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Sep. 16th, 2020 09:04 pmWhat I knew for sure about Harrow the Ninth before reading it:
- it's generally considered to be a weirder book than its precursor Gideon the Ninth, which, for those unfamiliar, is about a group of terrible teen necromancers and their sword-fighting sidekicks competing to find the secret to immortality in a mysterious castle with a serial killer and/or terrible bone monster on the loose. In space.
- a dramatic and tragic scene is capped by a 'none pizza with left beef' reference (thanks for the warning![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aria, I was very glad to be braced for it)
Harrow the Ninth is indeed a weirder book than Gideon the Ninth, in large part because it becomes very clear very quickly that the protagonist not only has very little idea what's going on in the present, but also that there is significant confusion about what happened in the past as well; a solid third of the book is dedicated to recounting a version of the events of Gideon the Ninth that does not in fact include the titular Gideon the Ninth. Since the relationship between Gideon and Harrow is the main emotional thread of the series, this is an audacious choice! ( I respect it intellectually while not being sure how well it works for me emotionally )
As a sidenote, I also reread Gideon the Ninth before reading Harrow and I am glad I did both for enjoying-the-experience reasons and for having-any-clue-what's-going-on-with-Harrow reasons, but ( spoiler questions )
- it's generally considered to be a weirder book than its precursor Gideon the Ninth, which, for those unfamiliar, is about a group of terrible teen necromancers and their sword-fighting sidekicks competing to find the secret to immortality in a mysterious castle with a serial killer and/or terrible bone monster on the loose. In space.
- a dramatic and tragic scene is capped by a 'none pizza with left beef' reference (thanks for the warning
aria, I was very glad to be braced for it)Harrow the Ninth is indeed a weirder book than Gideon the Ninth, in large part because it becomes very clear very quickly that the protagonist not only has very little idea what's going on in the present, but also that there is significant confusion about what happened in the past as well; a solid third of the book is dedicated to recounting a version of the events of Gideon the Ninth that does not in fact include the titular Gideon the Ninth. Since the relationship between Gideon and Harrow is the main emotional thread of the series, this is an audacious choice! ( I respect it intellectually while not being sure how well it works for me emotionally )
As a sidenote, I also reread Gideon the Ninth before reading Harrow and I am glad I did both for enjoying-the-experience reasons and for having-any-clue-what's-going-on-with-Harrow reasons, but ( spoiler questions )
