Nona The Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

 

Nona The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is the next book in the Locked Tomb Trilogy.  It looks like this was originally planned as a trilogy, but has now become a series.  Because I'm not good at editing tags, I'll probably leave it at trilogy, but, who knows.

Started: 10/10/2022
Completed: 10/16/2022
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I love the richness of the characters and environment that Muir brings to the game.  After book after book of characters you basically love to hate, Nona is quite refreshing.  As usual there was a bit of muddle at the beginning, but fairly quickly it is possible to get your bearings.  There is a bunch of violence once more, but I have to say that it was pretty well done in this book with just enough of the violence made clear to establish life (not "and death" as Nona would say) situations and then address the arduous return.  There is a lot more exposure of John and I have to say that it was far enough from the previous book that I'd forgotten who John was, so take a minute and refresh yourself before picking this book up.  I really enjoyed it.

Harrow The Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

 

Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is the next book in the Locked Tombs Trilogy.

Started: 6/29/2021
Completed: 7/5/2021
Recommendation: Not Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought Help:

anechoic -- free from echo

rumbled -- to discover that someone is doing something illegal (British slang)

Review:

I hate being confused.  3/4 of this book is simply confusion.  It was driving me crazy.  Keep reading; in this one case I accept the necessity of it.

The end, however, is only more confusing.  I'm not sure it is worth the gore to read another.

Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

 

Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is the first book of the Locked Tombs Trilogy.  I have some concerns about this book because I'm not into horror and this has the potential to have plenty of horror in it, but reviews also mentioned the humor.  I believe I noticed it on the Locus Award list.

Started: 5/13/2021
Completed: 5/15/2021
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Locus Award

Review:

This is a good book.  You are taken to a far different world and despite the constant presence of bones and some degree of reanimation, this is not a horror novel.  At no point was I worried about being scared; it did not keep me up at night (in fact, I fell asleep while listening at one point when I was listening just before what turned out to be a nap).  The subplot characters are a little flat, but the major characters are quite rich and they explore their relationship well.  The whole of the concepts behind the science fiction parts are quite believable (although it seems magic, not science, is the order of the day).  The use of swords is explained nicely.  The quest portion of the book was fairly good although there were sections that I simply would not have been able to figure out without the author describing events I did not see or relationships that were simply not described.  All-in-all, a pretty enjoyable book and I'm looking forward to the next in the trilogy.