Her city is under siege. The zombies are coming back. And all Nona wants is a birthday party…
And we’ve got the exclusive guest list below! Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series continues with Nona the Ninth, out September 13th from Tordotcom Publishing.
In many ways, Nona is like other people. She lives with her family, has a job at her local school, and loves walks on the beach and meeting new dogs. But Nona’s not like other people. Six months ago she woke up in a stranger’s body, and she’s afraid she might have to give it back.
The whole city is falling to pieces. A monstrous blue sphere hangs on the horizon, ready to tear the planet apart. Blood of Eden forces have surrounded the last Cohort facility and wait for the Emperor Undying to come calling. Their leaders want Nona to be the weapon that will save them from the Nine Houses. Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes, but she also knows that nothing lasts forever.
And each night, Nona dreams of a woman with a skull-painted face…
Dramatis Personae
Guest List
(as transcribed by C. Hect.)
Dogs to invite to birthday party
- Brown one by the fish shop, average sized, four legs
- Stop It, name assumed, lies under counter at dairy, red colour, big sized, four legs
- White-and-black one seen once in the park, average sized, tail curled twice, three legs
- Noodle, king of dogs in secret, white-adjacent, small sized, six legs
- Spotted beach dog, often on beach, large sized, huge ginger eyebrows, three legs
Members of gang to invite to birthday party
- Hot Sauce
- Honesty
- Born in the Morning
- Beautiful Ruby
- Kevin
Teachers
- The Angel?
Blood of Eden
- Crown Him with Many Crowns (No.—C.)
- The Captain, maybe (Not possible.—C.)
- Cell Commander We Suffer and We Suffer, although actually she might be Wing Commander, I don’t know which it is (It’s both, and no.—C.)
- And you three (Good to know.—C.)
Buy the Book
Nona the Ninth
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I think #1 said it better than I can.
so is the implication that corona and judith aren’t part of the picture anymore, or that nona just doesn’t like them enough to invite to her birthday party?
Judith and Corona are too busy having private time.
I thought “and you three” refers to Camilla, Judith and Corona?
I love that Nona’s the type of person to invite BoE members to her birthday party
Knighted @@@@@ 5
Ought to be Pyrrha and Palamedes. And Camilla
“Nona would prefer to live an ordinary life with the people she loves, with Pyrrha and Camilla and Palamedes”
@5 I would think “And you three” refers to Pyrrha, Camilla, and Palamedes.
And @3 it seems like Nona wants to invite Corona and is hesitant about inviting Judith (implied that Nona is dictating the list and explicitly says Cam is transcribing it) but Cam is refusing to invite/allow her to invite Corona and doesn’t think that Judith would be able to come (maybe still more of a prisoner?).
I would die for Noodle and Stop It (name assumed).
Re: #3: I don’t think it’s outside the realm of possibility that Corona and Judith are CHWMC and the Captain.
I am excited to get my hands on this! Any chance of getting sprayed edges on the 1st edition?
ohhh boy. ohhhhhh boy we’re really in it now .im a whooooohee lads its time e
Hmm, she woke up in this body less than a year ago but now she’s celebrating a birthday… presumably not the anniversary of the day she woke up then, unless a year is six months long on this planet. (Also to be fair it doesn’t actually specify that it’s her birthday, but just that she wants a birthday party.)
I realise this is probably heresy but am I the only one worried this is the point at which the series Jumps The Shark?
I bounced hard off of Harrow and only by forcing myself to reread did I come to enjoy it.
Not sure I can stand another book with a Gideon shaped hole.
I’m calling it right now, Kevin is up to no good.
Don’t Pal and Cam kinda, you know, share a body?
@15, yeah me to – just with the expansion of the universe and characters.. I want more Gideon, not some new character. but the second book was awesome (once I read it twice and understood it).
I’m with @NT on this. I think there’s a chance Crown Him With Many Crowns could be Corona. It’s the title of a hymn from the 1850s
although it could be from another source too. So what’s fun imo is not only is Jesus meant to be crowned with many crowns, so is The Beast of THE SEA from Revelations 
https://hymnary.org/text/crown_him_with_many_crowns
> John saw it “rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.” (Revelation 13:1)
As for The Captain, I don’t see why this couldn’t be our frenemy Captain Judith Deuteros who’s prolly destined to cut off someone’s head if the apocryphal Judith is anything to go by. My ardent hope is she tries this with We Suffer and We Suffer and we find out she can’t die or something
Speaking of…
Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 250-1)
“But Justice turns the balance scales, sees that we suffer and we suffer and we learn.” (trans. Robert Fagles)
Wasn’t it Aisamorta and Lacrimorta who always used to say Suffer and Learn according to Gideon?
That’s got some odd implications for sure.
But anyway, I hope Nona enjoys celebrating what I can only assume to be Harrow’s Nineteenth birthday so that all the planets align or something and she can fulfil her destiny of becoming a reconciled Heather from Silent Hill 3 and kick John’s ass all over the cosmos. Or in the least give him a very strongly worded talking to before taking away all of his toys (and immortality).
I have so many questions and I just can’t freaking wait to read the answers. Looks like another absolutely bonkers entry into this weirdo series I adore so much
Its like reading a Neon Yang series. You open the next book, you have no idea where or when you’ll be or who you’ll be with, but don’t worry. Its all going to make wonderful sense, eventually ;-p
Oooh. The repetition of “We Suffer and We Suffer” makes me think that We Suffer’s name comes from Aeschylus (my previous theory was Seneca):
Δίκα δὲ τοῖς μὲν παθοῦσιν μαθεῖν ἐπιρρέπει (Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 250-1)
“But Justice turns the balance scales,
sees that we suffer and we suffer and we learn.” (trans. Robert Fagles)
[thanks Google!]
Also, it’s from Agamemnon, which keeps us firmly in the realm of Troy-related-people, where a lot of other name references seem to hang out.
(I have other thoughts, but none of them are as smart, they’re mostly !!! and I LOVE YOU CAMILLA and such)
Oh, and “Wing Commander” is one of those titles that sounds incredibly badass – pretty sure moreso than it is. Love it.
“This is a book that takes place over less than a week, although it also takes place over 100,000 years” (from interview with TM on vox – cover reveal story.)
so the birthday party could totally be prior to all that we know.
So Nona is either the Lychtor(?) child/person(???) mentioned at the end of Book 2 or woke up in Gideon’s body. Either way fascinatingly weird, as it should be. :)
… and Agamemnon, of course, along with the rest of the Oresteia, is about children who kill parents and then are pursued by the Furies — including Alecto, the Fury of Anger — for the crime of matricide. Alecto — who is the daughter of Gaia…
@18: ah, but I think maybe the question is going to be, how many of these characters are new characters? We have resurrections, psychic lobotomies, unreliable narrators, ghosts, possessions, and what-all already.
I don’t know if Muir will stick the landing and I don’t know if it will prove a good thing or an ill thing that the series seems to have expanded from a trilogy to a quadrilogy, but I’m on tenterhooks to find out.
The end of Gideon the Ninth killed these books for me. Such a great read….until. Read this blog post hoping to get an answer to the end of G the N….I don’t think I got what I needed. Will have to wait until a friend reads it and I can check details.