Harrow the Ninth

Harrow the Ninth is a 2020 science fantasy novel by the New Zealand writer Tamsyn Muir, and the second book of her Locked Tomb series. It follows Gideon the Ninth and was followed by Nona the Ninth.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus survived the events of the first book and is now a Lyctor travelling on the Emperor's ship, but she remembers nothing of how she arrived. The novel alternates between that present and an account of the past that does not match what she is told, so the reader is working ahead of the narrator for most of the book. The Emperor, the surviving Lyctors and the ship's crew are all part of the problem, and Harrow's own memory is not a reliable guide to any of them.

Muir writes the series as a puzzle with a very specific voice, and the second volume deliberately withholds information the first one gave. Its structure is why the book is argued about, it extends the setting into the politics of the Empire, and it is one of the more formally ambitious books in the recent wave of science fantasy.