And her body was like the chrysolite
September 20, 2024 4:11 PM Subscribe
Tamsyn Muir -- creator of a queer gothic necromantic space dystopia/paradise from which only she is personally barred -- has nonetheless invited the rest of us back to her world in a new short story. The multi-genre script that is the story occurs midway through Nona the Ninth inside a nested set of souls and also a graduate seminar and also a British country house murder mystery. (Previously and previously).
Gideon et al is fabulous, and for all I think spoilers are an overblown part of modern discourse, worth experiencing clean to get the new mind bafflement when you hit book 2.
If you like Muir it's worth checking out fellow kiwi Sascha Stronach, author of The Dawnhounds, who Tamsyn Muir wrote an encomium for - her second book is out now, The Sunforge, and is even better and weirder imo.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:13 PM on September 20 [7 favorites]
If you like Muir it's worth checking out fellow kiwi Sascha Stronach, author of The Dawnhounds, who Tamsyn Muir wrote an encomium for - her second book is out now, The Sunforge, and is even better and weirder imo.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:13 PM on September 20 [7 favorites]
I'm not even done with this and it's really good.
Frankly, even though people praise Tamsyn Muir quite a lot, I don't think they praise her enough, because a lot of people read book one and either don't want to read the others or have their expectations set by it - snappy dialogue, YA tropes, parents dead/absent/evil, more fucking snappy dialogue until you almost DNF the book, ahem. But then the second book reconfigures everything and actually it is amazing. Assuming the series lives up to the first parts, I think it's something that actually belongs on the shelf with, eg, Dhalgren.
posted by Frowner at 5:22 PM on September 20 [11 favorites]
Frankly, even though people praise Tamsyn Muir quite a lot, I don't think they praise her enough, because a lot of people read book one and either don't want to read the others or have their expectations set by it - snappy dialogue, YA tropes, parents dead/absent/evil, more fucking snappy dialogue until you almost DNF the book, ahem. But then the second book reconfigures everything and actually it is amazing. Assuming the series lives up to the first parts, I think it's something that actually belongs on the shelf with, eg, Dhalgren.
posted by Frowner at 5:22 PM on September 20 [11 favorites]
Ooh!
posted by Coaticass at 5:25 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]
posted by Coaticass at 5:25 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]
To continue for a moment, it is hard to overstate how much I disliked Gideon the Ninth. Frankly implausible universe, special-wecial teenage snowflakes who also just happen to be incredible geniuses and their endless stupid decisions and boring teenpain, so very unfair, etc. And the goddamn sub-Buffy snappy dialogue until you just want to go live with whales and never think of spoken human language again. Even though I like it now in the context of the series, it still makes me kind of angry to think about that first read.
And then you realized that you've been sort of faked out by the first book and it is actually extremely sophisticated and cool when you understand the context. There are some books of recent years that have been very big deals that I think are good but not nearly as genre-rocking as they're held to be, but I think these have the famous it.
posted by Frowner at 5:30 PM on September 20 [10 favorites]
And then you realized that you've been sort of faked out by the first book and it is actually extremely sophisticated and cool when you understand the context. There are some books of recent years that have been very big deals that I think are good but not nearly as genre-rocking as they're held to be, but I think these have the famous it.
posted by Frowner at 5:30 PM on September 20 [10 favorites]
You do realize that you are a bad person who should feel bad, right?
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:49 PM on September 20 [3 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:49 PM on September 20 [3 favorites]
For not liking that book? I belong to a book group where virtually everyone hated both Black Leopard, Red Wolf and Harrow The Ninth AND Breath of the Sun, all truly outstanding books. I ran a bookgroup where almost everyone hated A Stranger In Olondria, a book I would do necromantic battle for and can in fact quote passages from without recourse to the text. I do not feel bad about disliking Gideon the Ninth until I saw how it fit into the series. Further, a friend who has extremely fine literary judgement shares my opinion, and so I know that at least one smart person who is a better reader than I am feels the same.
posted by Frowner at 5:56 PM on September 20 [9 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 5:56 PM on September 20 [9 favorites]
Also I hate lore. There are too many books with lore, "houses", etc. If I wanted to be a trainspotter, I live near the railroad tracks.
Luckily, while these books have lore and people can certainly geek out about it as much as they want, and of course you have to know enough about the books to understand the plot, it's "lore" in much the same way that Book of the New Sun has lore, like it's just that there's a lot of there there.
posted by Frowner at 6:00 PM on September 20 [5 favorites]
Luckily, while these books have lore and people can certainly geek out about it as much as they want, and of course you have to know enough about the books to understand the plot, it's "lore" in much the same way that Book of the New Sun has lore, like it's just that there's a lot of there there.
posted by Frowner at 6:00 PM on September 20 [5 favorites]
Huh. Well, I guess I'm just Too Mainstream. I thought the first book was delightful, and the second one was impenetrable and mostly insufferable. I desperately wanted to like it; I liked THINGS about it, liked the precursor, like the author, but I just couldn't get through it. I will, however, look up Sascha Stronach on Libby this very evening. Always happy to have new recommendations, and I thank you very much.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:05 PM on September 20 [6 favorites]
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:05 PM on September 20 [6 favorites]
Book of the New Sun is an apt comparison, because they're both books where one has no freakin clue wtf is going on the first time you read them. Multiple rereads later I'm still not sure I understand half of what Muir is doing. (I definitely don't fully grok Wolfe but I didn't expect to.)
posted by Wretch729 at 6:10 PM on September 20 [7 favorites]
posted by Wretch729 at 6:10 PM on September 20 [7 favorites]
I'm sorry, I had a tiring day and now a lot of caffeine and was mostly being hyperbolic - people with good literary judgement can have good reasons to like things that I don't like, dislike the things I like, etc. And it's certainly not like people have to like Very Serious things and anything that is merely delightful is lesser, there are too few really delightful reading experiences as is.
I will say in re bookgroups that when people always, always actively think books are bad because they are complicated or ambitious, it does make me question their judgement - but if someone simply felt that, eg, Stranger in Olondria was overrated, I mean, it is a first novel, a bit purple in places, etc.
Now I will try to let the caffeine wear off.
posted by Frowner at 6:10 PM on September 20 [3 favorites]
I will say in re bookgroups that when people always, always actively think books are bad because they are complicated or ambitious, it does make me question their judgement - but if someone simply felt that, eg, Stranger in Olondria was overrated, I mean, it is a first novel, a bit purple in places, etc.
Now I will try to let the caffeine wear off.
posted by Frowner at 6:10 PM on September 20 [3 favorites]
Frowner, I didn't take anything amiss. The second book was the kind of book that makes me feel like a lazy and inattentive reader; I was glad to hear Wretch729 say it's possible to have no idea what's happening the first time through, because I certainly didn't. I also tend to want one reading to be enough, particularly when the book in question goes *on and freaking on*--and I say that only in the most affectionate way, as someone who still has a high opinion of the author, and even of the book, though it kind of wore me out.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:18 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]
posted by Sing Or Swim at 6:18 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]
Huh. Well, I guess I'm just Too Mainstream. I thought the first book was delightful, and the second one was impenetrable and mostly insufferable.
I originally loved Gideon immensely and was mostly baffled by Harrow on first reading.
When Nona was released I reread the first two, and gained a lot more appreciation for Harrow. The first is still my favorite in the series though.
posted by Foosnark at 6:42 PM on September 20 [3 favorites]
I originally loved Gideon immensely and was mostly baffled by Harrow on first reading.
When Nona was released I reread the first two, and gained a lot more appreciation for Harrow. The first is still my favorite in the series though.
posted by Foosnark at 6:42 PM on September 20 [3 favorites]
As a trans sapphic woman, there is so much for me to love in this series. Trans adjacent issues run throughout, and Gideon is of course a character I can really adore.
As a mom, the third book was particularly riveting, with parenting themes front and center.
Can’t wait for the next full book.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 6:53 PM on September 20 [3 favorites]
As a mom, the third book was particularly riveting, with parenting themes front and center.
Can’t wait for the next full book.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 6:53 PM on September 20 [3 favorites]
I enjoyed Gideon the Ninth, mostly for its vibes, though was often confused as to who the chracters were, who was speaking to whom, stuff like that, but I liked it well enough.
I started Harrow, got about twenty pages in before admitting to myself I understood even less than Gideon and was not vibing with its vibes, so I DNFed it.
I might go back someday, once I'm done reading (or rereading) all the other books.
posted by signal at 7:57 PM on September 20
I started Harrow, got about twenty pages in before admitting to myself I understood even less than Gideon and was not vibing with its vibes, so I DNFed it.
I might go back someday, once I'm done reading (or rereading) all the other books.
posted by signal at 7:57 PM on September 20
signal: Harrow the Ninth is really hard to start, so i don't blame you, but it's very rewarding once you get into it.
I own Nona but refuse to read it until the last one is out.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:08 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]
I own Nona but refuse to read it until the last one is out.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:08 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]
I loved the first book, though I found it difficult. The second book was worse, and I understood very little of it, but I loved it. Muir can write, and it doesn't matter whether you get it or not. Nona was almost worse, but I was happy to read it and know there's more coming, because then I'll re-read the earlier books and maybe get them. But even if I don't, I'll still love them.
posted by lhauser at 8:21 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]
posted by lhauser at 8:21 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]
I enjoyed the first book and was also confused by it, which meant that I was really super confused by the second. I pushed through to the point where the narrative cracks open a bit more, and then found the third book lopsided a bit but also enjoyable. They all get better on rereading, although part of that is Muir’s deep love of putting a hat on a hat on a hat, which sometimes works and sometimes makes me go “that is too many hats.” But even when she’s at her most extravagant, her writing is solid.
posted by PussKillian at 8:37 PM on September 20 [5 favorites]
posted by PussKillian at 8:37 PM on September 20 [5 favorites]
It's rewarding, to some extent, to engage with fan/discussion communities if you're having trouble. Not a requirement, just something that some people might enjoy.
It'll also help you pick up on which story elements originated as internet memes (most of them, tbh -- this series has a lot of "when it hits you..." moments).
posted by verbminx at 8:39 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]
It'll also help you pick up on which story elements originated as internet memes (most of them, tbh -- this series has a lot of "when it hits you..." moments).
posted by verbminx at 8:39 PM on September 20 [1 favorite]
I absolutely loved the vibes and attitude of Gideon the 9th but it felt as if the story kind of got away from the writer in the second half. I could feel the pressure of her thumbs as she tried to squish the plot into a publishable story. Which is understandable in a first novel?
I started the second book but I wasn't in the right mental space for anything but an easy read, and it's not an easy read. I'm quite curious about it, maybe I should give it another try.
posted by Zumbador at 10:23 PM on September 20
I started the second book but I wasn't in the right mental space for anything but an easy read, and it's not an easy read. I'm quite curious about it, maybe I should give it another try.
posted by Zumbador at 10:23 PM on September 20
You really have no way of understanding what's going on in Harrow until about 4/5 of the way through it. I did a "let's read" of it elsewhere, and all of my guesses were comically wrong. There are still bits of timeline at the end if Gideon and start of Harrow that don't line up for me. I didn't have any issues with Nona, because I didn't worry about who she was (unlike the characters in the book). One of the things I like about the series is that each book's REALLY different.
Also, the series needs an annotated version, like Sandman.
posted by Spike Glee at 11:14 PM on September 20 [5 favorites]
Also, the series needs an annotated version, like Sandman.
posted by Spike Glee at 11:14 PM on September 20 [5 favorites]
actually extremely sophisticated and cool
One of the half formed thoughts tumbling through my head is "art for whom", and I love that she has made Literature for people who love Warhammer 40K and fanfic.
hat on a hat on a hat
I'm fond of Kingdom Hearts nerds, but it's always been a patronising "bless them and their ridiculously named sequels, they must have been very upset to learn that all of Blorbo's childhood friends are actually soul clones of Ixnoxnxtl, I could never enjoy such nonsense". And then I read Nona, and evidently I could enjoy such nonsense. I mean, not KH itself, that's still tosh, but I've gained some empathy.
posted by Hermione Dies at 1:06 AM on September 21 [2 favorites]
One of the half formed thoughts tumbling through my head is "art for whom", and I love that she has made Literature for people who love Warhammer 40K and fanfic.
hat on a hat on a hat
I'm fond of Kingdom Hearts nerds, but it's always been a patronising "bless them and their ridiculously named sequels, they must have been very upset to learn that all of Blorbo's childhood friends are actually soul clones of Ixnoxnxtl, I could never enjoy such nonsense". And then I read Nona, and evidently I could enjoy such nonsense. I mean, not KH itself, that's still tosh, but I've gained some empathy.
posted by Hermione Dies at 1:06 AM on September 21 [2 favorites]
> I enjoyed Gideon the Ninth, mostly for its vibes, though was often confused as to who the chracters were, who was speaking to whom, stuff like that, but I liked it well enough.
Yeah, I'm a fan but Muir's stength is not dialogue. It's often hard to tell characters apart by what they're saying and the deeper you get into the series the more this weakness becomes a problem. When different conciousnesses are moving in an out of scenes with only a passing nod (someones posture changes briefly etc.) keeping track of who's saying what is difficult and the function of the dialogue becomes (for me) purely information rather than character building which sort of sucks the emotional weight out of things (for me).
posted by tomp at 1:24 AM on September 21 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I'm a fan but Muir's stength is not dialogue. It's often hard to tell characters apart by what they're saying and the deeper you get into the series the more this weakness becomes a problem. When different conciousnesses are moving in an out of scenes with only a passing nod (someones posture changes briefly etc.) keeping track of who's saying what is difficult and the function of the dialogue becomes (for me) purely information rather than character building which sort of sucks the emotional weight out of things (for me).
posted by tomp at 1:24 AM on September 21 [2 favorites]
One of the things I like about the series is that each book's REALLY different.
It's true!
Frowner, your criticism made me happy because I felt the same way about pretty much all of it and haven't heard that from a lot of people. I think when Alecto comes out I'll need to reread everything and I wonder if I'll like Gideon more the second time, knowing more.
I started the second book but I wasn't in the right mental space for anything but an easy read, and it's not an easy read. I'm quite curious about it, maybe I should give it another try.
I think so, yeah. I've been not in the mental space for an easy read for years and tbh found Gideon not so easy (italicizing the titles to distinguish from the characters) - maybe there was too much to have to visualize or too many character details to keep track of, I don't remember. In some ways Harrow is easier since it's much more tightly focused on what is going on with one character. The mystery isn't "what's up with this house and this test and every single one of these characters and these murders and this world and how does Gideon not get exhausted living in constant snarky meme mode", it's mostly "what's up with Harrow's brain (and this world)". TBH I don't think knowing the answer to the first question takes anything away from the story (and maybe makes the read easier), since I got the gist of it around the second time Harrow used the wrong name for Gideon. But the writing was so good, and I had such an easier time caring about Harrow than Gideon, and it rewrote parts of the first book in such interesting ways, that I found it easier to read than Gideon and possibly even Nona.
If you watch any TV series where sometimes there'll be episodes where without warning everything is shown through a different lens and you have to reorient yourself, and either don't mind those episodes or enjoy how they take the story deeper, then you have a good chance of liking Harrow.
posted by trig at 1:36 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]
It's true!
Frowner, your criticism made me happy because I felt the same way about pretty much all of it and haven't heard that from a lot of people. I think when Alecto comes out I'll need to reread everything and I wonder if I'll like Gideon more the second time, knowing more.
I started the second book but I wasn't in the right mental space for anything but an easy read, and it's not an easy read. I'm quite curious about it, maybe I should give it another try.
I think so, yeah. I've been not in the mental space for an easy read for years and tbh found Gideon not so easy (italicizing the titles to distinguish from the characters) - maybe there was too much to have to visualize or too many character details to keep track of, I don't remember. In some ways Harrow is easier since it's much more tightly focused on what is going on with one character. The mystery isn't "what's up with this house and this test and every single one of these characters and these murders and this world and how does Gideon not get exhausted living in constant snarky meme mode", it's mostly "what's up with Harrow's brain (and this world)". TBH I don't think knowing the answer to the first question takes anything away from the story (and maybe makes the read easier), since I got the gist of it around the second time Harrow used the wrong name for Gideon. But the writing was so good, and I had such an easier time caring about Harrow than Gideon, and it rewrote parts of the first book in such interesting ways, that I found it easier to read than Gideon and possibly even Nona.
If you watch any TV series where sometimes there'll be episodes where without warning everything is shown through a different lens and you have to reorient yourself, and either don't mind those episodes or enjoy how they take the story deeper, then you have a good chance of liking Harrow.
posted by trig at 1:36 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]
The second book was an enormous mistake of editing that is nearly unforgivable. If Muir had sent the manuscript in, and the editor had turned around and said no, second person perspective is the wrong choice, 80 percent of that books problems would have been solved. I didn’t work out what happened in that book until I went and read the wiki page for it.
Gideon and Nona are both good though. Nona is actually stronger than Gideon, a better book in plotting and character. But Harrow packs too much in, and in a weird way so that it’s incredibly oblique.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:06 AM on September 21
Gideon and Nona are both good though. Nona is actually stronger than Gideon, a better book in plotting and character. But Harrow packs too much in, and in a weird way so that it’s incredibly oblique.
posted by The River Ivel at 3:06 AM on September 21
Some surprising reactions here! I loved Gideon; it's my go-to example for something a (pre-Locked Tomb) LLM couldn't generate. If you put all sf/fantasy into a blender and extrude product, you'd never ever come up with Gideon. It's amazing that it can be simultaneously comic, goth, and scary, and also tell a satisfying mystery. It really puts the romantic in necromantic, which isn't something that would have seemed like a thing before it was written.
Harrow is not as fun, but I'd say it's actually less complex. Fewer characters, except in the purposely confusing retelling of Book One. Muir obviously loves switching up viewpoints, and Harrow is darker and weirder exactly as you'd expect from, well, it being about Harrow. Nona has a very different viewpoint from either.
(I feel like Harrow retreats from the character arc she seemed to have in the first book, and that's odd, but it will probably make more sense when book 4 comes out.)
I think Muir is good at dialog-- see the play the post is about: Palamedes and Ianthe speak in very different ways. Nona is full of characters with distinctive speech.
The first link above is helpful in explaining why Gideon is written the way it is. It makes sense that it comes out of a fanfic background. It could have been written without its style of humor, but then it'd just be Gormenghast.
posted by zompist at 3:33 AM on September 21 [2 favorites]
Harrow is not as fun, but I'd say it's actually less complex. Fewer characters, except in the purposely confusing retelling of Book One. Muir obviously loves switching up viewpoints, and Harrow is darker and weirder exactly as you'd expect from, well, it being about Harrow. Nona has a very different viewpoint from either.
(I feel like Harrow retreats from the character arc she seemed to have in the first book, and that's odd, but it will probably make more sense when book 4 comes out.)
I think Muir is good at dialog-- see the play the post is about: Palamedes and Ianthe speak in very different ways. Nona is full of characters with distinctive speech.
The first link above is helpful in explaining why Gideon is written the way it is. It makes sense that it comes out of a fanfic background. It could have been written without its style of humor, but then it'd just be Gormenghast.
posted by zompist at 3:33 AM on September 21 [2 favorites]
Thank you for whoever said it was similar to the Book of the New Sun. It may not be similar in any specific way, but I bounced off the first book because I just wasn't in the mood for that much lore.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:25 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 4:25 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]
My brain liked Harrow despite loathing second person because
It’s one of the best ways to get dissociative experience across I’ve seen despite the uptick in non-neurotypical viewpoint characters in SFF
I really felt that loss of community for Muir. I don’t really do or read fanfic but losing that creative country would suck.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:43 AM on September 21 [6 favorites]
Mild spoilers
It’s one of the best ways to get dissociative experience across I’ve seen despite the uptick in non-neurotypical viewpoint characters in SFF
I really felt that loss of community for Muir. I don’t really do or read fanfic but losing that creative country would suck.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:43 AM on September 21 [6 favorites]
I enjoyed Gideon, though it felt like a first novel and the set piece fight at the end reminded me of the clunky action-movie end of the first Harry Potter book. It helped that I read the paperback, which had notes at the end that were crucial for keeping track of who was who.
I enjoyed Harrow a lot, despite generally hating puzzle perspective fiction (can't stand Faulkner). The world building is very well done, and the drip of information is both constant enough and held back enough to be exciting for me. That's a balance that's very easy to get wrong.
I was looking forward to Alecto, but when Nona came out instead, I opted to wait. The information level of these books are so dense I will have to reread, and I'm too old and busy to manage that twice.
It was fun to gift the first two to my niece when the coolest thing I could possibly do is turn her on to a lesbian space necromancer series. She squeeeed.
posted by rikschell at 5:10 AM on September 21
I enjoyed Harrow a lot, despite generally hating puzzle perspective fiction (can't stand Faulkner). The world building is very well done, and the drip of information is both constant enough and held back enough to be exciting for me. That's a balance that's very easy to get wrong.
I was looking forward to Alecto, but when Nona came out instead, I opted to wait. The information level of these books are so dense I will have to reread, and I'm too old and busy to manage that twice.
It was fun to gift the first two to my niece when the coolest thing I could possibly do is turn her on to a lesbian space necromancer series. She squeeeed.
posted by rikschell at 5:10 AM on September 21
I read Gideon on a co-editor's recommendation and was just like whuuut, why is this fan-fic quality if still quite amusing narrative getting so much traction? My co-editor, who is 28 years younger than me and my Surrogate Adult Internet Daughter, was like I knew you'd hate it, and I had to confess that I didn't hate it, so much as wonder how it got published. Whoever said it's literature for people who read Warhammer books nailed it. Ha ha, hammer, nail: I slay myself. Anyway, we argued back and forth, because she misunderstood my initial reaction to mean that I didn't like it that it was queer/trans: I was like A Memory Called Empire just chucked a queer romance randomly into the third act and was still one of my favorites from that year. I just couldn't deal with the characters all talking like snappy 2010s teens.
Now I guess I have to go read the others, given what people have said here; there's clearly more to them.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:47 AM on September 21
Now I guess I have to go read the others, given what people have said here; there's clearly more to them.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 5:47 AM on September 21
So I was googling around for reviews even though google is so bad now and one of the search suggestions proved to be "Tamsyn Muir controversy" and I thought "oh my god what NOW" and clicked, and it made me feel really old because it was so dumb.(I assume this is in the This American Life link, but if you, like me, don't really enjoy radio voices and prefer text, you may not have listened to it.)
I am very online but all this happened during the pre-vaccine phases pandemic and I've kind of detached from SFnal social media so it was all news to me.
Muir wrote a fanfic in 2011 or so in which a child was sexually abused by a villainous character and this was shown as a bad thing.
That's it, that's the tweet. Some shitstirrer on twitter turned this into "Muir sexualizes children and normalizes pedophilia" and of course there are enough of the naive, malicious or foolish on social media that this was not dismissed instantly as some dumb bullshit, and then there was this whole hate campaign, private hateful messages to Muir, etc.
There's also some secondary scandal because Muir wrote something that can be read as romantic interest between...second cousins. Incest! Of course, second cousins can marry, are pretty remotely related, etc, but still Very Bad, Very Sinful to write.
Only by the grace of god do we have any popular writers left; the incentive is clearly for everyone to retreat and write only the type of book that the NYLB press reissues because those are too difficult for fandom.
~~
I had this flash of insight just now because I was looking up some character stuff and found that one of the wikis has this whole damned TV tropes thing - for each character, there's a long long list of how they perform various "tropes", and every aspect of the story or character is construed as a trope. It's not like I've never seen TV Tropes before, but I don't usually look up books I like on there, and it just occurred to me that this is What Is Wrong With Fandom - this emphasis on chopping up a story into "tropes" which all fit in little boxes each with their own wikipedia entry.
We don't love stories, we love "enemies to lovers". We don't talk about a character as a character, we talk about him as a collection of "Heroic Suicide" and "Afterlife Antechamber" and so on, and the book we talk about as a fungible assemblage of tropes.
I don't think people can truly reduce stories to this - it's not like every fanfic is equally good, or like they are interchangeable - but there's so much pressure, and it's commercialized pressure, to categorize and do our own little Amazon-recommendations and review accordingly.
Like, if you think that sexual abuse of children is a kind of dark trope, not a topic that someone might write legitimately and seriously about, naturally any time you identify the "trope" you go ballistic, because only evil people write Bad Tropes, and there is no reason any good person would write a Bad Trope. You can understand literature as a collection of little plastic pieces that need to be assembled in a way that is virtuous, not too difficult and also fun, rather than a gestalt that can be complex and do different things.
Lore. This is why I fucking hate lore.
A story that is nothing more than the correct organization of lore is a marketer's dream.
On the one hand, the intense commercialization of publishing after the consolidations in the nineties meant that publishers realized that they could sell SFF to, like, women/people of color/marginalized genders and that has meant that some great stuff has been published that would never have seen the light of print in 1990.
On the other, there's this push for tropes and lore as an arm of marketing. Everything must be a trilogy, everything must have a wikipedia page, everything must be recommended according to what boxes it ticks, and those boxes need to be as market-friendly and small as possible. Then, if there's an actual story there rather than a comforting list of tropes, people get incredibly angry, because what they really want is Buffy but without even the limited emotional and moral complexity of that series.
posted by Frowner at 6:07 AM on September 21 [9 favorites]
I am very online but all this happened during the pre-vaccine phases pandemic and I've kind of detached from SFnal social media so it was all news to me.
Muir wrote a fanfic in 2011 or so in which a child was sexually abused by a villainous character and this was shown as a bad thing.
That's it, that's the tweet. Some shitstirrer on twitter turned this into "Muir sexualizes children and normalizes pedophilia" and of course there are enough of the naive, malicious or foolish on social media that this was not dismissed instantly as some dumb bullshit, and then there was this whole hate campaign, private hateful messages to Muir, etc.
There's also some secondary scandal because Muir wrote something that can be read as romantic interest between...second cousins. Incest! Of course, second cousins can marry, are pretty remotely related, etc, but still Very Bad, Very Sinful to write.
Only by the grace of god do we have any popular writers left; the incentive is clearly for everyone to retreat and write only the type of book that the NYLB press reissues because those are too difficult for fandom.
~~
I had this flash of insight just now because I was looking up some character stuff and found that one of the wikis has this whole damned TV tropes thing - for each character, there's a long long list of how they perform various "tropes", and every aspect of the story or character is construed as a trope. It's not like I've never seen TV Tropes before, but I don't usually look up books I like on there, and it just occurred to me that this is What Is Wrong With Fandom - this emphasis on chopping up a story into "tropes" which all fit in little boxes each with their own wikipedia entry.
We don't love stories, we love "enemies to lovers". We don't talk about a character as a character, we talk about him as a collection of "Heroic Suicide" and "Afterlife Antechamber" and so on, and the book we talk about as a fungible assemblage of tropes.
I don't think people can truly reduce stories to this - it's not like every fanfic is equally good, or like they are interchangeable - but there's so much pressure, and it's commercialized pressure, to categorize and do our own little Amazon-recommendations and review accordingly.
Like, if you think that sexual abuse of children is a kind of dark trope, not a topic that someone might write legitimately and seriously about, naturally any time you identify the "trope" you go ballistic, because only evil people write Bad Tropes, and there is no reason any good person would write a Bad Trope. You can understand literature as a collection of little plastic pieces that need to be assembled in a way that is virtuous, not too difficult and also fun, rather than a gestalt that can be complex and do different things.
Lore. This is why I fucking hate lore.
A story that is nothing more than the correct organization of lore is a marketer's dream.
On the one hand, the intense commercialization of publishing after the consolidations in the nineties meant that publishers realized that they could sell SFF to, like, women/people of color/marginalized genders and that has meant that some great stuff has been published that would never have seen the light of print in 1990.
On the other, there's this push for tropes and lore as an arm of marketing. Everything must be a trilogy, everything must have a wikipedia page, everything must be recommended according to what boxes it ticks, and those boxes need to be as market-friendly and small as possible. Then, if there's an actual story there rather than a comforting list of tropes, people get incredibly angry, because what they really want is Buffy but without even the limited emotional and moral complexity of that series.
posted by Frowner at 6:07 AM on September 21 [9 favorites]
Like, way back in the eighties or so, somewhere Barthes wrote critically about the "banality of lists", and in the nineties I was kind of offended, because there weren't a lot of lists around - an article that was like "here is a list of the best women SF writers" or "here is a list of the coolest vintage-style shoes", that was a huge resource. But Barthes was right (and so was Old Venn in Delany if that rings any bells). Lists are bad, lists are banal, lists wreck our brains and values, and fandom has turned into just a bunch of fucking lists, and that is why it is bad.
posted by Frowner at 6:10 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]
posted by Frowner at 6:10 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]
It's probably implicit in some comments above, but the thing to really keep in mind with this series is these are not the good guys. In the same vein as the Warhammer 40K universe and Judge Dredd universe were not nice places to live. It's really really worth revisiting Gideon after reading the others, because you have the whole thing reconfigured in your brain.
I mean it's a universe based on necromantic genocide, people. And no-one in a position of power is particularly concerned by that. Tamsyn Muir is asking "what would it be like to live in a WH40K universe? Well, actually, it would be appalling!" but also bringing their own weird, psychedelic vibe to it. I still don't comprehend the "magic space schoolbus goes on warhammer acid trip" ending of Nona although I loved it more than my own limbs.
Also, lesbian necromancers in space. There is literally nothing better than that.
posted by prismatic7 at 6:12 AM on September 21 [4 favorites]
I mean it's a universe based on necromantic genocide, people. And no-one in a position of power is particularly concerned by that. Tamsyn Muir is asking "what would it be like to live in a WH40K universe? Well, actually, it would be appalling!" but also bringing their own weird, psychedelic vibe to it. I still don't comprehend the "magic space schoolbus goes on warhammer acid trip" ending of Nona although I loved it more than my own limbs.
Also, lesbian necromancers in space. There is literally nothing better than that.
posted by prismatic7 at 6:12 AM on September 21 [4 favorites]
I did not open this story expecting a Platonic dialogue, but given Palamedes' name, I guess it was inevitable.
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:22 AM on September 21
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:22 AM on September 21
no, second person perspective is the wrong choice
I disagree, I think it was a much more striking way to really give people a sense of the mess that was Harrow's mind.
I will admit I know very little about WH40K other than, miniatures game and a bunch of novels with space marines and a vaguely Roman (??) flavor and I think maybe space elves (???). But I found the over-the-top oppressive gothiness, the weight and dust and dread of history, a neat setting, particularly with Gideon not liking it very much.
Yeah they're the bad guys, but in that second book they're also fighting off universe-eating monsters (which are... maybe their own fault because of all the necromancy?) and I don't get the sense that the resistance are exactly the good guys either. The flashback stuff showing how John got started were really fascinating IMHO. (At this point I don't remember if that was in the 2nd or 3rd book.) Basically they have created a huge mess and everyone is just trying to muddle through.
This thread is making me want to reread all of them, but I was planning to save that for the release of Alecto.
posted by Foosnark at 6:22 AM on September 21 [2 favorites]
I disagree, I think it was a much more striking way to really give people a sense of the mess that was Harrow's mind.
I will admit I know very little about WH40K other than, miniatures game and a bunch of novels with space marines and a vaguely Roman (??) flavor and I think maybe space elves (???). But I found the over-the-top oppressive gothiness, the weight and dust and dread of history, a neat setting, particularly with Gideon not liking it very much.
Yeah they're the bad guys, but in that second book they're also fighting off universe-eating monsters (which are... maybe their own fault because of all the necromancy?) and I don't get the sense that the resistance are exactly the good guys either. The flashback stuff showing how John got started were really fascinating IMHO. (At this point I don't remember if that was in the 2nd or 3rd book.) Basically they have created a huge mess and everyone is just trying to muddle through.
This thread is making me want to reread all of them, but I was planning to save that for the release of Alecto.
posted by Foosnark at 6:22 AM on September 21 [2 favorites]
somewhere Barthes wrote critically about the "banality of lists
(but he was also one of the biggest listmakers in the world, so grain of salt)
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:27 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]
(but he was also one of the biggest listmakers in the world, so grain of salt)
posted by tofu_crouton at 6:27 AM on September 21 [1 favorite]
I was like A Memory Called Empire just chucked a queer romance randomly into the third act
Totally not random! You just have to understand how Arkady construes flirting. (I spotted that romance by chapter 3 the very first time I read it.)
I disliked Gideon the Ninth intensely and hate-read Harrow, and from the many, many conversations I've seen and been a part of about the series, I think I just value extremely different things in a novel. In contrast to Frowner, I love lore, I just don't think the lore Muir had in mind is anything like the lore I actually care about. But I'm glad it's got a lot of folks reading queer sci-fi and I'm happy to have more things in this vein, I'll just read the next generation of the subgenre and skip this one.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:35 AM on September 21
Totally not random! You just have to understand how Arkady construes flirting. (I spotted that romance by chapter 3 the very first time I read it.)
I disliked Gideon the Ninth intensely and hate-read Harrow, and from the many, many conversations I've seen and been a part of about the series, I think I just value extremely different things in a novel. In contrast to Frowner, I love lore, I just don't think the lore Muir had in mind is anything like the lore I actually care about. But I'm glad it's got a lot of folks reading queer sci-fi and I'm happy to have more things in this vein, I'll just read the next generation of the subgenre and skip this one.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:35 AM on September 21
Lore. This is why I fucking hate lore.
What is lore, in the way it's being used in this thread? I think it's in the sense of a lore-drop in a D&D game, when aspects of the worldbuilding / backstory is revealed? But in a more specific Fantasy/Science Fiction sense?
Frowner, I absolutely agree with your remarks about tropes in how people discuss stories online. It's as if they've forgotten that tropes are supposed to describe story elements, not the other way around. There's this thing that happens when people assign a trope to a story element, which sort of freezes it in the discussion - So and so character is a Mary Sue, such and such plot event is "bury your gays" or "fridging" and and once somebody has stated that It Is [insert trope here] Then So It Will Be From This Day, And Never Will It Have Nuance Forevermore, Forever and Ever, Amen.
posted by Zumbador at 6:54 AM on September 21 [5 favorites]
What is lore, in the way it's being used in this thread? I think it's in the sense of a lore-drop in a D&D game, when aspects of the worldbuilding / backstory is revealed? But in a more specific Fantasy/Science Fiction sense?
Frowner, I absolutely agree with your remarks about tropes in how people discuss stories online. It's as if they've forgotten that tropes are supposed to describe story elements, not the other way around. There's this thing that happens when people assign a trope to a story element, which sort of freezes it in the discussion - So and so character is a Mary Sue, such and such plot event is "bury your gays" or "fridging" and and once somebody has stated that It Is [insert trope here] Then So It Will Be From This Day, And Never Will It Have Nuance Forevermore, Forever and Ever, Amen.
posted by Zumbador at 6:54 AM on September 21 [5 favorites]
The empire's unquestionably the bad guys. The resistance started out as bad guys (Elan Musk and associates would absolutely fit into that category, with his "start again on Mars" plan.), but Jod frickin burned the solar system chasing after them, and has been burning worlds while going after their descendants. Heck, at the end of Nona, after seeing how it all got started, Harrow's done with Jod. The resistance may not be good guys, but the Empire's unquestionably the bad guys.
I'm just worried that Alecto's going to spiral out of control again. That's how we got Nona, after all. It'd be a shame if it ended up like Game of Thrones, where everything spiraled out of the author's control.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:36 AM on September 21
I'm just worried that Alecto's going to spiral out of control again. That's how we got Nona, after all. It'd be a shame if it ended up like Game of Thrones, where everything spiraled out of the author's control.
posted by Spike Glee at 7:36 AM on September 21
The people who have talked to me about how they love stories with "lore" have all meant in sort of a D&D hitpoints sense - you can learn the insignia, origin, founding parent, livery, colors, special talents, starsign, typical build and coloring, associated element and sacred beast of the ten houses that clash and romance in the trilogy and its spinoffs. Conversations about characters are less about motive or interiority than about how their "House" determines how they interact with other characters, their inbuilt traits, whether they perfectly embody the traits of their House, whether they are conflicted because they either do or do not embody these traits correctly, etc.
If you like endless conversations about the preferred weapons and fighting styles of each of the eighteen levels of fighting blood priests or whatever, you will enjoy these conversations.
To me, they are mostly about hierarchy and the comfort people find in grading things and classifying them mostly in terms of whether they fit or fail to fit into a predetermined role.
And then the lore-related romances and faux-conflicts, where everyone is just agonized about how they, a tenth-level ghostwitchseer with five parents who all have raven black hair, are inexorably drawn to a mere level-two fire vampire whose parents all have different haircolors, and what does it mean about your loyalty to your house and inborn values, etc.
posted by Frowner at 7:42 AM on September 21 [5 favorites]
If you like endless conversations about the preferred weapons and fighting styles of each of the eighteen levels of fighting blood priests or whatever, you will enjoy these conversations.
To me, they are mostly about hierarchy and the comfort people find in grading things and classifying them mostly in terms of whether they fit or fail to fit into a predetermined role.
And then the lore-related romances and faux-conflicts, where everyone is just agonized about how they, a tenth-level ghostwitchseer with five parents who all have raven black hair, are inexorably drawn to a mere level-two fire vampire whose parents all have different haircolors, and what does it mean about your loyalty to your house and inborn values, etc.
posted by Frowner at 7:42 AM on September 21 [5 favorites]
And easter eggs and secrets, that's the other part of the lore. If you read the entire wikipedia and memorize every characteristic of every character, you will realize that on page 158 of the third book the author wants you to think about how the firebird embroidery on the secondary heroine's sash indicates her potential romantic future with the tertiary heroine and how it will lead to death and resurrection, symbolically, and discussion about the book is also about the endless hunt for these easter eggs.
posted by Frowner at 7:45 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 7:45 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
Been a while since I read Gideon et al but I feel like we need to make a distinction between an author creating a bunch of lore for the readers, vs creating a world where the characters have a bunch of lore about each other. My feeling is that in Gideon at least, we are dealing more with the latter - the Houses stereotype each other, which has real consequences in who does or does not cooperate with each other and how. The “lore” moments are not fan service, they are giving us some insight into how these characters feel about their own Houses and the other Houses.
Also it’s maybe easy to forget that in the Gideon, it is not made explicit that the Houses are in our solar system, so a lot of “lore” moments are dropping hints to that. In plenty of other instances, what seem like oblique references turn out to be laying pipe for later reveals.
posted by rustcrumb at 8:20 AM on September 21 [4 favorites]
Also it’s maybe easy to forget that in the Gideon, it is not made explicit that the Houses are in our solar system, so a lot of “lore” moments are dropping hints to that. In plenty of other instances, what seem like oblique references turn out to be laying pipe for later reveals.
posted by rustcrumb at 8:20 AM on September 21 [4 favorites]
Basically they have created a huge mess and everyone is just trying to muddle through.
Valid. And on the one hand, the non-necro human population is the fantasized spawn of billionaires and probably their various pet couchfuckers. On the other hand, fuck John entirely.
posted by away for regrooving at 8:46 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
Valid. And on the one hand, the non-necro human population is the fantasized spawn of billionaires and probably their various pet couchfuckers. On the other hand, fuck John entirely.
posted by away for regrooving at 8:46 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
rustcrumb good distinction!
The history of the Ninth and its crystallization into lore, and how deeply that received lore screws up the children we meet, is a central thing. (The individual personal history was bad enough already.)
posted by away for regrooving at 8:52 AM on September 21 [4 favorites]
The history of the Ninth and its crystallization into lore, and how deeply that received lore screws up the children we meet, is a central thing. (The individual personal history was bad enough already.)
posted by away for regrooving at 8:52 AM on September 21 [4 favorites]
I feel this series was written for me, I love it forever. Have probably re-read each book 5-6 times at this point. (Maybe only 4 for Nona, since it's newer)
Thanks for this post, I've bought the hardcovers and the Kindle versions as soon as they've come out but that means I miss out on the little bonuses like this! (unless my Nona Kindle version was updated which.. sometimes happens, I should double-check)
posted by curious nu at 10:00 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
Thanks for this post, I've bought the hardcovers and the Kindle versions as soon as they've come out but that means I miss out on the little bonuses like this! (unless my Nona Kindle version was updated which.. sometimes happens, I should double-check)
posted by curious nu at 10:00 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
This conversation is circling towards something in the linked story, where Ianthe touches on how she started off prejudiced against other characters because of their house stereotypes, and how as people they sometimes fit those stereotypes (because they were sometimes literally bred to) or challenged them.
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:48 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 10:48 AM on September 21 [3 favorites]
On the other hand, fuck John entirely.
On the one hand, yes, fair, but on the other, who amongst us has not wished to pursue the billionaires beyond the bounds of space through unholy necromantic overreach?
posted by Hermione Dies at 11:10 AM on September 21 [7 favorites]
On the one hand, yes, fair, but on the other, who amongst us has not wished to pursue the billionaires beyond the bounds of space through unholy necromantic overreach?
posted by Hermione Dies at 11:10 AM on September 21 [7 favorites]
Valid. And on the one hand, the non-necro human population is the fantasized spawn of billionaires and probably their various pet couchfuckers. On the other hand, fuck John entirely.
This is like using the actions of first dynasty pharaohs as an excuse to murder a modern day cairo street vendor.
posted by Sebmojo at 1:02 PM on September 21
This is like using the actions of first dynasty pharaohs as an excuse to murder a modern day cairo street vendor.
posted by Sebmojo at 1:02 PM on September 21
Sorry, no that was only 5000 years ago, not ten thousand.
Muir actually does a wonderful job of making John sympathetic with dad jokes and gingernuts, but he is objectively history's greatest monster.
posted by Sebmojo at 1:05 PM on September 21 [3 favorites]
Muir actually does a wonderful job of making John sympathetic with dad jokes and gingernuts, but he is objectively history's greatest monster.
posted by Sebmojo at 1:05 PM on September 21 [3 favorites]
This stuff about lore and tropes reminds me that people will mostly do anything rather than actually talk about what they really love about a story. Don't get me started about book collectors.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:07 PM on September 21
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 1:07 PM on September 21
A couple of thoughts:
1) The series really requires rereading to get everything. This is good when you realize that stuff in GTN helps you separate the layers in HTN, and makes the latter easier to follow.
2) The audio books are very useful for reading and rereading. Moira Quirk does a fantastic job with the voices, and the series is a very easy listen. The only drawback is the text is the hardcover and lacks the extra stories.
3) The lore is mostly fun when it's the slow unveiling of plot elements that change the way you think about the characters. It's less funwhen fans get way into the weeds on details, and worse when there's a sort of "well, you can't really understand this scene unless you read this interview, where Muir says..." which is tedious. Fiction really should contain everything you need to understand it, although criticism sometimes helps. Lots of small details spread around through ancillary sources, not so great.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:51 PM on September 21 [2 favorites]
1) The series really requires rereading to get everything. This is good when you realize that stuff in GTN helps you separate the layers in HTN, and makes the latter easier to follow.
2) The audio books are very useful for reading and rereading. Moira Quirk does a fantastic job with the voices, and the series is a very easy listen. The only drawback is the text is the hardcover and lacks the extra stories.
3) The lore is mostly fun when it's the slow unveiling of plot elements that change the way you think about the characters. It's less funwhen fans get way into the weeds on details, and worse when there's a sort of "well, you can't really understand this scene unless you read this interview, where Muir says..." which is tedious. Fiction really should contain everything you need to understand it, although criticism sometimes helps. Lots of small details spread around through ancillary sources, not so great.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:51 PM on September 21 [2 favorites]
This is like using the actions of first dynasty pharaohs as an excuse
... yes
exactly
That's John.
posted by away for regrooving at 3:22 PM on September 21
... yes
exactly
That's John.
posted by away for regrooving at 3:22 PM on September 21
Some thoughts about Jod:
1) I have a theory that Lyctorhood somehow "fixes" you, so you don't grow or change. It would explain why Augustin and Mercymorn are still very hung up on things that happened 10,000 years ago. If this is true, then John, the Arch-Lyctor, could be trapped in his own web, unable to abandon grievances from the death of Earth.
2) Another possibility is that it has not been 10K years, but John keeps "restarting" everyone over and over, possibly with them getting less and less distinct, like a photocopy copied too often. This might explain the stasis that characterizes the Nine Houses -- they are images of images of people who died in the Nercopocolypse.
3) I wonder if Muir consciously made John's story in the "past" chapters in Nona a parodic inversion of Heinlein's common trope of a "plucky band of specialists led by someone with unique powers to defeat the state," only, in this case, the state is too powerful and John is, at the end of the day, just a guy, a somewhat talented and definitely powerful but ultimately mediocre man who makes the wrong decision at the wrong time and kills everyone.
4) On the other hand, if Jon's story in NTN is accurate (and we do not have a competing narrative yet), the Trillionaires had already stolen the critical resources to allow humans to survive their departure, and everyone was doomed anyway. On the other other hand, John's story has some clues that he knows he's lying and covering for himself (a guy like him doesn't make those sort of mistakes, as he says himself). I really, really hope ATN gives us enough information to know if John is just kind of a failure or something worse. I think that his reaction to Alecto's appearance at the end of NTN is very ambiguous.
5) If we accept John's story, every one of the descendants of the Trillionaires are guilty of their progenitor's sin of making the Earth salvageable. I mean, if we accept that passive beneficiaries of settler colonialism bear some element of guilt for the historical crimes and should work to ameliorate its effects, how much more should people whose lives depend on the extermination of an entire bear a responsibility for their ancestors' unspeakable crime? Muir is from New Zealand, I doubt this element of the story is not a conscious choice. On the other hand, we only have John's word for this, and he's not a very relaible narrator, it seems.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:59 PM on September 21 [5 favorites]
1) I have a theory that Lyctorhood somehow "fixes" you, so you don't grow or change. It would explain why Augustin and Mercymorn are still very hung up on things that happened 10,000 years ago. If this is true, then John, the Arch-Lyctor, could be trapped in his own web, unable to abandon grievances from the death of Earth.
2) Another possibility is that it has not been 10K years, but John keeps "restarting" everyone over and over, possibly with them getting less and less distinct, like a photocopy copied too often. This might explain the stasis that characterizes the Nine Houses -- they are images of images of people who died in the Nercopocolypse.
3) I wonder if Muir consciously made John's story in the "past" chapters in Nona a parodic inversion of Heinlein's common trope of a "plucky band of specialists led by someone with unique powers to defeat the state," only, in this case, the state is too powerful and John is, at the end of the day, just a guy, a somewhat talented and definitely powerful but ultimately mediocre man who makes the wrong decision at the wrong time and kills everyone.
4) On the other hand, if Jon's story in NTN is accurate (and we do not have a competing narrative yet), the Trillionaires had already stolen the critical resources to allow humans to survive their departure, and everyone was doomed anyway. On the other other hand, John's story has some clues that he knows he's lying and covering for himself (a guy like him doesn't make those sort of mistakes, as he says himself). I really, really hope ATN gives us enough information to know if John is just kind of a failure or something worse. I think that his reaction to Alecto's appearance at the end of NTN is very ambiguous.
5) If we accept John's story, every one of the descendants of the Trillionaires are guilty of their progenitor's sin of making the Earth salvageable. I mean, if we accept that passive beneficiaries of settler colonialism bear some element of guilt for the historical crimes and should work to ameliorate its effects, how much more should people whose lives depend on the extermination of an entire bear a responsibility for their ancestors' unspeakable crime? Muir is from New Zealand, I doubt this element of the story is not a conscious choice. On the other hand, we only have John's word for this, and he's not a very relaible narrator, it seems.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:59 PM on September 21 [5 favorites]
I have a few related ideas. In this world, magic/supernatural-ish things are real. Also the story does not just accidentally mirror characters and themes of Christian myth, Christianity is a real part of the backstory here.
So, one idea is that Jesus Christ was another person with magical powers for whatever reason, and maybe he is still kicking around. Taking that further, maybe Jod is in fact Jesus himself.
posted by rustcrumb at 5:04 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]
So, one idea is that Jesus Christ was another person with magical powers for whatever reason, and maybe he is still kicking around. Taking that further, maybe Jod is in fact Jesus himself.
posted by rustcrumb at 5:04 PM on September 21 [1 favorite]
I think it's more likely that Muir has someone else in mind for the "Redeemer" role. She certainly has a lot of candidates -- Gideon, Harrow, Paul, Alecto, at the very least -- John might be the only character in the story who hasn't died for his sins. Although I am holding out for Noodle to be the true Savior.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:57 AM on September 22 [2 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:57 AM on September 22 [2 favorites]
Just wanted to second the plug for Moira Quirk's narration of the audiobooks. I enjoyed reading each book as it came out but definitely lost track of characters in between; listening to them all again over the course of last year was a fun way of filling in some mental gaps from my first read through. It even helped me make a lot more sense of the second book, to the extent that it elevated my enjoyment of that one quite significantly. If Alecto doesn't come out relatively soon I might even listen to them all a second time through.
posted by DingoMutt at 5:58 PM on September 22 [1 favorite]
posted by DingoMutt at 5:58 PM on September 22 [1 favorite]
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posted by GenjiandProust at 5:08 PM on September 20 [2 favorites]