REVIEW: Nona the Ninth Nestles You Nicely in a Nightmare

a young, slim white woman smiles beatifically on the cover of Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Art by Tommy Arnold

In Nona the Ninth, the third book in The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir, readers get a ton of backstory about how this necromantic space empire came to be. We also get to spend a lot more time with some of the characters who had been secondary in earlier books. Like Gideon and Harrow, Nona’s point of view is engrossing, and reading the book is immersive and satisfying. Also, there’s a good dog.

Nona the Ninth

Tamsyn Muir
Tordotcom
September 13, 2022a young, slim white woman smiles beatifically on the cover of Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Art by Tommy Arnold

First things first: the six-legged dog on the cover is Noodle and Noodle is a Very Good Boy. Nona loves Noodle.

We learn about Nona’s love of Noodle early on when it becomes clear that this third book is working with yet another set of genre conventions. After Gideon’s puzzle box and Harrow’s gaslighting on a metaphysical plane, Nona seems like she’s in a YA dystopia, a teen with no memories in a war zone, living in a building of ill repute in a city full of dust and refugees, whose handlers think she might be someone else or two.

The tone of Nona the Ninth reminds me of The Girl with All the Gifts: a child(-like entity) full of love in a zombie-ridden world where she is not treated consistently like a child. Nona loves everyone, including dogs and her handlers and the kids at school, and loves life except eating food. Her point of view is child-like and loving, but the world she exists in is a shitshow. And if you’d like to know whether or not Noodle specifically survives this shitshow, Muir already shared that information as part of the cover reveal back in January.

In Gideon the Ninth I thought I was reading a fun story with an interesting setting. Through Harrow the Ninth and now Nona the Ninth, I’m learning that the setting and how it got that way is going to be a main point of the series overall. Far more of the backstory of this world is explained than I thought ever would be, and the links to our world and society that make things like meme references possible are revealed to be Watsonion rather than Doylistic. That is, there’s an in-universe reason they make sense, not just the explanation that Muir enjoys including them.

In Harrow the Ninth I figured out what was going on with Harrow’s mind pretty early on, and thus was not reading for that particular reveal to make sense of anything I hadn’t understood. In Nona the Ninth, the identity reveal was a little bit more gradual, but also much more of a surprise to me.

While a lot of the characters seem to be well-informed, fairly normal people in crappy situations (with maybe unusual abilities), our point-of-view characters so far have been the outliers who are not cognizant of what the hell is going on.

Further, The Locked Tomb series has an expansive world, with many important characters who each go by multiple names, nicknames, and titles. I think a reader can approach this in two ways: either cataloging the names, relationships and interactions and keeping track meticulously, or instead, forgoing tracking and reading for vibes. I have chosen the second path.

Thus, in reading Nona the Ninth, I had a similar experience to how I felt reading Harrow the Ninth. I spent the first third of the book questioning my choices, and I wondered if I should have reread the previous installments first; maybe I should have taken notes? But then I decided that I was having fun regardless and I wouldn’t worry about it. By the end, I felt totally caught up. Rereading Gideon and Harrow before Nona is entirely optional.

I do plan to reread the first three books in the series before Alecto the Ninth comes out in Fall of 2023, but just for fun, not comprehension. Nona the Ninth has left me glad the series has expanded to four books rather than three, and anticipating the conclusion with high expectations.

 

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Emily Lauer

Emily Lauer

Emily Lauer lives in Manhattan with her husband and daughter. She teaches writing and literature at Suffolk County Community College where she studies comics, kids' books, adaptations, speculative fiction and visual culture. She is the current editor of the Comics Academe section here on WWAC and a former Pubwatch Editor, and frankly, there is a lot more gray in her hair than there was when this profile picture was taken.

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