I am constantly thinking about a review of Harrow the Ninth where the reviewer disliked a lot about the book but specifically complained how it wasnât sci-fi-y enough for something set 10,000 years in the future. He complained it was unrealistic they were eating ginger biscuits and smoking cigarettes and Iâm like ⌠THATâS INTENTIONAL! ITâS THEMATICALLY SIGNIFICANT!! TAMSYN MUIR IS MAKING A POINT ABOUT HOW CLINGING TO A GLORIFIED PAST WILL DESTROY YOU!!
John Gaius tells us (well, Harrow) in Nona the Ninth that he always hated change, but even in Harrow the Ninth itâs clearâhe and his lyctors are stagnating and have been for millennia. Theyâre constantly talking about how great things used to be (sexy parties, Cassiopeiaâs cooking, etc.). They have no hope for the future. John has a spaceship full of bodies in cryosleepâliterally frozen in time and undying but also unable to grow or live. He is the Emperor Undying.
The theme becomes more explicit in Nona the Ninth: we see John (and arguably BOE) stuck on this 10,000-year-old grudge and unable to move past it. He thought he could keep Alecto in stasis in a tomb what, forever? He makes Gideon into a non-living preserved version of herself.
Meanwhile the characters who are living and growing are changing, even when itâs sometimes awful, because itâs how they keep doing what needs to be done. Palamedes and Camilla say before they become Paul that it wasnât inevitable, but it is the best thing they can do now: they will make this imperfect irreversible change because thatâs how they keep living and protecting the people they love. On the trip to the Ninth, Nona considers it might be better to just die, instead of continue this uncertain journey forward, but ultimately accepts irrevocable, painful change because NOODLE. And because âYou canât take loved awayâ: change doesnât destroy the past or invalidate the good that existed there. Living requires change, but change doesnât require forgetting.
Anyway, thank you to that reviewer who was so annoyed by the ginger biscuits in Harrow the Ninth that he illuminated a major theme in the series for me.
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