The Locked Tomb + Nona thoughts
Nov. 21st, 2022 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
landingtreeI just finished (re)reading The Locked Tomb books. Once again, I really like them! They have various good Diana-Wynne-Jonesnesses which I've seen anatomised by skygiants, to wit, people the reader likes often dislike each other in very petty ways, you can imagine any one of the characters wandering offstage and having a really long letting-off-steam conversation with their aunt while sweeping the patio (if they had aunts or patios), and at any given time, about half the characters are somebody else.
There's a scene in Nona the Ninth where a screen is being prepared for a public broadcast. The screen is made of tesselating white hexagons. It has to be stretched onto a framework like a fitted sheet, and keeps coming loose at the corners. Because of this delay, the broadcast, an incredibly color-saturated video-call, starts halfway through - delivering vital information to the people assembled to hear it, and fairly vital information to the reader too. At the end of the speech, someone murmurs something in the speaker's ear, and they say "Oh, you have got to be kidding me," and start the speech over again from the beginning.
This scene is typical of the Locked Tomb series in three ways. First, it obfuscates information. Partly in the common s.f. way of making sure characters don't pause and define terms unless it makes diegetic sense - I read an interview where Muir cites Neil Stephenson's Anathem as a world-building inspiration, and Anathem is a book whose first few pages are intriguing yet incomprehensible because of the number of terms they don't define. But also in the mystery-box way. It would make perfect worldbuilding sense to start a broadcast at the beginning; this one starts in medias res because that's a bit juicier, a bit more destablizing. Characters in these books often don't share information when they perfectly well could - at least once per book someone is about to reveal something important when they're interrupted from offstage - and the framing makes sure the reader can't quite see, oh I don't know, the face of a certain person, or the object hanging in the sky, until it's been a question mark for at least a few pages. The danger of mystery-box stories (here, the one in the title is literal) is always that the box might be empty - and by the end of this book I still don't know whether a bunch of events in book one happened for any reason other than 'it made for a cooler plot'. But even if that's true, (and there have been hints that isn't) the climactic revelations haven't yet failed to be climactic, it's not doing the 'What's in the hatch? A countdown! What happens at the end of the countdown? I don't remember, probably there's another hatch!' thing; and also,
Second: these books evoke mundane reality really well. Setting up the broadcast is practical, annoying, and slightly odd. There isn't a lot of straight description, but necromantic vassals of incredible power eat off paper plates, the awesomely powerful god-emperor is endearingly shit at metaphors (other things he's shit at are much less endearing, 'I should be god-emperor' being the best answer to nearly zero questions); and see above re. aunts and patios (there is, in fact, at least one aunt), and the broadcasting screen is annoying in a very familiar way even though in this case it's probably powered by necromancy. (Wait, can it be powered by necromancy given [spoilery fact]? Unclear).
And third, it's very funny! When the broadcaster got to the end of the broadcast, was told it had gone wrong, and wearily started again, I laughed, and I laugh a lot in these books. Muir is very good at shifting tones, often though not always for comedy; sometimes her jokes are incredibly, immersion-breakingly obvious, sometimes they're subtle enough that I don't get them on first reading - I assume there are plenty I still haven't noticed - and sometimes they're just, yes, right, of course the broadcast didn't work, I don't know why I expect anything to work, why do I even turn up.
Leaflemming asked me the other day whether he should read these books. The above are reasons I'd generally say yes. This series is also for you if you especially like: bones, gender, heretical forms of Christ, and loyalty unto/beyond/back from/unto death. Reasons one might say no:
1. They're absolutely full of described gore, viscera, bones, teeth exploding into shards, etc. This is gleefully true of book one, yet more true of book two (because its central character knows the names of more bits of anatomy), and much less true of Nona; when there is gore in this book it's mostly described slantwise. This may not make it less disturbing.
2. They're about incredibly fucked-up and often abusive relationships and most of their major plot beats involve significant amounts of pain. This is true, again, Nona less so than the other two. Nona proves that Muir could write a book that wasn't at all fucked up if she wanted to, without particularly indicating that she'll ever want to: Nona has way more sunniness than the other two books and centres the simple goodness that human relationships can have. At the same time, a description of this book as 'the most cheerful entry in the Locked Tomb series yet!' really would not stand up to a list of the events that happen in it.
3. The alternation of tones can be completely immersion-breaking, as on the Discworld but with less buildup to get you there. To me this one turns out to actually be a selling point, but mileages vary. Characters whose relationship to our era is initially vague will use memes from the 2010s during heartfelt emotional scenes. Some characters reach for insults such as "Th'art lowlier than the toad squished at Our Lady's foot" and others are like, yo, suck it mate, I didn't know you were into toads. Portions of this have possible in-world explanations, but I feel like verisimilitude, to this series, is mainly another thing to play with. Again, less true of Nona, and I think more artfully done since Gideon (not that I thought Gideon was bad at it, but to me Gideon feels a bit like a first novel and Harrow jumps right to feeling like an umpteenth novel). Also I turn out to be fairly meme-blind, so some of them I just don't notice!
...
Nona spoilers (continuing in comments below):
I was a bit worried at the start of this that I would approve of, but be less interested in, the descent to mundane planetary life from the orbital heights of toxic imperial space necromancy. Within a few chapters this was happily not the case and I was totally involved!
When Nona keeps on bringing them through the River because even though she fears her own death and can no longer care for her friends but reflexively, automatically, saves Noodle, my heart broke somewhat.
Does Dominicus have a soul? What are the devils? Is there anything over the river, or only Hell under it, and was Hell Heaven until John started dumping the ghosts of planets there? The way in which this felt like a half-book promoted to a whole book to me was that the Convoy and the Angel were floated as mysteries and I didn't really care about them. I loved the moment of working out that Nona's whole thing is understanding people - languages, body language, the screams of resurrection beasts. Every book so far has ended with the viewpoint character's death and at this point I'm expecting Alecto to do the same. I assume the necromantic mechanics of this book make sense - apparently Muir wrote a thirty thousand word AU of the series to prove to herself the logic would all work, even when separated from the exact events it's convenient for - but I haven't actually checked, I got a bit lost amid the bodies and souls.
skygiants, to wit, people the reader likes often dislike each other in very petty ways, you can imagine any one of the characters wandering offstage and having a really long letting-off-steam conversation with their aunt while sweeping the patio (if they had aunts or patios), and at any given time, about half the characters are somebody else. There's a scene in Nona the Ninth where a screen is being prepared for a public broadcast. The screen is made of tesselating white hexagons. It has to be stretched onto a framework like a fitted sheet, and keeps coming loose at the corners. Because of this delay, the broadcast, an incredibly color-saturated video-call, starts halfway through - delivering vital information to the people assembled to hear it, and fairly vital information to the reader too. At the end of the speech, someone murmurs something in the speaker's ear, and they say "Oh, you have got to be kidding me," and start the speech over again from the beginning.
This scene is typical of the Locked Tomb series in three ways. First, it obfuscates information. Partly in the common s.f. way of making sure characters don't pause and define terms unless it makes diegetic sense - I read an interview where Muir cites Neil Stephenson's Anathem as a world-building inspiration, and Anathem is a book whose first few pages are intriguing yet incomprehensible because of the number of terms they don't define. But also in the mystery-box way. It would make perfect worldbuilding sense to start a broadcast at the beginning; this one starts in medias res because that's a bit juicier, a bit more destablizing. Characters in these books often don't share information when they perfectly well could - at least once per book someone is about to reveal something important when they're interrupted from offstage - and the framing makes sure the reader can't quite see, oh I don't know, the face of a certain person, or the object hanging in the sky, until it's been a question mark for at least a few pages. The danger of mystery-box stories (here, the one in the title is literal) is always that the box might be empty - and by the end of this book I still don't know whether a bunch of events in book one happened for any reason other than 'it made for a cooler plot'. But even if that's true, (and there have been hints that isn't) the climactic revelations haven't yet failed to be climactic, it's not doing the 'What's in the hatch? A countdown! What happens at the end of the countdown? I don't remember, probably there's another hatch!' thing; and also,
Second: these books evoke mundane reality really well. Setting up the broadcast is practical, annoying, and slightly odd. There isn't a lot of straight description, but necromantic vassals of incredible power eat off paper plates, the awesomely powerful god-emperor is endearingly shit at metaphors (other things he's shit at are much less endearing, 'I should be god-emperor' being the best answer to nearly zero questions); and see above re. aunts and patios (there is, in fact, at least one aunt), and the broadcasting screen is annoying in a very familiar way even though in this case it's probably powered by necromancy. (Wait, can it be powered by necromancy given [spoilery fact]? Unclear).
And third, it's very funny! When the broadcaster got to the end of the broadcast, was told it had gone wrong, and wearily started again, I laughed, and I laugh a lot in these books. Muir is very good at shifting tones, often though not always for comedy; sometimes her jokes are incredibly, immersion-breakingly obvious, sometimes they're subtle enough that I don't get them on first reading - I assume there are plenty I still haven't noticed - and sometimes they're just, yes, right, of course the broadcast didn't work, I don't know why I expect anything to work, why do I even turn up.
Leaflemming asked me the other day whether he should read these books. The above are reasons I'd generally say yes. This series is also for you if you especially like: bones, gender, heretical forms of Christ, and loyalty unto/beyond/back from/unto death. Reasons one might say no:
1. They're absolutely full of described gore, viscera, bones, teeth exploding into shards, etc. This is gleefully true of book one, yet more true of book two (because its central character knows the names of more bits of anatomy), and much less true of Nona; when there is gore in this book it's mostly described slantwise. This may not make it less disturbing.
2. They're about incredibly fucked-up and often abusive relationships and most of their major plot beats involve significant amounts of pain. This is true, again, Nona less so than the other two. Nona proves that Muir could write a book that wasn't at all fucked up if she wanted to, without particularly indicating that she'll ever want to: Nona has way more sunniness than the other two books and centres the simple goodness that human relationships can have. At the same time, a description of this book as 'the most cheerful entry in the Locked Tomb series yet!' really would not stand up to a list of the events that happen in it.
3. The alternation of tones can be completely immersion-breaking, as on the Discworld but with less buildup to get you there. To me this one turns out to actually be a selling point, but mileages vary. Characters whose relationship to our era is initially vague will use memes from the 2010s during heartfelt emotional scenes. Some characters reach for insults such as "Th'art lowlier than the toad squished at Our Lady's foot" and others are like, yo, suck it mate, I didn't know you were into toads. Portions of this have possible in-world explanations, but I feel like verisimilitude, to this series, is mainly another thing to play with. Again, less true of Nona, and I think more artfully done since Gideon (not that I thought Gideon was bad at it, but to me Gideon feels a bit like a first novel and Harrow jumps right to feeling like an umpteenth novel). Also I turn out to be fairly meme-blind, so some of them I just don't notice!
...
Nona spoilers (continuing in comments below):
I was a bit worried at the start of this that I would approve of, but be less interested in, the descent to mundane planetary life from the orbital heights of toxic imperial space necromancy. Within a few chapters this was happily not the case and I was totally involved!
When Nona keeps on bringing them through the River because even though she fears her own death and can no longer care for her friends but reflexively, automatically, saves Noodle, my heart broke somewhat.
Does Dominicus have a soul? What are the devils? Is there anything over the river, or only Hell under it, and was Hell Heaven until John started dumping the ghosts of planets there? The way in which this felt like a half-book promoted to a whole book to me was that the Convoy and the Angel were floated as mysteries and I didn't really care about them. I loved the moment of working out that Nona's whole thing is understanding people - languages, body language, the screams of resurrection beasts. Every book so far has ended with the viewpoint character's death and at this point I'm expecting Alecto to do the same. I assume the necromantic mechanics of this book make sense - apparently Muir wrote a thirty thousand word AU of the series to prove to herself the logic would all work, even when separated from the exact events it's convenient for - but I haven't actually checked, I got a bit lost amid the bodies and souls.
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Date: 2022-11-21 12:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-22 06:21 am (UTC)Credit to
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Date: 2022-11-21 08:00 pm (UTC)I hope Alecto isn't going to be just the big villain (Muir does not seem to write like that anyway). I will miss Nona!
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Date: 2022-11-22 06:19 am (UTC)I will be very annoyed if Alecto is (thoroughly) a villain, and am happy things don't seem to be tending that way. John is such a terrible man, he seems well qualified for continued main-villain-hood. Although given, what did Muir say in an interview exactly, "In a way Camilla, Palamedes, Pyrrha and Nona are love’s dress rehearsal for the last book. You have not begun to see the horrors of love," I'm sure many other people will end up with blood (lymph, etc) on their hands.
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Date: 2022-11-22 06:48 am (UTC)"The horrors of love," fucken yikes. Pyrrha has wound up trapped in the body of the guy she was cheating on/with?...and Wake is dead, and Cam and Pal both wind up....obliterated? integrated? kind of mashed together into something new (altho Paul sounds like Pal to me a lot of the time). I wonder if Gideon and Harrow might wind up like that?....no no, they're like oil and water. Very unmixy oil and water.
Also you just know at some point Gideon is going to drag every last detail about Nona-in-Harrow out of someone and torment Harrow with it. For centuries. "You said you loved people. You liked dogs! You worked with children!" //Harrow gnashes teeth in despairing rage
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Date: 2022-11-22 09:01 am (UTC)Pre-Alecto Earth didn't know what it was to be human. Alecto knew, and seemed to hate it, and also was shaped and consumed by John from the get-go. Is Nona what you get if Alecto had been taught how to human by reasonable people to begin with in non-apocalyptic conditions? Or did she rely for that on having several other souls inmixed, to whom humaning made more sense? She seems like someone who has no abusive background despite being someone all three of whose souls do. I guess as Earth she'd been panicking and scared for years... though I want to know why Earth feared climate change, have Earth's other mass extinctions and climage changes harmed the planetary soul, or was the anthropogenic one something special? Maybe humans had become too much part of it and then they were all going to leave?
I'm so interested in Alecto's POV. We can't really get a whole book of the King James Bible. ...can we?
Cam and Pal seem like they thought they were going forward into a Steven Universe-esque fusion or else a redemptive afterlife, and I'm happy for them but I don't know if they were right or not. I'm sure we'll get more of Paul - but each book so far has pleased and surprised me with which minor characters ended up major ones next time, I really was not expecting so much Pyrrha.
I'm on a Discord thread where someone said Harrow had died for Gideon and Gideon had died for Harrow, and that was what you needed for a perfect lyctorhood - maybe it's enough for them not to want to mix into one thing, but each to be willing to sacrifice everything for the other. Lyctorhood seems capable of being done all sorts of ways. Could they be separate beings like John and Alecto, only, functional?
Also you just know at some point Gideon is going to drag every last detail about Nona-in-Harrow out of someone and torment Harrow with it. For centuries. "You said you loved people. You liked dogs! You worked with children!" //Harrow gnashes teeth in despairing rage
This is very true and extremely funny to me
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Date: 2022-11-22 06:58 am (UTC)wrongdifferent. There's all the disciples, being wiped and reborn again, Jod (lol) himself changed by killing and eating the earth's soul, and then of course Gideon dying but living on (sort of) in Harrow (sort of), Harrow being changed and dying, then Gideon dies? (lol I love all the shifting identities and liminality of life/death in this series, it's great) but Jod can't bring her back? and Alecto spent all that time in Harrow's body but she was Nona. (Poor Harrow also seems to be in terrible shape.) So they do come back but they're also not themselves.....okay and I admit all that gives me a tiny bit of hope we might see Nona in Alecto. Nona was just so goddamn delightful. I understand how she just punched the poor writer in the cerebellum and gaily demanded her own book.
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Date: 2022-11-22 09:14 am (UTC)Shifting identities and liminality of life/death are very much my jam. I have hope that Gideon Original Flavor still remains, whatever's left in Gideon's old body and whatever Harrow took, but carefully put off consuming. (Where is that portion now? She was around in Harrow's body at the end of book two. Was she still there while Alecto's soul was there? Must be, that's right, she instinctively fought two-handed with a plank.
I really do hope we see Alecto in Nona! At least a little.
(Maybe it's because they're both kiwis, but it does remind me of Elizabeth Knox and her Southland books, where magic of many forms have been derived from Lazarus's memory of the words he heard Jesus speak to bring his soul back. Both writers do love a heretical Christ. Although if there's any other overlap between them I haven't thought of it!)
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Date: 2022-11-23 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-27 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-29 11:57 pm (UTC)