Book Review - Tamsyn Muir's Nona the Ninth
Nona the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
Published by: Tordotcom
Publication Date: September 13th, 2022
Format: Hardcover, 480 Pages
Rating: ★★★
To Buy
Six months ago Nona was born into a body not her own. But it's hers for now. And for that time she fantasizes about her birthday party. All the dogs, especially Noodle, could come, as could the kids from school; Hot Sauce and her gang, Honesty, Born in the Morning, Beautiful Ruby, and Kevin. But if The Angel could come, that would be the best gift ever. But this assumes that Nona and the planet New Rho still exist in the coming days. A Resurrection Beast hangs in the sky, trapped between reality and the River, ready to devour the planet at a moments notice once it fully materializes. The insurgents, Blood of Eden, have surrounded the remaining Cohort barracks. It is in the Emperor's best interest to destroy New Rho and it's inhabitants so that the Resurrection Beast doesn't become more powerful. This is unacceptable to Blood of Eden. Some of the insurgents think the Emperor will arrive to do what needs to be done, which means that Blood of Eden will have a chance to eliminate their enemy. But the problem is the Emperor Undying is literally undying. The only way to destroy him is to open the Locked Tomb, where Alecto's body lies sleeping. Which is why Nona is important. She is the weapon they have been waiting for. Or at least they think she is. Whoever is piloting the body is up for debate, but the body is that of Harrowhark Nonagesimus. And Harrow could do it. Years earlier Harrow worked her way into the Locked Tomb and fell in love with the still body of Alecto. If Harrow could do that then, think what she could do now? But Nona cannot. Nona lives a happy life with Pyrrha, Cam, and Palamedes. They are a family. Sure, they help Blood of Eden, and try to get Nona to use Harrow's powers, but most days Nona goes to school as a teacher's assistant and walks Noodle for The Angel. If she's lucky they go swimming. Each and every day she's happy to be alive. And when she sleeps she has odd dreams. Dreams that Cam and Palamedes want to hear about before she can forget them. Dreams that might signal time is running out. Because the body Nona is in is failing. The foreign soul is being rejected. The time to open to tomb is now. But can they succeed?
When you pick up each book in this series you have no idea what you're going to get. There is no through line in style, other than they could all loosely be classified as "space operas." We start with a haunted house, move on to a haunted human on a space station, the closest to an actual space opera we've gotten so far, and here, with Nona the Ninth, we go full on dystopia. And my guess is this dystopian book, which expanded the trilogy into a tetralogy, was a direct results of Covid. There's just too much isolation, masking, temperatures taken, questions about schooling, to be a coincidence. And much like the pandemic, it's something we could have done without in our lives. This book literally adds nothing to the series, unless Tamsyn Muir's goal was to make the weirdest post-apocalyptic version of Freaky Friday ever, well then, mission accomplished! Two thumbs way up. Because this entire book is a body swap bottle episode of a TV show stretched beyond endurance. It's not just who's in whose body, it's how many are in there and do we even know who they are? We have cavalier Pyrrha in the Lyctor Gideon's body, we have Cam and Palamedes sharing Camilla's body, and as for Nona? Well, it's Harrow's body but as for who is inhabiting it? It's not Harrow. Or Gideon. Despite what Cam or Palamedes think. So the majority of this book is marveling in Nona's innocence while trying to figure out who she really is. Yes, we get a fuller understanding of why the Emperor isn't liked by the people he saved. Yes, we see another side to the universe. But did we need to? No. Did we need hundreds of pages in a war zone that could be destroyed at any instant just so I don't know, we could feel what the common person feels instead of those enshrined within the Nine Houses? No we did not. Also, hell no to dream interpretations. I guess, what I'm trying to say is I feel cheated. I didn't like Gideon the Ninth when I started to read it and I fell in love with it. I gave it a chance and it paid off. Since then I've given the next two volumes a chance and they haven't paid off. It feels like this series is spiraling out of control and Tamysn Muir is more interested in trying out other genres and styles than in actually bothering to do what is right by her story. Tell the story. Tell it simply. Or, as simply as can be done. But don't try your readers patience because maybe they won't give Alecto the Ninth a chance.
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