When they are attacked by squid. Aronnax still takes note of Nemo's mood

"AN UNUSUAL ASSORTMENT OF DEVILFISH" HE'S SO CHILL I CAN'T

I love that Ned puts his feud with Nemo aside when the squid hit the fan.

Get it because they're on the propeller

I'll see myself out

Poor crewman :( It's such a good action scene, and the guy forgetting the conglang and crying for help is gutwrenching

And Verne takes the time to make it look like they're going to save him and they can't and I cri

NEMO SAVED NEDDDD

When Nemo cries I cry

[lady-harrowhark]

I’m more asking for confirmation than anything else since I don’t have a copy of htn or ntn I can check, but do we have any concrete evidence that John is still capable of performing full resurrections? Or were the original resurrections the kind of thing that were only possible in the aftermath of 10 billion deaths + 9 planets worth of thanergy being released (much like how harrow’s parents supposedly performed a type of resurrection in the aftermath of murdering 200 children)

I've been paging through, and I don't think we do have any concrete evidence... I also don't think we have any concrete not evidence though either...

I think most relevant to this question is this passage from when John is showing Harrow the 500 he's going to send to the Ninth:

No, I haven't truly resurrected anyone in ten thousand years. But at that time... I set many aside, for safety... and I've often felt bad about just keeping them as insurance. They've been asleep all this myriad, Harrow, and it's frankly a relief to my mind to wake them up.

So if we take this at face value (never a given with John), he resurrected them back ten thousand years ago, but will be waking them up now.

Which, of course, aligns with what he says in John 5:4 of NtN, "...resurrection is different from waking up."

That difference is something I've been mulling over since I first read it, and I don't have any great takes at the moment. It's definitely something I have flagged to keep an eye out for on my next reread though! I think your point about needing that massive amount of thanergy sounds very reasonable, especially compared to Harrow's conception, which he also refers to as a type of resurrection.

Also just as I was typing this I got curious and went back to the avulsion trial scene, where it says Gideon "died" and then pulls the "gotcha!" (except in hindsight it seems it was not a "gotcha!" at all lmao). Very interesting wording here, no?

"Ha-ha," said Gideon, "first time you didn't call me Griddle," and died. - Well, passed out. But it felt a hell of a lot like dying. Waking up had an air of resurrection, of having spent a winter as a dried-out shell and coming back to the world as a new green shoot. A new green shoot with problems.

So we've clearly got this resurrection vs waking up thing again, but I'm really curious about the comparison to the "green shoot," with green being so heavily associated with Alecto (e.g., Varun calls her "green-and-breathing thing"). And especially because it's used with this context of "A new green shoot with problems," because that particular turn of phrase sounds very much like Camilla's description of Nona getting dressed looking like a "worm with problems." (Is this anything? Am I reaching? Am I having fun while reaching?)

I'll also just throw in the verbiage around John saying he "switched [Alecto] off" as compared to, say, the NtN epigram poem's "sleep, I'll wake you in the morning" (and further: "Annabel, good morning.")

I feel like things are kind of coalescing around the difference between a true death and being brought back to life vs a sleep or suspended animation state in which one isn't actually dead, and therefore is simply waking up (I can't let myself go down this tangent right now but it does sound suspiciously like the whole cryo project... moving on!). It makes me wonder if it's not so much that John hasn't resurrected anyone in ten thousand years as much as it is that no one has truly died in ten thousand years for him to resurrect; therefore he can only wake them.

Which seems incompatible with necromancy at first, but is it? We know something's fucky with the River. Perhaps crossing the River (or whatever verb we want to use for that) constitutes a true death, and if something's stopped it up, the thanergy stays pooled up and accessible for necromantic purposes rather than crossing or being cycled back into the River or dispersed or whatever happens to it. A death magic dam, essentially. And if a soul can't finish its journey to a true death, he wouldn't be able to resurrect them, hmm.

I don't know how well that meshes with the 200 dead Ninth children, though, if that's also a resurrection, other than what Harrow says during the pool scene: "The infants alone generated enough thanergy to take out the entire planet. Babies always do - for some reason." The incomplete explanation is conspicuous here, but so is the reference to "taking out the entire planet", now that we know what we know. So that may actually track. (Is John's baby finger bone crown meant to be like... a tribute? Thank you for your service and all that? Yuck.)

Two more incomplete musings and then I really will stop! I've been harboring some thoughts about whether the Ninth (and specifically the Tomb) may have a more direct connection to the River (and the barathron specifically) than other locations do, and if that's the case, perhaps that's also at play in achieving a resurrection, whatever form that may take.

The other thing I'm thinking about here is the whole Alecto/Anastasia/tomb-keeper line situation. If the tomb-keeper line is carrying a bit of Alecto's soul, is this more of a direct, one-to-one passage down the line? Or, over the however many thousands of years since that vow, has it branched out from that central family tree and dispersed amongst the generations? What I'm getting at here is essentially, if many or all of the 200 Ninth children housed a bit of Alecto's soul, taking any/all of them out would be a small scale planetary death... which could account for why babies generate so much thanergy (again, the phrasing of "enough to take out the entire planet" seems significant). It feels reminiscent of the way Lyctors flip planets as well, turning them thanergetic... if killing a planet creates thanergy, could killing bits of a planet (and the children carrying them) create a necromancer?

I swear when I sat down to answer this, I only had the first two quotes in mind and then I just kept pulling at threads and ended up unraveling a whole sweater, so apologies from getting away from what you were asking. But thank you for providing some good food for thought!

[iviarellereads]

The Plan, Such As It Is

tl;dr: System Collapse finishes the Murderbot series on Christmas. Last week of the year is a break, and then it's the Wheel of Time with likely between-book breaks for one-offs or shorter series, and someday maybe Alecto the Ninth.

I had a great time watching Desert Bus, and helping with the VST documenting and editing and uploading clips of the process of raising over a million dollars (over ten million in the lifetime of the event!) for a good cause. A most excellent week of "restoring my faith in humanity". But that's a little beside the point of this post.

I also got my hands on System Collapse, but because of how my brain works, I won't be reading it ahead, so we're going to have lots of fun as I read it for the first time in the format of the blog. Let's see if my style changes, if my predictions are well on or off the mark. (I have seen a few posts that spoiled a few moments and character bits, but I'm not concerned about those. I rarely feel like learning things that happen "ruins" anything about an experience anyway. If the story's well told, it's still fun to experience for myself.)

After System Collapse, well, that's the end of Murderbot to-date. And, I haven't run any polls for covering other things. That's because I'm pretty well set on rereading the Wheel of Time series, and revising my previous notes to this format.

It's something I could keep putting off, but the show has gotten so good, and it reminds me of all the things about the books that I loved so much (and how the show is fixing some things I didn't love). I'll also be very excited to do full-series spoiler posts again, Murderbot didn't have a lot that I felt needed commenting on, but the Wheel? Oh, buddy.

But, the caveat here is that the Wheel of Time has, well, fifteen very large books. Eleven thousand pages, over four million words. Coverage would take about three years if I didn't take breaks for other books in between, and I definitely will, so we're gonna be here for a while. I've said before that I was hesitant to cover Discworld for this, and I still am. Discworld has over forty books just in the main series besides the spinoffs, with a comparable total wordcount to WoT. Several of those, I have negative interest in ever rereading. Even if they're largely shorter than WoT bricks, they're also trickier to split, and I won't have as much context to share about them that isn't available elsewhere already. Whereas, the Wheel of Time lacks a lot of spoiler-free resources in print, despite the series being almost 35 years old. There was a huge influx of podcast coverage once the show publicity ramped up, but not so much blog style content. The few prologues and chapters that do need splitting, I've already calculated out from the first time I took the notes.

Mind you, I will be finding time for Alecto the Ninth coverage when Tamsyn Muir finally graces us with her presence, I'll just take a break between whichever WoT books I'm up to by then. And if something else strikes my fancy, I might alternate books. Like, making it through the Eye of the World might scratch the itch well enough, and make me want to dig into the Princess Bride as I threatened to once before, or perhaps when I reach my least favourite sequence of books in the middle, I'll alternate them with the His Dark Materials trilogy, though probably not its supplementary later materials because I'm still refusing to read the Book of Dust.

I totally understand if folks who followed me for other stuff want to jump ship when my WoT coverage starts. I love and can recommend it with some massive content notes and caveats which will be in my intro post for it, but it's not for everyone and treating it like a universal joy is nonsense. But, especially if you can get a library borrow of the first book, whether you get it in print or ebook or either of the incredible audiobook narrations (the full series by Michael Kramer and Kate Reading, or the first three are now available narrated by Rosamund Pike, who plays the character of Moiraine Sedai on the show), I hope you'll give it a try with me, and my analysis and commentary might help pull you into a series that's otherwise quite intimidating.

So, System Collapse will finish posting on Christmas, I think I'll take the last week of the year as a breather, and the Wheel of Time will kick off my 2024. I hope you'll consider sticking around and reading with me, especially my Locked Tomb girlies because I've said it before and I'll say it again, these two stories have SO much in common, hashtag Women's Wrongs and unreliable narrators. And, I am gonna try to break it up every so often since these are LONG books, most of them have 40+ chapters so will be two months apiece. But either way, if I'm gonna follow my heart, it's gotta be next.