Harrow the Ninth – Tamsyn Muir

If you haven’t read “Gideon the Ninth” don’t try to read this sequel. You won’t know what’s going on. Okay, I did read “Gideon the Ninth” - it was excellent, btw - and I didn’t know what was going on. The first two-thirds of the book are confusing. Much of it consists of flashbacks to the first book, except that the events are not as the reader remembers them. Somewhere around the 80% mark All is Explained. By then end of the book I was back to being confused.

Much of this book takes place on a remote space station reserved for the God Emperor and his Lyctors. They turn out to have … (okay, I’m looking for a metaphor that’s like “feet of clay” but requires hip waders) … and questionable sanity. Most of them have spent the last ten thousand years dealing with each other, and they don’t have much patience for a fresh-out-of-the-egg Lyctor. The less since Harrow appears to be broken.

The writing is clever. That plus the remembered brilliance of the first novel got me to the end of this middle novel. But I’d have enjoyed it more if there had been less cleverness and more coherent story.