The Ninth House is not a nice place to live. The climate is harsh, almost nothing grows in the soil, the day and night cycle takes months. One is surrounded by a small, aging population and by animated skeletons that take care of manual work. And when someone dies of old age or illness, their skeleton is reanimated through necromancy and joins the ranks of willless workers.
Gideon is an 18 years old orphan and foundling, and wants to get off the planet for good. The only other person her age on the entire planet is Harrowhark Nonagesimus, a necromantic nun and heir to the Ninth House. Also, she hates Gideon and Gideon hates her, with a fiery passion.
On the day of Gideon's 87th attempt at escaping the planet, a correspondence from the Emperor All-Giving, Necrolord Prime, Resurrection, King Undying, or, a bit shorter and to-the-point - a correspondence from God, reaches the Ninth House and links the fates of both young women together.

Content warning?

This series contains a lot of (sometimes quite graphical) violence, a lot of swearing and some gore or body horror (it's about necromancers after all). It also deals with topics like trauma, self-harm and suicide.

You should know your anatomy vocabulary (or be prepared to look it up)

Sometimes very specific bones, muscles, organs or body parts are mentioned, used or described. I read the first book in German and was fine most of the time, but then the second book in English and struggled a bit with this specific vocabulary.

What?

The Locked Tomb is a series of dystopian adult science fantasy books by Tamsyn Muir featuring a lot of queer characters. It takes place about ten thousand years in the future, probably in a part of the milky way, and necromancy in many different forms is running the world. The fourth and final book Alecto the Ninth is expected to release somewhen 2024. A very popular tagline for the series, given by its fans, is "Lesbian Necromancers in space".

Let's talk about the books one by one:

Book 1: Gideon the Ninth

This is the start of the story. We get to know the protagonist, Gideon, as an edgy and foul mouthed teenager who despises everything about her current life and her surroundings. And it's understandable - there is literally one person on the entire planet who doesn't hate her, she doesn't belong there and is not at all interested in the necromantic cult ruling the Ninth House. I found it quite easy to sympathize with Gideon and understand her motives and doings.

The book starts out in the middle of a situation, resolves it, drops you into a way bigger situation and starts with world building, lore, and more world building. It really takes its time until stuff starts happening again - this is a common occurrence in all the Locked Tomb books. But it pays off - the lore combined with the really intriguing plot (after it finally gets going) result in a super interesting and complex book that I want to re-read again soon to get all the little (and maybe not so little) intricacies I missed the first time - this is also a common occurrence in all the Locked Tomb books.

What I liked

• I love the world and its lore - I find it very intriguing and got caught off guard quite often
• I really like the main protagonist
• Character arc galore: in this book you get to know Gideon and 15 more characters, who all start out very one dimensional. You get to know a lot more about almost of all them, and a substantial amount of them experiences a very well written character arc. It's really fun to follow them and see them grow.
• The ending is awesome

What I did not like

• Well, for about the first fifth of the book I wasn't sure if I like it because of all the world building - but it payed off in the end
• There is one specific instance of a key character acting very against their character development that really rubbed me the wrong way. It gets glossed over and it feels like the rest of the cast acts as if it did not happen a few pages later - I don't think the story gained anything by having it in. Overall not a huge deal, but I was quite pissed off for a few pages.
• The main character could be described as very "edgy", which sets the tone for most of the book - I think it fits quite well, but might be a turn off for some

You should read it

If you don't mind the things mentioned in the content warning, and can deal with a lot of exposition and the edginess of an 18 years old who grew up on a barren planet, surrounded by old people, necromancers and skeletons, I highly recommend this book! And, besides all the good things I mentioned before that await you in it, after you finished reading, another awesome thing is waiting for you:

Book 2: Harrow the Ninth

The second book, as the title suggests, focuses on Harrowhark Nonagesimus, who we already got to know a lot in the first book. Well, getting to know her from Gideon's point of view was apparently not enough, because in this book...

You are Harrow

You. Yes, you. The one reading the book or listening to the audio book - you are Harrowhark Nonagesimus. The book is (mostly) written in the second person perspective ("you were", "you did") which at first felt very strange to me, because I never read a full length book written in this perspective. But it is so damn immersive. What makes it even more strange and interesting is the fact that you (Harrow) are insane and sometimes seeing or hearing things that others don't. Also, the book uses this perspective to deal with topics like trauma, adhd and self-doubts in a very intimate and direct way.

Does it get going faster than Book 1? (No)

The book starts with

Prologue: The Night Before the Emperor's Murder

This is the first thing you learn: in this book, god will be murdered. Everything that happens in the prologue gives some very vague hints to the rest of the book, but is mostly meaningless to the first time reader.

Then the world building and lore dumping starts, this time even move convoluted than in book one - Harrow seems mentally less capable than in the previous book, is struggling with hallucinations and you get flashbacks into her past thrown in between (the are written in the third person perspective - awesome use of the stylistic device in my opinion!), which at some point start recounting the story of the first book, just with some... let's call it twists...

But, again, it's really worth it. After something like half of the (audio) book, I found myself staying in the car after arriving at my destination just to hear a few more lines and see how the plot thickens (or continues).

What I liked

• I love the world and all the lore of this series. Yes, sometimes it's a bit tedious to get through, but it's so worth it in my opinion
• A book in the second person perspective was a very interesting experience, especially with all the "spiciness" mixed in
• At some point, late in the book, a third perspective comes in: there are passages that are written in the first person perspective. It makes complete sense lore-wise, brings a very different point of view and vocabulary, and when it happened for the first time it was one of my favorite book moments in the last few years.
• The resolution of a lot of the complex, intertwined and confusing things that are happening to you through the book is very satisfying
• I really like the book but it's hard to list more things here without major spoilers

What I did not like

• The world building is very complex and (deliberately) confusing for a big portion of the book. It is worth it, though!
• Because of the above point, I was in doubt if some of my favourite characters from the first book even existed. Not a nice thing to feel.
• The plot ends in three separate climaxes - the first is good, the second is awesome and the third one is... there. I know it is necessary to set up the third book, but I'm still not a fan.

Should you read it?

If you liked Gideon the Ninth - yes, without any question.

Book 3: Nona the Ninth

My initial thoughts after being ~1/5 in (but I'm done now, just leaving these three bullet points in for completeness sake):

• Contrary to the first two books, I wasn't a fan of the main cast at the start, but they started growing on me
• As it is law, the first 3h of the audio book were 100% exposition and world building (it feels like stuff might start happening any minute now)
• Some between-chapter-sections start showing a link between 20th century earth and the book series' world, which is quite interesting

Apparently, this was not the book that the author planned to write

The original plan was for the Locked Tomb to be a trilogy: Gideon, Harrow and Alecto. But, during writing the third tome, Nona came and needed her own book.

Tamsyn Muir and I were as surprised as anyone when Nona arrived, bursting forth from Alecto the Ninth with an irrepressible energy and presence. She could not be contained, and demanded her own volume.

So, what is the book about?

Let me try to do this without spoilers for the previous books -
Nona is a six months old soul in a body of an 18 years old woman. She has the mental and physical capabilities of an elementary school child, except for the small fact that her body can heal injuries within seconds. Nona lives together with a few (side) characters, known to the reader from the previous books, in a city in the middle of a civil war rebelling against the necromantic empire, filled with people full of panic, doubts and superstitions about anything that seems connected to necromancy at all. She works as a teacher's aide (where her main task is taking Noodle, a six legged poodle, on a walk during the science class) and is part of a gang of middle-schoolers. Then stuff happens.

It feels very different to the first two books

Even if in the second book the perspective is very unusual and different from the first one, it still was about lesbian necromancers in space. This book is about a child trying to understand itself, others, the cruel world around it and doing its best to blend in. At some point the story manages to find its way to being more about lesbian necromancers, but
it
takes
sooooo
loooong
to
get
going...

Sooooo loooong?

In my opinion, one could say that almost half of the book, with some very brief action injected in-between, can be called "exposition". Next to Nona's story, we get some dream-like flashbacks where we learn the story of how earth died (literally today's earth, there is even a "Twilight" reference) and how God became God.

Let's do it the other way round this time: what did I not like about Nona the Ninth

• It took me quite a while to get used to the whole settings and to the characters, especially to Nona and the people living together with her
• The huge amount of (still mostly quite interesting) exposition made this book the hardest of the three to get through
• It ends on the harshest cliffhanger yet

What I liked

• After getting over my initial dislike, I saw the light - Nona is the sweetest, cutest and loveliest being in all universe, it's impossible not to love her
• The link back to 21 century's earth is super interesting, and also full of "omg, no he didn't"s
• Some characters from the previous books are reprised, but in a unexpected way or context
• The perspective from outside of the empire is very intriguing - we are basically the enemy now, compared to the first two books
• When stuff finally gets going - boy oh boy, it get's going. I found myself not wanting to get of my car after arriving because the audio book was so exciting
• The ending is awesome

Should you read it?

The toughest one to recommend, but overall I really liked the book - Nona, the overall story and the history about creation of the empire. So I would say, if you can stomach a vastly different setting and power through a lot of exposition (and you liked the previous books) - then this book is for you!

Closing remarks

That's it from me for now - the first two books are awesome, the third is a bit harder to get through but overall still awesome, really looking forward to the resolution of the story in Alecto. Also, one more thing I did not mention in the individual book reviews: Tamsyn Muir's writing style is nothing short of awesome, full of humour and sarcasm and so immensely quotable.