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Humerus posted:Imo you should read Harrow, I was also bummed about the ending of Gideon but it's all going somewhere. Thanks for starting this thread, OP - I find myself loving these books way more than I feel like I should, since they're very obviously what they are - a mashup of YA and horror genre tropes with pop culture executed by somebody thoroughly embedded in fanfic culture. But for some reason Muir can do poo poo that I would passionately hate in any other author and it works. The "none pizza left beef" reference in Harrow is the kind of thing that I would usually throw a book across a room for but even that I didn't despise as much. I think she manages to dance between different voices from gothic to twitter really smoothly, somehow. Re: Harrow, I think there's some interesting openness in how it can be interpreted. For me, I think that Harrow gave herself a targeted version of schizophrenia (see Teacher asking about her Temporal lobe), that both gave her an overwritten memory and a reason to mistrust her own perceptions in case she came up with something that didn't fit with her fake memories. To write her fake history, she raised a group of revenants to write a new story of Canaan house, and she also rewrote her history of the Body to give her a target for all of her love to write Gideon out of her head. The interesting question and the open door is that since we know that the revenants she raised have their own experiences and include Wake trying to take over her head, did maybe her connection to the Body leave an open door for Alecto to either directly do the same or to escape some other way. So to me most of her hallucinations were invented, or at least she invented the basic structure, but I think that Alecto might have/probably did use that to get out.
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Aug 19, 2020 17:16
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Entropic posted:
I have a Kindle copy of Gideon the Ninth and my copy has this as well as her notes on where the names came from. It's interesting and has some implications for the long-term storyline. E.g. (no spoiler here for anything that's been published yet) she says that Harrowhark's name comes from the Harrowing of Hell combined with "hark" as a cry for attention. She's put a lot of thought into layering different references throughout the book. I love the fact that Gideon the Ninth has a consumptive damsel as a character - she's such a great take on a gothic staple.
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Aug 19, 2020 17:52
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Rand Brittain posted:So, looking back on Gideon after reading Harrow, I kind of wonder how the Emperor wanted and/or expected things on the First to turn out. Teacher implied that he really wanted eight Lyctors, and his demeanor kind of fits that, but at the same time he basically put up a big sign saying KILL EVERYBODY ELSE. I don't trust Teacher at all - he also told Gideon to try to kill Harrow but never acknowledged that at all. I think that the Emperor has "kindly aspects," and Teacher is one of them - but they're aspects or roles, not really him. They're archetypes he puts on to interact with humans, but behind it I think he's truly evil and I suspect that in Alecto we're going to learn more about the Blood of Eden crew and realize they're the good guys in the story. So my suspicion is that Teacher may have been disappointed with the outcome of Canaan house, but the Emperor got exactly what he wanted.
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Aug 21, 2020 22:41
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redreader posted:Ok, thanks for the replies. I'll give book 2 a go. I know it'll be good, I enjoyed the first one, mostly. Book two is.... extremely different. They released a preview of it for free a while back that was basically Act 1 of the book, which in my thinking was a good idea because it meant that by the time the book itself dropped I had worked through my confusion, what the gently caress, and disappointment that the new book was so different and was able to enjoy it a lot more. If those previews are still up you might want to see if you can find one. Having said that, Harrow the Ninth is a great book and it does an excellent job moving the story forward and it does have all the elements I liked from Gideon. It's just a very different book in its structure and tone and gave me whiplash when I started reading it.
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Aug 21, 2020 23:44
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I'm trying to get my head around what we know about the universe so far/the timeline. Here's what I've currently got - it's all spoilered because it's drawing from both books but I separately flagged the only big reveals I think are actually important. General knowledge: 1. There are lots of habitable planets in the universe, to the point where life is common 2. Many of the livable planets have humans on them, but not all do. 3. Many (most?) of the planets with humans on them are not part of the Empire. Non-Empire planets don't appear to use necromancy. 4. People can travel FTL either through the river (if Lyctor), or through the use of necromantic stelae, or possibly other techniques too 5. At some point in the past Dominicus died/went out and the planets it supports died too. Big spoilers 6. At some point in the past the Emperor figured out the perfect Lyctor technique, giving him massive power Back to general knowledge 7. The Emperor used his massive power to resurrect Dominicus as well as huge chunks of humanity, in several waves 8. The Emperor encouraged his buddies to experiment to discover Lyctorhood 9. The Emperor formed the Cohorts, establishing expeditionary militaries to go out and conquer. 10. The Empire is currently spreading out and conquering as much as it can. So based on all of the above, I wonder a couple of things: 1. What happened pre-Resurrection? How did humanity get so spread out, or was that a post-Resurrection ocurrence? Was necromancy always a thing or was the Emperor the first real necromancer? 2. Why was the Resurrection necessary? Did people not know Dominicus was dying? Was it an attack? 3. Are humans the only intelligent species? Why, if life is so common? Why haven't we heard about others, if not? The ending of Harrow makes me think we're going to get a lot of the answers to all of that in Alecto.
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Sep 4, 2020 21:59
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Rand Brittain posted:
That interpretation makes a lot of sense. I think the big-R Resurrections were powered by the sudden deaths of entire planets, which would fit with your theory too - hence the Resurrection beasts.
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Sep 5, 2020 00:01
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Poldarn posted:I know that Gideon's extremely online turns of phrase should make me cringe, but they delight me instead. Me too. Muir gets away with poo poo in this series that would make me put other authors on the never-read-again list and I'm not sure why it works for me. I think it's because the voice of the books does a good job at flipping between different registers - YA romance, locked-room mystery, cosmic horror, classic gothic - and meme poo poo is just another voice that is part of the blend. It would be grating and fourth-wall breaking in other books that tried to keep more of a consistent voice, but the mashup of different genres is one of the things that's appealing to me about the book and the meme poo poo is part of that. Re: Wake's name, it's a good example... it's a weird anachronism and stupid internet call-back, but at the same time it works for me because it: A. Establishes Wake as an idealist/radical who directly blames the Emperor for something ( in the "awake to the countless dead" bit ), B. Positions her as a kind of "if I can't dance I don't want to be a part of your revolution" style activist in a way that feels like a direct line from modern protest movements, and C. Works as a direct contrast to the pseudogothic/latinesque names of the nine houses and the modern/unassuming names of John . To me it implies the existence of a kind of Ian Banks Culture-esque human society outside of the Empire.
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Sep 8, 2020 18:36
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I saw an interview with Muir where she said that there are hints to the overall plot/structure in the alternate reality Canaan House shorts . The only one that stood out to me was the 6th house not participating in the beauty pageant - I took it to mean that they're not actually very supportive of the Emperor. But then I realized that at least Camilla and Palmedes are both in open rebellion by the end of the book and realized that wasn't exactly an easter egg. . I don't know if there are any others.
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Sep 9, 2020 22:54
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Foxfire_ posted:
This was my take also, and my personal expectation is that the implication that the soul is either Gideon-primary or Harrow-primary is a headfake and it's going to turn out to be Alecto-primary.
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Sep 14, 2020 15:09
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Senerio posted:Some people are born memelords and some people have memes thrusted upon them. Gideon appropriate because this is also the phrase that probably wins the title for "dick joke most often quoted by people who don't realize it was originally a dick joke"
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Oct 19, 2020 19:29
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Muir basically stated flat-out that one of the levels that this book is written on is an idealized lesbian romance wish fulfillment, so I think that the best vision of Nav is whatever helps the story connect to the reader.
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Mar 2, 2021 19:27
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Oenis posted:Get iiiiiin. Never been so hyped about a book, honestly. I'm gifting Gideon to my partner this Christmas to eventually get her to finally read it. She has a lot of sci-fi classics on her reading pile already and I don't have the right words (beyond repeating my endless praise and love for the books) to compel her to put it on top. But I hope she will get around to it next year and finally realize that space necromancy is glorious. It took me forever to pick it up because the cover blurb "teenage lesbian necromancers in space!" made it sound so incredibly puerile or exploitative. It took until I was bored and the library had a copy before I tried it.
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Dec 16, 2021 00:08
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PupsOfWar posted:smh Between this and 90's Cringe Rock's comment I have a sudden image of a Locked Tomb AU where all the houses are rollerderby teams.
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Dec 16, 2021 22:51
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"Well, jail for mother"
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Feb 11, 2022 21:57
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A reference I didn't get at first and now I can't track down the source: When Sextus meets amnesia-Harrow in his construct and asks her about her cavalier and Harrow says that her cavalier is the furnace that burns her lyctorhood, Sextus says "how God takes-and takes-and takes" I could swear I came across this phrase in reading about a historic figure who wrote in his diary when his wife and son died that "God gives, and he takes, and he takes, and he takes." But now I can't find the source for that, except that the same line is repeated in a (great) Sufjan Stevens song and I could easily see Sufjan coming across the same source material. So does anybody know that source? Maybe I dreamed it.
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Feb 11, 2022 23:57
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neongrey posted:i think thats the thing that helps me tolerate the memes in the series so well-- they're applied fairly naturally, like you would if they're part of the normal vernacular of the people using them. I like them less when they stick out more, and I definitely remember there being a few of those, though I cant remember which specifically. The only one that landed off for me was the "none pizza left beef" reference, because grammatically it's such a weird construction it's hard to make it feel natural.
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Jun 8, 2022 18:52
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One thing that jumped out to me in Nona that I don't know if the thread talked about - apparently Lyctors take the middle name of their Cav. So Emperor John Gaius is named that to show that he is in Lyctoral union with the spirit of Gaia, as we learn in the Nona Harrowhark sections . I have to say that even with some of the hints that in retrospect were in HtN, I did not see that coming and it is one hell of a concept.
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Sep 19, 2022 17:18
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Foxfire_ posted:
I think that there's a subtle but consistent through-line in Harrow that shows that she's at heart concerned about the innocent and unwilling to do things she considers immoral. Maybe due to her birth and the feeling that she has to atone, or maybe just because of who she is as a character. She yells at Sexpal because he admits he thought she might have cannibalized her cav for the lyctor process, and there's a sense in GtN that she's ready to resist the whole system of lyctors if that's what it's built on. That goes away in HtN and it's striking - her line about how her cav is the furnace that fires her lyctorhood is massively out of character for her as of GtN, and Palamedes seems to feel that way too. Based on her general character, it wouldn't surprise me that she would see killing Jod as the better option once she gets more insight into how manipulative and brutal he is .
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Oct 3, 2022 19:46
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Everyone posted:I suppose. My take was that John was telling the mostly truthful if somewhat self-serving story of how all this poo poo started. He and his friends were trying to develop a process to save all/most of humanity from a planet that was becoming unlivable. Ultimately the rich and powerful used their wealth and power to steal/repurpose the science meant to save all of humanity into building a few special ships designed to save their own asses. Once John realized that, after they'd launched, he lost his entire goddam mind to rage and killed the whole solar system while trying to them, which created the Resurrection Beasts. The great thing about that is that it's 100% consistent with some of the most strident eco-activists I know. I get a distinct sense sometimes that they're driven more by ego and "gently caress me? No, gently caress YOU" than a genuine desire to save the world.
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Nov 14, 2022 20:25
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