“Awake Remembrance of These Valiant Dead Kia Hua Ko Te Pai Snap Back to Reality Oops There Goes Gravity,” he recited, all in one breath. “Correct?”
“They’re dead words—a human chain reaching back ten thousand years,” said the corpse. “How did they feel?”
“Genuinely sad, bordering on very funny,” said God. [loc. 7844]
For much of this novel I was in a state of happy confusion: I had no idea what was going on, or who some of these people were, or why Harrow's narrative appeared to be in second person. I suspect I will need to reread to fully comprehend where this takes the story. But that will not be a hardship, because Harrow the Ninth is a fun rollercoaster, peppered with pop-culture references ("Yes, well, jail for mother") and serious weirdness, cosmic horror and body horror, the perils of global search-and-replace, marvellous reversals and resurrection beasts, and some very cool immortals. (I do like the grown-ups, and they feel very grown-up beside Harrow). The narrator is extremely unreliable, the story seems to move through a set of alternate universes ("Is this how is happened?" other characters enquire, as Harrow develops an insta-crush on the person serving her -- a red-haired woman -- in a coffee shop ...), and Harrow herself cheerfully admits that she's mad, hallucinating et cetera.
Fortunately Ortus, her cavalier, is always ready to declaim some of his epic poem about a legendary warrior of the Ninth House. He -- wait, what?
I doubt I can do the plot justice. In brief: Harrow is now half a Lyctor; she's being trained by antagonistic teachers, and can barely manage the huge two-handed sword she drags everywhere with her; she's becoming an incredibly powerful necromancer, but is still somewhat in awe of the Emperor, the Necrolord, whom she calls God (though his saints, or Lyctors, sometimes call him John: I liked him very much and his story is compelling); and an implacable enemy is homing in, across billions of light years, to destroy them all.
This is a grandiose, melodramatic novel and I enjoyed it a great deal, even when I couldn't work out what was going on: and when I did work that out, and began to appreciate the true scale of the book, my emotional engagement went into overdrive. Wish I'd read it all in one bone-spiked, blood-bathed, cosmic swoop.
Alecto the Ninth is not out until 2022! WOE.
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