Tamsyn Muir Books in Order
The New Zealand author who invented necromancers in space and made the literary fantasy world lose its mind — four times.
About Tamsyn Muir
Tamsyn Muir is a New Zealand author who published her debut novel in 2019 and immediately became one of the most discussed voices in speculative fiction. The elevator pitch for Gideon the Ninth — "lesbian necromancers in space" — went viral before the book even published, and the novel delivered on every implication of that description. What readers did not anticipate was how literary it was, how funny, how emotionally devastating, or how precisely the first book had been engineered to make the reader care about characters Muir then proceeded to put through impossible situations across three more volumes. The Locked Tomb series is one of the most ambitious things attempted in modern fantasy: each book shifts narrator, form, and register while maintaining the emotional throughline established in Gideon. Harrow the Ninth is narrated in second person and uses unreliable memory as a structural principle. Nona the Ninth introduced what felt like a completely new story in the series' penultimate volume. Alecto the Ninth concluded everything with the ambition the series demanded. Muir writes like someone who read widely across literary fiction, science fiction, and fantasy and decided to synthesize all of it. The result is categorically her own.
The Locked Tomb Series — Complete Reading Order
- 1
Gideon the Ninth
The Locked Tomb, Book 1
Gideon Nav has one goal: escape the Ninth House. What she gets instead is a haunted necromantic mansion, a dangerous competition between nine magical houses, and a mission to protect the necromancer she has spent her life hating. Narrated by a sword-wielding lesbian with a foul mouth and a chip on her shoulder, this is the book that invented its own genre.
- 2
Harrow the Ninth
The Locked Tomb, Book 2
Harrowhark the First enters the Emperor's service — but her memories have been altered, her timeline is fractured, and the second person narrator knows things the Harrow we're following does not. Harder than Gideon, stranger than Gideon, and for readers who push through it, more devastating.
- 3
Nona the Ninth
The Locked Tomb, Book 3
A girl who woke up in a body that isn't hers lives an ordinary life in a city under siege — surrounded by a found family she loves but doesn't fully understand. The warmest and most accessible Locked Tomb novel, and a necessary bridge to the finale.
- 4
Alecto the Ninth
The Locked Tomb, Book 4
The finale: every thread from the previous three books comes together in Muir's most ambitious novel. The universe's oldest mystery is answered, the Emperor's true nature is revealed, and the Locked Tomb finally opens. The conclusion the series earned.
If You Like Tamsyn Muir, Try:
A Memory Called Empire shares Muir's literary quality, queer sensibility, and interest in consciousness and identity as plot engines. Hugo Award winner and the most frequently cited comparable to the Locked Tomb.
Chambers prioritizes found family, queer characters, and emotional depth in science fiction settings — the warmest possible companion to Muir's intensity. All Systems Red (Murderbot) and The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet are the natural recovery reads between Locked Tomb volumes.
Schwab's morally grey protagonists and precisely controlled plotting share DNA with Muir's approach to character. Vicious in particular has the same quality of making readers care deeply about people who do terrible things.
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