What’s there to say about Tamsyn Muir? Essentially nothing that hasn’t already been said. I read a lot of books, maybe too much, and it’s a myth that you have to be a prodigy to publish a successful, solid novel. You have to be talented, persistent, and lucky as Hell, but you don’t have to be the next Tolkien to write a great story. For Muir though, she really is a prodigy. The Locked Tomb series is on par with Dune, LOTR, His Dark Materials, The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, ect, in terms of setting a genre precedent. It’s not just smart, it’s brilliant. It’s a series that you have to go in trusting that the author will take you on a wild ride but that’s alright, because you aren’t going to understand a lot about what’s happening until far later in the book. You have to be a brilliant writer to keep people hooked while also leaving them confused. Her books are thus both easy to read, because they are engaging, and very hard to read, because there is a lot of shit going on and the narrators aren’t always the most reliable.
You know a book is good when you think about it all the time and I do think about Muir’s books, particularly Nona the Ninth, all the time (I even bought a limited-edition poster of the cover art). It’s funny, it’s found family, it’s world ending space drama, it’s slice of life, it’s Cthulhu blue light, it’s wartime life commentary, and it’s got lesbian necromancers.
What else is there to say?
Now for Nebraska, what is there to say about Nebraska? One, it takes a Hell of a long time to get there from Europe, which left me with a lot of reading time. Two, I didn’t see much of it, because I was there for a work conference and I stayed in downtown Omaha the entire time. And three, my take away is thus – Icy, empty downtown Omaha; a place with cool antique stores, sweet people, and surprisingly good restaurants.
It is not, however, the easiest state to read an LGBTQ book in and compare it to. When I think of the Midwest, I don’t think of a utopia of inclusivity, though their steak does live up to the hype. The politics are bad in Nebraska; however, the people were all nice. That being said, I didn’t grow up in Nebraska. I don’t come off as outwardly queer either, so I blend in pretty easily to the Midwest (blond white girl with no tattoos. It doesn’t get more lowkey for the Midwest). Therefore, I’m the last person to ask about what growing up queer in the city is like.
What I do know is that it is pretty surreal to read Nona the Ninth in a state where conversion therapy is still legal. It makes me appreciate there being an openly LGBTQ store downtown in the city and selling cute clothes and novelty items. Some not my style, humor-wise, but I found the store pretty brave for existing there. Kudos to Raygun, which I have since learned is a chain and unionized, so good on them!
It made me wish to leave Nona the Ninth downtown for somebody to pick up, but I sadly only have an ereader and that is too expensive to put on the sidewalk. Maybe next time though!
(If I go back to Nebraska… That’s not exactly on my visionary board for the future)
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