Hey all you Bone-Nerds. Enjoyed Gideon & Harrow the Ninth, did you?
Looking for some cool as heck merchandise to rep your favourite Houses? We got you.
Let’s talk enamel pins.
Graciously endorsed by Tamsyn Muir, show your pride in the Nine Houses and celebrate Gideon & Harrow the Ninth with these (so spoopy) enamel pins!
Unlocking the Tomb - Gideon & Harrow the Ninth Kickstarter
My mum just pledged to the Kickstarter because she believes in my dreams.
Feeling very loved right now 😭 💖 💖 💖 💖
She hasn’t even read these gay-ass necromancer books. But she is so supportive. !!!!!!!
Excuse me, DID YOU ALL JUST FUND THE FIRST GROUP OF PINS WHILE I WAS ASLEEP? 😭 😭 💖
WE’RE GETTING BONE PINS . THIS IS HAPPENING
To our noisy and beautiful community who is getting the reach out there to fund this project thank you
WE MAKING BONES NOW
Guys, I am fundamentally not here because Alecto won’t write itself (I’ve tried); but I wanted to signal boost the wonderful Mayticks and a Kickstarter dear to my heart. It is already 100% successful and does not need my seal of approval, but when Mayticks asked if I’d sign off on this one I said “Yes” very loudly and then had to type it in case she didn’t hear in Australia. Mayticks has been doing this for years; most of my friends have flaunted her pins; I knew that if I said “No” they’d all kill me. (Also, who would say No, other than a fool.)
Now look at it! Imagine wearing one of these babies on your denims. Remember that dungarees season is year-round. I’m Commander Shepherd, and this is my favourite Kickstarter on the Internet.
My first readers made me soundtracks for Gideon when it came out. When A.K. Larkwood’s book came out, in thanksgiving, all I did was make her and her wife some beautiful original placemats (”Love Means Never Having To Say You’re Csorwe”) and in return they have spent the last few days texting me pictures of a young dog who is good at sitting. You don’t get those: they are mine. I will give this instead, in my generosity, created by my very first reader: the remarkable pT.
I realise that today everybody is very busy nose-deep in the newest dark book about anxious goths having the mopes (Midnight Sun) but if you enjoy these tunes even a fragment of what I enjoyed them, a fun time is in store for you. There are no spoilers, but there is no point in listening to this unless you have read the newest book about navel-gazing vampires with commitment issues (Harrow the Ninth).
1. introduction
2. Placebo - 'Meds'
passers-by were looking at me
as if they could erase it
3. Al Stewart - 'Marion The Chatelaine'
when the great collector found her, she was just a girl
she rang a chord inside him, and he stole her to the centre of his world
4. Jim White - 'Ghost-Town Of My Brain'
girl listen here
you're just a leaf caught in God's secret hurricane
5. Chumbawamba - 'Amnesia'
burns are red, bruises blue
out with the old, cheated by the new
6. Kevin Ayers - 'Lady Rachel'
now nothing can harm her
at least, not very much
7. Eels - 'Friendly Ghost'
last night I heard someone walking
through my bedroom door
8. Gorillaz - 'Every Planet We Reach Is Dead'
what are we going to do?
9. The Mountain Goats & Kaki King - 'Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is In Another Castle'
I wondered if I'd wake to find myself in flames
10. Linkin Park - 'Crawling'
against my will I stand beside my own reflection
11. Johnny Cash - 'The Mercy Seat' (Nick Cave cover)
and in a way I'm yearning
to be done with all this weighing of the truth
12. Lady A - 'What If I Never Get Over You'
what if I'm trying, but then I close my eyes
and then I'm right back, lost in that last goodbye?
13. Meatloaf - 'It's All Coming Back To Me Now'
there were nights when the wind was so cold
that my body froze in bed
(to be published in November 2020) Dust jacket illustration by Tristan Elwell. We're pleased to present a very dark, very long (nearly 40,000 words) novella by the acclaimed author of Gideon the Ninth.
“But now I shall never get out,” said Floralinda, in tears, “there is no solution to my problem that isn’t a prince, and I’m all out of princes, and I don’t want to jump out of the window and die. This is the worst conundrum I ever heard of.”
(rolls down a dusty hill through open window) Boy! Not much has happened since I last posted on Tumblr (laugh track) but every so often I amble on to tell you, three followers and my boyhood friend Christopher who still hasn’t read any of my God damned books and yet makes fun of me ceaselessly, about all the wild things occurring:
Gideon the Ninth is now available in paperback. This provides warm nesting material for winter, and also contains a new appendix of material, including an in-universe essay about how thinking the cavalier-necromancer relationship is ‘horny’ is an evil idea that nobody should ever commit to in fiction, which is how you know that in-universe fiction commits to it constantly; it also has a dossier compiled by Cpt. Judith Deuteros about how Coronabeth Tridentarius is NOT a babe. Talk about a challenger for Tolkien’s appendices
Harrow the Ninth arrives in less than a month. I received my hardback copies of it (author’s privilege) and flipped through it. It landed open at a scene where Harrow gets told the whole plot of a romance novel. I write only the hardest action scenes
My novella, “Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower”, has been announced for November 2020! That’s this year, if we live! It’s a VERY long novella. My first reader, whose name rhymes with “A.K. Farkwood”, described it as “Enid Blyton meets Slay the Spire”. If you were forced at gunpoint as a child to read “Pip the Elf” and wished dreamily that Pip would fall off a cliff already, this is for you! It’s about an awful princess who meets an awful fairy, and their adventures in being forced into the same small space together eating the same damn meal over and over (NOTE: I wrote it BEFORE lockdown).
Subterranean Press specialises in very beautiful hardback editions and the end physical product will be very specific and lovely, but for those of us with limited shelf space it WILL also be out in ebook (that’s just not available to pre-order).
I’ve received lovely messages and questions and one day I’ll get to them. Until Alecto is done, however, forgive me for that day not being today; soon. Thank you so much for all the support.
Harrow the Ninth: Act One by Tamsyn Muir | Tor.com Publishing
Today is the 14th of April and you can go and read the whole first act of Harrow the Ninth!
I finished Harrow long before Gideon ever went to publication and it is extremely weird having it now be in the pipeline to be read. I’ll have also finished Alecto before Harrow is out, which will be weird in the same way. Alecto is a very different book to Harrow and Harrow is a very different book to Gideon. Gideon was about two girls crammed into a bloodstained get-along shirt; Harrow is about, as stolen from A.K. Larkwood, two girls who are not enjoying this Duke of Ed residential very much; Alecto will be about girls being annoyed that it is legal for their exes to talk to each other. The tomb is open. The get-along shirt is empty.
Naturally I had a hell of a lot of fun writing Harrow and it is very personal to me. It is about a girl staggering over the finish line with all her limbs ground down to stumps only to discover that that was the start of the marathon. It is about another girl who owns thirty thousand stupid outfits, and wears them. It is the hideousness of being a grown-up and discovering the protagonist of your sequel is some emo kid with Disney hair who hangs around Goofy and Donald. It is about meals.
Really it is a book that, at its heart, is the bit in the Homestar Runner music video for TMBG’s Experimental Film where Strong Sad falls hard out of the sky and the spectator stand announces that it is a lion.
I presume you’re not allowed to read Gideon fic for legal reasons, but I have to commend you for being in the top ten Yuletide fandoms this year anyway.
I am slapping this message up the queue because: it what, thank you so much for telling me. Christmas on the beach!!! I don’t deserve this, having once written the worst Yuletide story of all time, but I’ll take it to the bank
I can’t read any Gideon fanfic and I’ve never hurt over anything so bad in all my life. I don’t go looking at anything, even fanart, because I want my soul to be a pure chalice until I finish Alecto the Ninth, a story that’s oceans dumber than any you guys are writing.
As a note in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m so grateful that there’s any fanfiction out there. I’m so delighted. Go with my blessing. I only get hints of fandom when my friends email me shitposts (which are all perfection) or it’s my pals perpetrating it by making Gideon in their dollmaker and then refusing to show me because she ‘looked like Neo from the Matrix’, or whoever the very beautiful lovely person was at London ComicCon who got me to sign an extremely boss piece of art I still want to find online, or the funny fan in the badass cosplay who despite my charmless bewilderment who told me hi from the Discord (I’m just terrible in person and everyone is always so gentle, crackly bone hugs for the Discord).
The last fannish joy I had was when K.M. Szpara (NOTE TO ANYONE READING THIS: BUY & READ DOCILE THEN WRITE A BUNCH OF FIC I CAN ACTUALLY READ) revealed that he thought the only viable m/m ship was Palamedes/Naberius. My editor was nodding thoughtfully. A beautiful moment.
Hi! You’ve mentioned several times in interviews that you have a fanfic-writing background. Are you happy to tell your fans where we can find you on AO3, or do you prefer to keep your Real Life Writing and fandom pseud separate, never the twain shall meet?
Not at all, I’ve admitted this to crowds of nonplussed people! I’m pretty open about the fact that I wrote in Homestuck fandom as urbanAnchorite, and I am not ashamed of anything I did there except for the time I tried to convince Monster of Elendhaven author Jennifer Giesbrecht to do a story with me where Jade was having Nepeta and Equius’ baby.
I have written elsewhere on the Internet and my very old stuff is still out there on fanfiction.net, but it was all just me doing unbelievably earnest Final Fantasy epics. I’m not precisely ashamed, but my brother still calls me up and quotes choice lines from it to me.
I’m a fandom knucklehead from old times and I am very glad we currently live in the age where you can be open about it. I remember in the early 2000s it was absolutely fucking verboten to mention you’d ever written any of it in case you got sued within an inch of your life, or if people didn’t take you seriously as an artist. I realised the other day that I’d actually read and adored some of N.K. Jemisin’s fanfiction when I was younger, and I welled up with all manner of emotions.
Thank you everyone who’s left interesting, lovely notes in my inbox, and I really hope I can respond to them all; I am currently only allowed short bursts of goofing off in a day and I am ashamed to say that I mainly spend them losing my life to the sea ice challenge in Rimworld. Here’s a wonderful question from @sensenoi about the book that I will put under a read-more due to spoilers --
What a lovely thing to say; thank you, everyone in my inbox is so great.
Let’s say everything had gone according to the Emperor’s plan and Cytherea hadn’t interfered
I will try not to be aggravating and expound loads on “WELL THIS IS WHAT I THINK” because death of the author etc etc who’s to say what’s canon, but this is very funny because I accidentally had this conversation with my editor just the other day. Fragment:
what follows instead is a years-long detailed refurbishment of Canaan House found families etc quiet slice-of-life slow burn romance between various people, only to end in tragedy when they all get botulism from a bad clam, and die
(I don’t think you can even get botulism from fresh clams, so this is even more tragic)
(my editor immediately speculated on what kind of new murders would take place; wow, I was only trying to give some gentle slice-of-life botulism)
In that particular exact scenario (lack of Cytherea, all else the same), which I cannot actually expound fully upon because there are facts from Harrow the Ninth which may prove useful here, I will give this answer on the understanding that I am not saying everything --
SEABOUND! A LOCKED TOMB UNIVERSE SURVIVAL ADVENTURE AND HOUSE IDENTIFICATION TOOL
You and a couple of your friends, if you have any, are on a boat in the ocean. Why are you here? Is this even relevant in the universe? Who cares. This ocean’s purpose is to help you pick… your true House identity.
Luckily, on this magical survival journey you have the opportunity to pick items to help you. You may salvage five items of the fifteen I am about to list under the cut. These items will be the key to who you are, secretly, on the inside. You’re probably going to die, but at least you will know who you are, which has to be some kind of comfort, right
These items will score you points with one or more Houses. Once you have made your selection, read the guide, tally your points, and discover… Yourself!!!!
PICK YOUR TOP FIVE OUT OF...
A sack of mandibles
A sack of fresh human hands
A rolled-up flag of the Cohort, soldiers of the blessed Necrolord Prime
Pen and flimsy
A bottle of 160 proof rum
A waterproof portrait of the Emperor, here portrayed as the Merciful Resurrector
An empty bottle with a lid to seal it
An ancient flare gun of curious make
A book of antiquated Ninth House prayers
A 25 litre container of BLOOD
A single sharp rapier
A shaving mirror
A case of absolutely disgusting army rations, hard and bad
A case of extremely glamorous luxe rations, but poisoned
A tinier, leakier fold-out raft, with a dubious motor
What’s that, you want it in image format???
WRITE YOUR TOP FIVE DOWN...........
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
It may be helpful to organise a tally sheet, like so.....
Don’t scroll down until you have made your choices...
No peeking past this point....
I mean it..............
DO NOT LOOK BELOW UNTIL YOU HAVE SETTLED YOUR CHOICES, UNLESS YOU ARE A HUGE CHEATER, IN WHICH CASE GIVE YOURSELF AN EXTRA +10 THIRD HOUSE POINTS
*****************
ITEM GUIDE
*****************
A SACK OF OLD OSSICLES
+15 Ninth House points
Only a Ninth House necromancer would want this. Not even a bone necromancer would look in joy on a sack of ossicles. If it was a more useful bone or even a fresher bone, sure, or let’s say a whole skeleton, that would be arguably useful, but in the hands of most bone adepts the ossicle is simply an ossicle. You’re from the Ninth House if you ranked this highly, which means odds are good that you are 90+ and have kidney and bladder problems.
A SACK OF FRESH HUMAN HANDS
+10 Third House points
+7 Seventh House points
+6 Second House points
+5 Third House points
+5 Fourth House points
+5 Fifth House points
+5 Sixth House points
+5 Ninth House points
Fresh human hands are generally useful. Fresh flesh (say that five times fast) will carry a goodly amount of thanergy (death energy) and thalergy (life energy), which in the hands of a necromancer might be put to good purpose. Extra points to the Third and Seventh houses, places where you’re likely to find very talented flesh magicians; five points to the other houses as flesh magic is quite generally used, and if not, there’s a whole articulating hand in there for the bone magicians. The Ninth House don’t rate this quite as highly as the sack of ossicles because you have to get the flesh off first. The Eighth House does not want your sack of fresh human hands.
The Second House gets an extra point because we could always eat those hands. We’ve eaten worse.
A ROLLED-UP FLAG OF THE COHORT, SOLDIERS OF THE BLESSED NECROLORD PRIME
+15 Second House points
+5 Seventh House points
+1 point for every other House
Only a Second House denizen would think this was a must-have. It doesn’t even have a pole. You can’t fly it. You can just look at it and think patriotic thoughts about the Cohort. The only reason you get +1 from any other House is because you could maybe use it as shade. The Seventh House scores a cool five points off this one because it would be a very Seventh House thought to be found dead and draped in the Cohort flag. Symbolic… aesthetic…. Raw
PEN AND FLIMSY
+15 Sixth House points
+10 Fifth House points
+10 Seventh House points
+10 Eighth House points
Reaching for the pen and flimsy first is a very Sixth House thing to do, because you’re going to immediately try to form a committee, have a huge argument, split off on your own and do some kind of brainstorm of ideas, then maybe you’re going to write down a bunch of bullshit equations and jot notes on the back about ways in which this might contribute to your research. The Fifth House also may well reach for this, but it’s to write down everyone on the boat’s memoirs, and perhaps a group letter expressing regret at what a bish they’ve made of it and perhaps a small measure of buttoned-up, restrained feeling for their lovers back home.
The Seventh House have written a single, very beautiful and oblique sentence about the water. The Eighth House have written down a list of any moral crimes committed on the boat.
A BOTTLE OF 160 PROOF RUM
+15 Third House points
+5 Fourth House points
+1 Second House points
CUP OF ACE, CUP OF GOOSE, CUP OF CRIS
The good Third House citizen has resigned themselves to death, but to not go gentle into that good night. The Fourth House thinks they could light this on fire, or something? Who knows
The Second House citizen will surprise you by doing a generous shot of this before everyone starts playing Mercy Stab The Weakest Members Of The Boat So They Won’t Have To Suffer.
A WATERPROOF PORTRAIT OF THE EMPEROR
+15 Eighth House points
+5 Seventh House points
+5 Ninth House points
The Eighth House citizen will pray at this grimly until they die. The Ninth House citizen will also do a certain amount of praying at this grimly until they die, but get less points because they’ll also be praying to other things.
The Seventh House citizen may hope to drape the Cohort flag over one of their dead bodies, and this to be held by another, and then they’ve got a tableau so symbolic that their rescuers will set it up as an art installation.
AN EMPTY BOTTLE WITH A LID TO SEAL IT
+9 Sixth House points
+9 Fifth House points
+9 Eighth House points
There’s no water around, so what are you going to do with this EXCEPT use it to put your rolled-up memoirs, thought crimes, or the useful rebuttal to that one article you just thought up and hope someone will rescue and publish?
AN ANTIQUE FLARE GUN OF CURIOUS MAKE
+15 Fourth House points
+5 Fifth House points
+5 Sixth House points
This thing will blow your head off. It’s a gun. Don’t – don’t fucking fire it here (NOISE OF BODY PARTS HITTING WATER)
It is intensely Fourth House to take an unbelievably dangerous piece of kit you barely understand and bravely fire it in the hope of getting rescued. It is also intensely Fifth and Sixth house just to keep a museum piece around so you can look at it and admire it. How interesting our antecedents were, to be sure
A BOOK OF ANTIQUATED NINTH HOUSE PRAYERS
+15 Ninth House points
+5 Sixth House points
+5 Seventh House points
+1 Fifth House points
‘Nuff said.
The other points reflects different desperations in the Sixth and Fifth houses are for reading material, and the Seventh House might add this to the tableau as an Enigma.
A TWENTY-FIVE LITRE CONTAINER OF BLOOD!!!!
+9 Fifth House points
Nobody wants this and very few people are talented enough to separate the toxic iron stew from some drinkable plasma, or something. The Fifth House in its boundless optimism may take this thinking they might call a ghost, but otherwise, yuk
A SINGLE SHARP RAPIER
+10 Second House points
+9 Fourth House points
+9 Seventh House points
+2 Third House points
The Second House knows that the death of a colleague neatly stabbing you is better than a death by drowning. The Fourth House is going to fuck up an octopus. The Seventh House is going to have it present, centrally, on the boat, and cast down glances through their eyelashes at it but otherwise never mention its presence, tortured. The Third House just wants a sword for the delicious drama. Delicious, delicious drama
A SHAVING MIRROR
+6 Fourth House points
+2 Third House points
A mirror can reflect the sun, generating up to seven million candlepower in light. A mirror would be a very Fourth House idea: something that sounds unrealistic and stupid on first blush, but turns out to be a one in a million incredible idea that may even save your life.
The Third House just want to check their mascara, and also see over their shoulder before one of their boat colleagues sticks the single sharp rapier inside them. Drama
A CASE OF ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING ARMY RATIONS, HARD AND BAD
+9 Second House points
+1 to every other House
We can’t fault you for practicality.
A CASE OF EXTREMELY GLAMOROUS LUXE RATIONS, BUT POISONED
+8 Third House points
+5 Eighth House points
Fuck this noise and pass me the caviar, darling
The Eighth House are also ready to receive the poison, but they will try their damndest not to enjoy it.
A TINIER, LEAKIER FOLD-OUT RAFT, WITH A DUBIOUS MOTOR
+5 Fourth House points
This is not going to get you five yards on a free ticket, which is why hopping into it and getting that dusty, wheezy motor going, then sailing for help as the rest of the boat watches you sink into the ocean and get snapped up by a giant undead squid is the most Fourth House thing you could’ve done.
**************
FAQ
**************
WHAT DO I DO IN CASE OF A TIE?
Pick the House descriptor most like yourself, or most like the person you secretly wish you were, or with the colours you like best.
WHAT DO I DO IF I DON’T LIKE THE ANSWER?
We all have to live with pain. I have gotten sorted into Slytherin House every Sorting test I have ever taken. This is not correct. I am a muggle, and demand to be treated as such.
BUT I REALLY HATE MY ANSWER.
Then you’re a Firebender. Everyone loves being a Firebender.
CAN I BE IN THE FIRST HOUSE?
No, you cursed grandpa.
ARE YOUR HOUSES REALLY MADE UP OF NARROW STEREOTYPES?
No. You are just as likely to find a party-loving Second House member as you are to find a Fourth House deep thinker who always looks before they leap. These are simply the crude crystallizations, such as those used for soap operas and toothpaste advertisements.
SOMETHING ELSE?
Whatever your problem, you can always make up your own House, with the rider that you would have to make it up as though you were ten years old and were basing it heavily around whatever you were into at the time, which would mean that my House would be inspired entirely by the Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness manual
**************
COUNT UP YOUR POINTS, DIVINE YOUR HOUSE, AND THEN…
Congratulations, dullard/poser/fool/stodge/nerd/drip/zealot/weirdo! You’re in the Second/Third/Fourth/Fifth/Sixth/Seventh/Eighth/Ninth House!!!
Gideon the Ninth's riveting tale of lesbian necromancers in space is getting a sequel in 2020, and you can start reading it right now. Bustle is pleased to reveal the gorgeous cover for Harrow the Ninth, along with an exclusive excerpt from the…
Dear all,
Here we are back again. Those long nineteen days ago when Gideon the Ninth was unleashed onto the world, I could hardly contemplate linking you again to anything. But the truth is that Gideon the Ninth is one book of three, and the second book will be here sooner than you think (JUNE 2, 2020).
That’s a long time away?? Naw. I myself will provide you with bullshit nonsense content until time speeds past like a bus out of control, and by that point June 2 will feel like a sweet reprieve because maybe I’ll stop talking about it. Psyche!! At that point I’ll simply start talking about Alecto the Ninth, a title my publishers misread because it’s actually my romance novel “Alec to Theninth”, a spiritual sequel to “From Justin to Kelly” about a guy who has a speech difficulty and meets plural clones of a Russian revolutionary politician and (Tighten this one up - Ed.)
Taking a twist for the contemporary, HARROW THE NINTH is the story of one girl’s sexual awakening at Bible camp, surrounded by wasps, unwanted nudes, and elderly swingers. It is also a story about how absolutely nothing happened the way you thought it did. Here are some of the traditional contemporary tropes I went with:
* PROTAG GETS A LIFE-CHANGING MAKEOVER
* PROTAG TROUBLED BY FLAWLESS MARKS IN HIGH SCHOOL NOT TRANSLATING OVER INTO UNIVERSITY
* DINNER PARTY RUINED BY FAUX PAS
* DESPITE MULTIPLE GIRLS BEING INTERESTED PROTAG PINES OVER THE ONE GIRL WHO ISN’T, WHICH IS JUST COMPLETELY FUCKING TYPICAL
* HORRIBLE LEMONGRAB WOMAN STEEPLES FINGERS, A LOT
* DROVE MY CHEVY TO THE LEVEE BUT THE LEVEE WAS GHOSTS
* SO LIKE, WHAT IF THE PAST, LIKE... WASN’T ACTUALLY... THE PAST, YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING? (TAKES HUGE NECROBONG HIT)
I have also put in some new characters, but not TOO many! You may want to get familiar with them now. Tag yourself!
gummygunk
kianamaiart
tangentwithtanner
dailybridgerton
stormborns
