After many long weeks of putting it off, mostly to savor the anticipation but also because I started a book series, a TV series, and working my way through Dimension20, all on top of my usual pile of video games, podcasts, and YouTube series, I finally started reading Harrow the Ninth. I’ve had a lot of stuff to read or watch and I didn’t want to start on another book until I’d cleared some of that stuff off my to-do list, but I wound up getting into it because the past two weeks have been rough enough that I needed a NEW escape. Plus, I really enjoyed Gideon the Ninth and hoped that I’d be able to boost my incredibly low mood from the past three weeks by giving myself a bit of a treat. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple, since the second-person narration [which ultimately served a very specific purpose] was a bit too much for me to handle going into the book. I think I made it through about five chapters on my first attempt before I felt just too worn out by the book addressing me to continue reading. I can tell the writer, Tamsyn Muir, is trying for some kind of effect, but I’m not sure what it is yet and I’m not sure that it’s working since all I’m getting from it is confusion. I can only hope that it will resolve soon or that I’ll get past how weird it feels to me. Generally speaking, it’s one of those things that, as a reader and a writer, I can see the author is going for something but I can’t tell whether its just not landing for me or if they’re not doing a great job of it.
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Gideon The Ninth Was A Lark
Aside from one friend recommending a wide array of books, I’ve never really encountered anyone who has talked about why someone should read Gideon The Ninth or its sequels. Tons of people talked about those books, but it was mostly hidden behind spoiler tags, involved little more than invoking the jacket blurb describing it as “lesbian necromancers in space,” or was people parroting quotations back and forth that were lines removed from context that mostly weren’t spoilers. No one really talked about the book in a way that made it seem interesting or appealing to someone who hadn’t read it yet, just talking about various critical plot moments or theories about the upcoming third book instead of really trying to expand the web of people who’ve read it. I will be the first to admit that I probably need to find better sources for books and book-related discussions given how unreliable my casual discussion spheres appear to be, but I also felt like this had become an established series for a lot of people which made it fall into the “of course everyone knows about this and has read it” void. Aside from the one recommendation I’d gotten from a friend (which is ultimately what made me buy the book since I deeply trust her taste in books), it seemed like no one ever felt the need to suggest it to anyone.
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