The Locked Tomb should have stayed locked

I first heard about The Locked Tomb several years ago. It was one of those books that comes out and it's by a debut author or even just a author that isn't that well-known and it just blows the hell up. And sometimes when that happens, it's because the book in question is just really, really good. Mistborn was not Brandon Sanderson's first book, but he was pretty unknown before that. And that's just a really good book. I would argue it's still one of his best. And so there's a reason how why when it came out he became a household name afterwards. I don't like JK Rowling as a person very much but you cannot deny that she was cooking when she wrote Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone. To kill a mockingb bird is a classic and it was a debut novel. It took off and it was really big back when it came out. So you can see why these books got big and why they sold well and why they were popular and why they have managed to stay relevant decades after they came out. And then there are some books by debut authors that get really big because they're just following some sort of trend. Aragon really only got as big as it did because that was when Harry Potter was big and people were just looking for more kids fantasy. The Lovely Bones is pure ass. And I I I despise that book. I've said more than once over the years. Uh but it did come out around the time that misery porn was just starting to get popular. At least that's my theory for why it's big. Don't at me. And who could ever forget the Divergent trilogy? You know, those books are bad, but they came out when The Hunger Games was big and they were basically just advertised as more of that. So, they latched on to the trend at the exact right time and then they came out and they sold really well. And if you're wondering, yes, I will cover the weird alternate universe spin-off novel that's coming out soon. Just stay tuned for that. The point is that even if these books aren't great, you can at least see why they got big. And then there are some books by debut authors that come out and they get really big and popular. And I honestly don't see why. I I don't understand why. I I just don't get the appeal. The Locked Tomb is one of those situations. It's about lesbian necromancers going on adventures in space, which sounds cool and fun, but the quality does not match that setup. like getting through these was a bit of a slog. And it's a shame because that setup sounds cool and there is some good stuff in here on paper. Like if I described a lot of what happens here to you, you might get interested, but the writing like the pros itself is like bad fanfiction and the humor is just awful. >> DISAPPOINTED. [screaming] >> IF YOU can get into the humor, then you may like these books. or if you can just ignore the humor, then you may like these books. But for me, it was like mustard on a burger, right? Like I hate mustard. The taste of mustard makes me physically sick. If I even think about what it tastes like for too long or talk about what it tastes like for too long, I will actually start to gag. I cannot eat anything with mustard on it ever. So, if you put mustard on a burger, that will just overwhelm all of the other ingredients for me. And the bad pros and the bad jokes in The Locked Tomb is like that for me cuz there is stuff in here that I actually liked and thought was good, but the bad writing just completely overwhelmed it for me. The books really aren't awful. I don't even think they're that bad. And if it weren't for the bad writing, I think they could be pretty good. But it's there and it is suffused in every single part of these books. I would say that overall book one is very meh. You know, there's some cool and fun moments, but largely it's just nothing. Like, I just straight up did not care about 80% of what was going on here. It's not really good or bad. Then we get to book two, which is outright bad, but it still has some bright spots. Like, it it's really not awful. And then book three is actually good. I would say book three is the best one in the series, but for spoil spoiler heavy reasons. So, we'll get to that later. I liked parts of The Locked Tomb, but man, the lows were painful. This is the introduction song. It's not very good, but it's not too long. It really is a shame that these books aren't that good because they have a lot of fun ideas in them. When I heard that they were about space necromancers, I thought, "Cool. I'll put that on my list and I'll get to them eventually." But by the time I got around 15% of the way through the first book, I realized this was going to be a long slog. It comes across like a free online story that you would read on like Wattpad or Fiction Press, you know, something written by a teenager. And those stories are usually bad, but occasionally you'll come across one that is better than average. And granted, I haven't read that many of these for years and years, but I read tons of them when I was a teenager. And even the ones that are better than average still usually aren't that great. But the person writing them clearly has some passion and talent and it's shining through. And if The Locked Tomb was a free story that you found on Wattpad written by a teenager, I would grade it on a curve. I would say, "Hey, good job. Little rough around the edges, but you keep working at it. Keep improving your craft, and I think you'll be very good one day." But it wasn't. It was written by a grown adult and it was sent to publishers with things like editors and standards. Bad jokes and references that might otherwise be kind of acceptable just make me cringe out of my skin when I take into account that again this is a real book that real people looked at and said, "Yeah, here we go. We'll put this on shelves. People will buy It's it's just it it adds layers and context to it that I can't see past. The Locked Tomb, all of the books are just packed full of memes and references to Tumblr from the early 2010s. Like, yes, a real published book has internet memes from 15 years ago in it. And look, don't get me wrong, Tumblr is funny sometimes, but it's also a place where the people pride themselves on being very, very annoying. If you want to be really popular on Tumblr, then you need to be a social outcast. What's that you say? You're straight, well off, and don't have enough shoe polish to change your race. Fear not. All you need is a good self-dagnosed mental illness. >> So, being reminded of that while reading these books was just not fun is what I'm saying. And again, I'd be forgiven. I'd be more forgiving if this was written by a teenager who spent too much time online. But it wasn't. And if you take nothing else away from this video, just know that the humor of these books is not only very unfunny, but extraordinarily dated. And I know humor is subjective, so some of you will disagree with me. That's fine. But this is my review. The jokes just made me groan, and they are everywhere. every few minutes I had to roll my eyes at something. And out of three books, three long books, by the way, the these aren't short. Uh, and out of these three long books, I chuckled maybe five times. You know, you throw enough darts, you're going to hit the board eventually. Like I said, book three, which is called Nona the Ninth, is the strongest in the series for reasons I'll get into in a bit. But it has a joke so bad that I think I had to knock an entire star off just for that. Because there's a moment early in the book where a character mentions that he looks like Edward from Twilight if he was a history teacher. >> You see how this looks, right? >> Which under any circumstances, that's not a great joke. But I swear I heard a laugh track when I got to that point. But if that scene was meant to take place in the modern day, I think it would be fine. It wouldn't be very funny, but it would be fine. But this is thousands of years in the future. Even if human culture and art has all stayed perfectly preserved that whole time, the same things would not be considered popular or well-known. So, it just takes me out of the story and also immediately makes the book dated. You know, we know Twilight now. It It's still a little bit dated to make Twilight references in this day and age, but we do know it now. But if someone picks this book up in 15 years, it's going to feel like someone's dad referencing an old Chuck Norris movie, you know. And that Twilight is something that, love it or hate it, it did have actual cultural staying power for a couple of years. Imagine how much worse this is when it's referencing internet memes. And I have to bring all of this up before everything else because this overshadows everything else. It's hard to get invested in these characters when they break character to make quips referencing internet humor from 10,000 years before they were born. It's hard to feel like this world is so far in the future and so disconnected from our modern world when they talk about movies and TV shows that were popular when I was a teenager. It just drags everything down. And even moments that should be epic or cool often fall flat because of this. Necromancers exploring an abandoned Gothic mansion in space sounds great until you see it filtered through this lens. And some of this can be explained away by me just having a different sense of humor. But some of it is just straight up bad writing. There's other parts where it feels like the books seem more fixated on being different than they are on being good or even making sense. Like I've mentioned before that most bad romanty novels are written in a way where they give off very strong young adult novel energy. Like they're obviously not written for kids because they have hardcore sex scenes in them, but they're just very shallow and all of the characters, whatever their actual age, act like snotty teenagers. And The Locked Tomb does have a similar issue. Like it's meant for an older audience. At least I'm pretty sure it's meant for an older audience. Uh, but it has all the vibes and energy of something not just written for teenagers, but written by teenagers. I'm not sure how much of this was done on purpose versus how much was incidental, but whatever the case, it reads like online fiction written by teenagers. The descriptions tend to be lacking. The dialogue is weird and stiff. The jokes are all mostly just characters being super random or just referencing [ __ ] One issue that I see with a lot of romance novels nowadays is that characters are barely even characters. They're just tropes. You know, they're the bad boy, the alpha male, the just a friend, you know, that sort of thing. Like there you just look at that trope and there's nothing else to it. It's not even really a character. And they take these pre-made archetypes, which they can sometimes work in fanfiction since we already know those characters, but it doesn't work in original fiction because we need to know these people before we get to care about them. And these are all problems that The Locked Tomb runs into. It's far from unique in that regard, just so we're clear. But again, most of the problems here just come back to that bad fanfiction writing quality. If you don't believe me, here are a couple of direct quotes from the books, Harrow said with some difficulty. I cannot conceive of a universe without you in it. Yes, you can. It's just less great and less hot, said Gideon. He had the eyes of a very beautiful person trapped in resting [ __ ] face. Sounds like the start of a joke, right? Two scientists, an engineer, a detective, a lawyer, and an artist walk into a bar to help me become God. >> OH, BROTHER, THIS GUY STINKS. >> Every other line is written like that. Every time I started to get into the story, something like that would come up and I would just groan and cringe out of my skin. The mustard ruined the burger is what I'm saying. Another issue with the writing here is that when it's not trying to be funny, it's just really melodramatic. Like those are the only two things it seems to be able to do. And again, that is a problem that I see a lot in stuff online, but it's much more annoying with a real book. Like, there needs to be more variety because if every serious moment is written in the most dramatic way possible, they all start to blend together after a while. But I've been going on way too long without actually getting into detail about what these books are about. The plot goes in some odd directions, but it's pretty easy to follow at first. The characters live in a star system called Dominicus thousands of years in the future. They're all ruled by an immortal demigod emperor and his lers. Now, lers are just very powerful immortal necromancers that serve the emperor directly. The protagonist of the first book is Gideon, and she's a cavalier, basically a bodyguard to a necromancer named Herohark, or Harrow for short. The two of them get summoned by the emperor to undergo some trials to become licers, and then the story unfolds. And I'll have to get into books two and three later because those are a lot different. Book one's premise is easy enough to understand. Gideon and Harrow are likable characters and they have a clear goal that they're working towards. They're just trying to complete these trials so that Harrow can become a licer. Great. The setting is a bit weird, but it is pretty neat. We don't get a bunch of info dumps about how everything works. We just get thrown into this magical space empire. And the mystery of how things function or even what this place is does create a very creepy and unsettling atmosphere that persists throughout a large portion of the book. All we know at first is that there are necromancers. There's an immortal emperor that they worship as a god, and there's a locked tomb that contains some sort of big threat to the emperor. All of the other details come through very slowly. I was able to push past the jokes at first and get into the world, and once the leads arrive at the trials, there are other candidates there as well, and they start dying mysteriously. So the whole thing turns into a murder mystery story almost like the the whole book series is written like a puzzle actually which sounds kind of neat but it does not work. It doesn't work because it's not a clever mystery or series of mysteries even. It's just written in an obtuse manner. And I won't go into spoilers until later. So I'll be vague right now. But basically the books go out of their way to present information to the audience in a confusing and inconsistent manner. Book one isn't too bad about this, but book two switches between first, second, and third person narration, seemingly at random. I know there is an explanation for why they do this at the end of the book. Okay, keyboard warriors, no need to get mad. Uh, but again, it doesn't come in until the end of the book. So, up until that point, it's just weird and confusing. And personally, I don't like switching between different POVs like that. Like if everything is in first person, then I don't really question why this person is narrating the story. It's just it's just what's happening. If it's sometimes first person and sometimes third person, it just reminds me that I'm reading a book and it takes me out of it. And I also just straight up dislike second person. Second person narration isn't something I see a whole lot. I mostly remember it being used in choose your own adventure books back when I was a kid and occasionally some weird fanfiction where the reader falls in love with the character. Uh but whatever the case, I'm just not a fan of it. And if you can get into it or even just ignore it, then you won't find it as annoying as I do. But the point is, these books are deliberately obtuse to hide the mysteries. They give very little information and sometimes they outright contradict themselves. Like with a good mystery, all or most of the information is given to the audience along with the characters. So that way when the big reveals come and the puzzle pieces all fall into place, you have this moment where you go, "Ah, that's clever." But whenever big reveals happen in The Locked to Tomb, I just went, "Oh, uh, all right then." I've seen some people claim that the books are better on a reread, which yeah, of course, they actually freaking make sense on a reread. The overall plot isn't that difficult to follow. It's mostly the small details that just don't add up, or at least they don't add up until later. Again, please note that this mostly applies to the second book. Books one and three aren't too bad about just outright lying to the audience. But let's get more positive for a minute. The lead characters are pretty good, at least at first. Mostly because the leads don't make too many bad reference jokes. Like Gideon, as I mentioned earlier, is a cavalier. So, so she's a bodyguard to Harrow the Necromancer, but more than that, she's an indentured servant, which is a friendly term for slave, basically. She was born on the planet that holds the aonomous locked tomb, and apparently it contains the body of the emperor's greatest foe. I don't think their identity is confirmed until the second book. It might have been hinted at before that, though. The point is, Gideon lives here, and she's not allowed to leave or have her own life. She's actually tried to escape multiple times. And the book begins with her getting caught again. And she does agree to help out Harrow, but only because she'll be let free from her indentured servitude if she does. And Harrow only takes on Gideon as a cavalier because she's literally the only option. Like all of the other children on their planet died a while ago, and we'll get to that later. Gideon's frustration with how unfair her life situation is is palpable. And even when I didn't care about other stuff going on, I wanted Gideon to succeed so that she could just leave this place and go live her own life. Moreover, Gideon is an amusing character, unlike most of the characters in these books. Uh, and it's not because she has a bunch of quips or funny oneliners, but because she is endearingly dumb. You know, she's stupid, but she's deliberately written to be stupid. She's good at fighting and very little else. She reminds me a lot of protagonists from shownen anime and manga that I read when I was a kid. Like Goku from Dragon Ball. >> Is that going to be for me? >> Goku, do you really think you'll be able to fit into this? >> I can at least try. >> Or Naruto from Naruto. >> Mhm. I haven't clue what's going on here, but I'll act like I do. >> Or Luffy from One Piece. Yeah, >> you know, like they're buffoons who bumble their way through a lot of situations, but they're also geniuses at fighting and coming up with plans in the middle of combat. And Gideon is kind of like them. She's really good at fighting and one or two other things, but for the most part, she's just not the sharpest knife in the drawer. There is literally a line in the first book where someone says, "While we were developing common sense, she was studying the blade." Now, you still shouldn't put memes in your far future science fantasy epics like that. Like, that's still a stupid line, don't get me wrong. However, it does sum up Gideon's character nicely. There's a murder mystery going on, and 70% of it goes directly over her head. And as I said earlier, the books did get a couple of chuckles out of me. Most of those come from Gideon. Like, she's not a bad person. Her stupidity doesn't cause major problems for anyone. She's just kind of dumb. And that's why I say she's endearingly dumb. It is really refreshing to see a protagonist who's dumb on purpose instead of one who's meant to be smart or meant to be normal, but their actions just conflict with that. Like, Silver Elite still haunts me. And then we have Harrow. She's not as good of a character as Gideon, but she's not half bad either. Uh, please note that she plays a larger role in book two than in book one, so a lot of what I'm saying comes from there. Exposition Corner. The planets of the star system where the characters live each have their own noble house that practices a different school of necromancy. And Harrow is from the 9inth house, which is a lazy name, but at least it's easy to remember. When her and Gideon were very young, most of the children of their house died in a tragic accident, and they're the only ones left. So that's why they're stuck together. That's why she takes on Gideon as a cavalier. And they really really don't like each other at first. they they will come right out and say, "I am using you to get what I want." And the other one will say, "Yes, that's good because I am also using you to get what I want." When they first start the emperor's trials, Harrow just kind of [ __ ] off and tries to do everything by herself. But eventually, she accepts that Gideon does have things to offer. So, they start working together to complete the trials, and then they grow closer. And there are other people taking the trials, too. So, they have to like forge alliances or form rivalries with them. I don't have a lot to say about the other minor characters, but they're there. They do nothing except act cool sometimes and dispense bad jokes other times, but they're there. Harrow is smart and she's good at necromancy, but she's also horribly depressed. I won't get into exactly why until the spoiler section, but she views herself as a monster and it's hard to blame her. Like, she's not responsible for bad things happening, but bad things have been done to other people on her behalf, so she feels guilty about that. And despite being very young, she has a lot of responsibility thrust upon her, and that's crushing. But she also refuses to give into the pressure. And in the sequels, she goes through even more unfortunate events. So all of her melancholy doesn't come across as belly aching. Harrow and Gideon are both decent characters on their own. The problem is their relationship because this first book is trying to do like an enemies to lovers thing with them, which is a common trope these days. And normally it doesn't work because the leads aren't really enemies at first. They just are kind of rude to each other for a chapter or two and then they have sex and then they're in love. Like there's no real animosity, but there's also no real buildup to their romance. Uh Fourth Wing was particularly bad about this. Gideon and Harrow do have actual animosity. They don't like each other for a large chunk of the story and then suddenly they're best friends and also in love. like there there is no transition period at all. They go immediately from I am using you to I love you. It's it's weird. There's a really dramatic bit of dialogue from later on in the book. I have tried to dismantle you, Gideon Nav. The 9inth house poisoned you. We trod you underfoot. I took you to this killing field as my slave. You refused to die and you pity me. Strike me down. You've won. I've lived my whole wretched life at your mercy. Yours alone. And God knows I deserve to die at your hand. You are my only friend. I am undone without you. >> I do not believe you. >> That line just comes completely out of nowhere. Like I can buy them becoming friends uh after warming up to each other a bit, but all this stuff about how they die for each other and they yearn for each other and at one point they come up with a motto where they say one flesh, one end to show off how much they mean to each other. Like you hated each other two chapters ago, man. I think the problem stems from just having way too many characters in this first book. Like if there were half as many people at the trials, we could have spent more time on Gideon and Harrow's relationship. But as it stands, it it just goes from zero to 100 with very little in between. There's another more minor character who I liked named, and she's one of the heirs taking the emperor's trials. She is a very no nononsense take no [ __ ] person. When other characters need something done, they go toe. She doesn't belly ache about morality or ethics. She just does what she thinks is necessary. You know, to put it simply, she gets [ __ ] done. And I liked that. Like that's an archetype I've seen done in a lot of other places, but it works here. And plays a decentsized role in all three books. Not much else to say about her. I just liked her. The only other character I want to talk about right now is the emperor whose name is John. And I'll be honest, it's very difficult to take the immortal demigod emperor of mankind seriously when his name is John. Other characters have names like and herohark and Palamedes and he's just John. Doesn't really stand out. Doesn't sound as epic. And it's even more difficult to take him seriously when he acts and talks like he's 17. Yeah, he seriously comes across like an adolescent boy trying to seem mature. Like people outsmart him repeatedly. They hide things from him and he causes more problems than he solves. We'll get to that in spoilers, don't worry. I find myself wondering how this guy stayed in power for 10,000 years if he's so incompetent and so easy to trick. I just I just found him irritating. I don't think he ruined anything. Uh I just didn't like him. I I do wish they had gone into more detail about how being worshiped as a god might have warped his psyche and affected him emotionally cuz he's been alive for a long time and he wasn't always the emperor of mankind. You know, being treated as a god for 10,000 years while most of your loved ones die would probably warp a few things up here, but we don't get much information about that. In fact, the whole religion based around worshiping the emperor as a god does feel very thin and halfbaked. Although to be fair, that is a problem with most fantasy and science fiction religions. Like uh there's a YouTube channel called Religion for Breakfast that actually has a whole video about this topic. If you're interested, you should go check it out. It's pretty good. But in a lot of these stories, the religions feel more like set dressings than something people actually live and breathe. For example, let's look at the religions in the Game of Thrones series. But religion in the series also feels a little too tidy. Each culture basically has one god or pantheon neatly mapped onto their geographical region. Now that makes it easy for us to follow as viewers and readers. But compared to the chaotic reality of real world religions, it feels thin. What I will say is that most of the characters in these books feel very human. By which I mean I'm at least a little sympathetic to them and I can see layers to all of them. like even if they aren't very deep or likable, I can see a person in there. Uh please note that I said major characters. The minor characters are a lot less good. Most of them have the same problem that God Emperor John does where they just feel like teenagers, which is fine when they are teenagers, but when the older characters act that way, I just kept thinking, man, get your [ __ ] together. You're 35,000. because these books, especially the first one, are just packed full of characters and there is not enough time to develop most of them. So, most of them are just an interchangeable mass. And with so many there, the books fall into this pattern where it's just a series of things happening and there's very little downtime to let anything sink in. So, uh, especially the first book, again, it was hard for me to get into the plot or care about anything that was going on because there's just so much happening that there's no time for anyone to stop and take a breath. I keep mentioning that characters are necromancers and the necromancy stuff is cool. Like, uh, we have scenes where characters feed their bone marrow to each other and clean swords with arterial blood and create prosthetic arms out of bone. That that's kind of cool. The afterlife is a literal river of souls that they swim through faster than the speed of light so that they can go off and fight Eldrich beings. Like, that's kind of cool. I kept waiting to see what other stuff they'd reveal and what new powers they'd come up with. But, we learn about the river early on in book two, and after that, there's not a whole lot of new stuff with regards to how necromancy works and what you can do with it. So, I think we know basically everything about necromancy from pretty early on, but again, there is an upcoming fourth book, which I I guess maybe that'll add some more stuff. Not every magic system needs to be uber complex. You know, sometimes a softer magic system is good for making magic seem spooky and mysterious, but magic is frequently used in these books, so it doesn't seem spooky. It's just there. And uh I guess we're coming in on the end of the non-spoiler section now. So, uh, trust me, it gets real weird once I get into spoiler stuff. If I seem vague, you'll understand why in a few minutes. Do I recommend that you read The Locked Tomb? No. I I don't think these books are very good. They are not the worst things ever. I would not even put them in the top five worst books I've read this year. Like, the second book, Harrow the Ninth, is the worst in the series. I would not put that in the top five worst books I've read this year. Like this year I have read Zodiac Academy 2 and the Heavenly Trilogy and Time Spike. Those are all worse overall. And hell, I haven't covered it yet, but I'd say The Goddess Test is worse, too. I think I'm going to have something on that out in October. Stay tuned. But everything in The Locked Tomb is filtered through a lens of awful pros and awful jokes that just makes them a slog to get through. And they're not short books either. They're pretty chunky. Some parts of the setting are kind of cool. Some of the big events and reveals and action scenes are kind of good. Even the weird experimental stuff where the book deliberately lies to the audience kind of works sometimes, but that's the key phrase that I keep coming back to. Kind of. These books only ever kind of succeed at what they're trying to do. And the series isn't finished yet. Like the fourth and I believe last book has been getting pushed back for several years now, which makes me fearful this might be like a Winds of Winter or Doors of Stone situation. Like I'm not saying it will be. I'm just saying maybe that's something you should keep in mind before you pick these up and start reading. Uh do I have anything else positive to say? I think a lot of the lore is good and unique. It just suffers from being filtered through this awful pros. Uh, if you don't feel like reading the books, maybe just check out the wiki and read through a bit. I think that's the best way to experience a lot of it. I also liked that all the lesbian stuff isn't the central focus of the story. Like, it's still there and the books don't shy away from it, but that's not really what they're about. You know, the story is about other stuff happening. It's not a romance. It's not about how difficult their lives are and how uh many hardships they faced and how much discrimination they faced. It's just gay folks going on adventures. I remember when I was a teenager, I had a friend who was kind of frustrated how anytime a movie or TV show came out that was primarily about black characters, it had to be focused on the fact that they were black. You know, it was always movies about like slavery or the civil rights movement or racism or something like it had to be focused on the fact that they were black. and he wanted there to be movies where they just went on adventures and did stuff, but the characters just were black guys, you know, or black girls, just black people. Uh, he just wanted them to just be there, like just be normal folks and not have their race be the central theme of the whole thing. And I agree with him. I think all groups of people should be allowed to have some of that. There should be characters that just happen to be black or just happen to be gay or trans or Jewish or a woman or whatever else. And obviously there's still room to tell stories about racism and discrimination and stuff, but that shouldn't be the only thing that they're allowed to be in. What I'm getting at is I think that is some of the appeal for people who liked The Locked Tomb. And I think that's understandable. I'm just not the target audience there. It doesn't bother me, but it doesn't really draw my draw me in either. And at this point, I've been on YouTube for almost 10 years. I think my channel has enough examples of me reading stuff that I'm not the target audience for, but I always give it a fair shake. If you don't believe me, the evidence is right there. Again, I have hundreds of videos, several thousand hours worth of content if you don't believe me. Anyways, that's about it. Uh, I don't think The Locked tomb is very good. Now, we're getting into spoilers. >> I'M ALWAYS THE LIAR. I'M ALWAYS [screaming] AT FAULT. I'M THE BETRAYER. I'M THE DOUBLE CROSSER. SO, like I said, book one is Gideon the Ninth, and it's about Gideon and company exploring a giant mansion. Uh, it's called Kanan House. I don't know if I mentioned that earlier, but that's what it's called. And once Gideon and Harrow get closer, Harrow makes a confession to her. The reason that the two of them are the only kids left from the 9inth House is that Harrow's family killed them all in a ritual to make Harrow's necromancy super powerful, and Gideon just survived, seemingly by accident. Harrow felt really guilty about this, so she just walked into the locked tomb. >> That was easy. >> If this thing is such a big deal and you don't want anyone entering it under any circumstances, you should maybe do a better job securing it. Just saying. And while Harrow was in there, she found the Emperor's mortal foe. Or rather, she found their body. It's just a beautiful dead woman and Harrow falls in love with her. Okay, we learn her name later on, but at first the dead woman is just referred to as the body. And that just made me think of Jesse Ventura cuz you know back when he was a wrestler, his wrestling nickname was the body. So the whole time I just kept picturing that the emperor's greatest foe was this guy. Anyways, when Harrow's family finds out about her entering the locked tomb, they all commit suicide because that's heresy and she dishonored them. And apparently, no one else realized that the people leading the 9inth House committed suicide because she's now been secretly leading it for years. >> That doesn't make sense. >> Yeah. No one noticed the literal child just casually entering the locked tomb except her family, who then I guess didn't tell anybody. And no one noticed that the literal child has been in charge of a planet for literal years. [music] I I can understand wanting to have a plot twist here, but the way this twist is set up just makes everyone involved look really stupid. Now, I could accept this if there was a lie that they told to everybody else. like if Harrow and one or two other people were the only ones that knew about it and she said, "Yeah, my family died in a horrible accident and I'm the heir, so I guess I'm in charge now." Then I could buy that. But the fact that people think that her family is still running things and it's actually Harrow is just weird and does not add up if you think about it for very long. It's also weird that apparently no one noticed that this tomb holding a threat to the emperor got opened by a child. Like some of these plot twists are just here for the sake of having plot twists. You know, I also have to mention that if you're writing a character who's going through trauma, you have to be careful not to overdo it because if Harrow felt survivors guilt because of the other kids that would sac that were sacrificed on her behalf, that would be great. But then they also add in that it's her fault her family died and she's stressed from being in charge of the 9inth house. And all right, after a while it's just starting to turn into misery porn. You know, like I've read bad books and the occasional bad fanfiction where a character was like abused by their parents and they were bullied at school and they were a drug addict and they were sexually abused and they grew up in poverty. And when you stack that much on top of each other, it reaches a point where it just becomes comical. You have to be careful not to overdo character trauma is what I'm saying. But back in the present day, they go through the emperor's trials and after a while, realizes that to become a licer, they have to kill their cavalere and absorb their soul. So, she does that. She just immediately kills her own cavalere and becomes a licer, which is a very #girl boss move. Like, there was no hesitation on her part. Honestly, like I said, she is a fun character. She's not a good person, but she's a fun character. And then one of the other people taking the trials reveals that she's actually uh Scytheria uh who is one of the emperor's licers, and she's the one that's been killing people and wants she wants to lure the emperor out so that she can kill him, basically. And as I said earlier, this reveal just is supposed to be a really big moment, but it just made me shrug and go, "Okay, I I guess she's the one that's been killing people." So they all fight against her and there's this big final battle and I was kind of getting into it and then shockingly Gideon sacrifices herself to turn Harrow into a lic and then they win and then the emperor appears and he tells Harrow and Deonte that most of his licers are dead or have gone insane. So, he needs their help to handle important stuff. And then that's the end of the book. And also, he can't bring Gideon back to life because the way that Licerhood works, her soul becomes like entwined with uh Harrows and so he can't separate them. Now, I'll admit I took a step back when that happened. I really was not expecting uh Gideon, the protagonist, to die and then make it it be made clear that even the emperor himself can't bring her back. like she she was gone for good is what I was thinking. And that admittedly caught me off guard. Like while the rest of the book did have problems, the ending was pretty good. I was looking forward to exploring more of this world and I was looking forward to seeing how Harrow would develop and how she would handle her guilt and intense depression. So I was excited to see where it went. Unfortunately, it went to the worst book in the series. >> Lucy, stop it. Denial is a river in Egypt. Your husband is gay. >> Book two, Harrow the Ninth, is the worst in the series by a wide margin. Like, the main issue, as I mentioned earlier, is that the POV shifts from first to second to third person throughout the book. And that combined with the awful pros and jokes just constantly took me out of the story. Like, I can appreciate that they were trying to do something different and experimental here, but just being different does not automatically make you good. But the reason that the POV shifts between first and second and third person, it's basically just a weird way to narrate events because some of the story is told in the present day and some of it is in the past. Like a chunk of this book is just redoing the events of Gideon the Ninth, but differently because in this telling of events, Harrow's Cavalere is someone named Ordis instead of Gideon. And all of the characters that died at Canaan house originally live in this version and vice versa. which means that for a large percentage of the story, the book is just outright lying to you. Like it it makes sense by the end, but it's not a clever misdirect or anything. It's just lying. So, I didn't like it. I didn't care for it. In the present, Harrow is missing large parts of her memory, and she keeps hallucinating the dead woman she saw in the locked tomb. You know, the body. And Harrow is a much better character in this book. Like, she wasn't bad in the first one, but she improves in the second one. like she's depressed and she feels isolated despite being surrounded by all these comrades. Like she has all this power and it won't help with any of her inner struggles partially because that power comes at the expense of killing innocents. First all those innocent kids when she was a baby and then Gideon. So Harrow feels like a parasite that can only hurt and destroy others. And she thinks that if she uses her powers to help others, maybe she can redeem herself, which I'm putting quotes around redeem because she didn't really do anything wrong when others died to give her her power. But it's honestly a very harsh and realistic uh look at how depression warps your mind. Like it makes Harrow blame herself for things that aren't her fault. Also, in the present, Harrow and the other lic are fighting these things called resurrection beasts. Like the emperor has been protecting humanity from them for millennia now. What are resurrection beasts? Well, in this universe, planets have souls, and when planets are violently killed, they come back as resurrection beasts. What the hell did you just say? >> I'll explain more about this in the book three spoiler section, but I will just say that that's a pretty [ __ ] cool idea. I don't know if it actually makes sense as it's written in these books, but I'm willing to roll with it because that's awesome. Only licers can defeat resurrection beasts because the souls of the resurrection beasts stay in this thing called the river, which is basically the afterlife. It's where all dead souls go after they've left this plane of existence. So, licers have to send their own souls into the river to destroy the resurrection beasts for good. And while their soul is gone, the echoes of their cavaliers soul controls their body. You can probably see where this is going. Gideon is still alive in Harrow's body. Yeah, I wasn't a fan of that twist. All of the second person narration was actually just Gideon describing the events, but she's like inside of Harrow's body, so she's describing what Harrow is doing and what she's thinking and feeling. Again, I can see what you're going for, but it just didn't work for me. But I don't like the twist about Gideon still being alive because like if you're going to kill off your lead at the end of book one so you can have a big shocking moment and then make it clear that it's impossible to bring her back, then you got to keep her gone. Like you she gets brought back anyways. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You know, it just cheapens everything that came at the end of book one when Gideon is still alive. Anyways, heroin company fight the beasts by killing planets to prevent them from feeding on them. And if if you're wondering, hey, wait, wouldn't killing planets just create more resurrection beasts, it does, but the when the beasts are first born, they're a lot weaker, so they're able to kill them pretty quickly and prevent them from growing or feeding. And when we got to this point, I realized this is a space empire ruled for thousands of years by an immortal demigod emperor who cleanses entire planets of life. And despite guns and other modern weapons existing, people mostly fight using swords and other melee weapons. Like, that's Dune. That's just Dune, man. Like, sure, they add stuff like necromancy to make the world different, so it's not a total ripoff, but then they also remove a lot of the interesting stuff like the spice and the butlerian jihad and the political minations and the whole plot being about a fake prophecy and plus whatever else you want to say about Dune. Frank Herbert had some interesting things to say. You know, he had interesting uh insights about society and politics and religion which are very sorely lacking in the locked tomb. Like there's no real reason for technology to be a mix of futuristic and primitive here, but in Dune there was a reason for it. In this it feels like it was just done because it's cool, which it is, but I don't know. I feel like you should try at least a little harder to make sure that there's reasons behind stuff you put in your world building. The point is I'm a fan of Dune and I noticed the similarities here. This book also introduces a rebel/terrorist group called Blood of Blood of Eden which is a great name by the way and they want to stop the emperor from colonizing more planets and once you hit book three you realize that they are 100% correct to be fighting him. Anyways, the reason Harrow can't remember some things is that she hadn't remove her memories. That way, Gideon's soul would not be completely absorbed. And we also find out at the end that Gideon is not just some random kid from the 9inth house. Somebody actually stole sperm from God Emperor Jon and inseminated themselves to make a child. And then they were going to use that child as a bomb to open the locked tomb and free the body. What the hell? What the? >> Okay, her actual name is Alto, by the way. But it's just so much fun to keep bringing Jesse Ventura up cuz I did keep imagining him. But the plan failed and so Gideon did not get blown up. She got to grow up and live. I have two major problems with this. Number one, if Harrow could enter the tomb as a child, it can't be that difficult to get into. Like, you shouldn't need this elaborate plan plan involving sperm theft from God Emperor Jon. a couple of licers could probably just walk up and open the tomb without any trouble. Number two, Gideon worked as a character in part because she felt like a regular person. Like she was dumb, yeah, and she was really good at fighting, but overall she felt normal and relatable. Like she didn't have any control over her life and she was working to try and get control over her life. Like that was a very relatable and dare I say good motivation for a character to have. but now she's come back from the dead and she's the emperor's daughter and she's the super special chosen one. Like just makes her a worse character, you know? She's no longer someone who's trying to make the best of a crappy situation. She's the special heroic hero with special ancestry. So then there's a big fight. The emperor's body gets killed, but he just immediately comes back. And then there's some more fighting. And this is all happening while Gideon is controlling Harrow's body because Harrow's soul is in the river. And then she goes to the locked tomb and she lies down in an empty coffin and the book ends. It It was a confusing mess. I was thinking I must have missed a couple of details, but then I read a summary of the book after I finished and went, "No, I I got all of that. The book is just weird and all over the place. >> This is incest." >> No, it's not. >> Yes, it is. James, >> we're not related. >> Oh, that makes it okay. Spoof. >> Well, it makes it not incest. >> Book three, Nona the Ninth, is the best in the series for one simple reason. It spends time with normal people. You know, these characters are not the most powerful, highest echelon of society. They're regular people trying to live in this universe. Specifically, there's a bunch of characters who are kids that live in an impoverished city on an impoverished planet. They aren't shaping the world. They just have to live in it. They have to make ends meet. They have to work menial jobs. They have to avoid roaming gangs and violent militias. It's not a very pleasant life, but they are still kids. They joke around and they make friends. Like, the cringy humor still isn't very funny here, but it does provide some important character development. Like, it's it's just endearing to watch kids be kids. The first half to twothirds of this book is focused largely on a new cast of characters, primarily Nona. Now, Nona is actually a new soul or something living inside of Harrow's body. Maybe she's Gideon, maybe she's Harrow. No one is actually certain, but she does have some necroantic powers, including some that no one else seems to have. And they're all on a planet that used to be under the emperor's control, but his armies are busy fighting elsewhere. So now rebellion has become much more open amongst the populace. Nona becomes a teaching assistant, and she spends a lot of time helping out poor kids, which is why we spend a big chunk of the book with kids. And her time with them is great. Like I loved watching the kids try to navigate this dangerous city with demonstrations and roaming militias while still being kids and acting like kids. You know, just because the world is falling apart, you don't stop being 10 years old. And like I said a minute ago, the humor still isn't very good, but it does at least make sense coming from them. And the rebels, the Blood of Eden guys from before are also trying to open the locked tomb, which is apparently difficult now. Like it's apparently difficult for everybody except for Harrow when she was a literal child. And these rebels [ __ ] hate necromancers along with anyone working for the emperor. Like if they believe somebody to be affiliated with the nine houses, they will outright murder them. And for a bit, I thought this was going to become yet another book series about rebellion against an evil government, but no, it's actually a lot more complex and interesting than that. I honestly I just liked that the rebels are correct to blame the necromancers for some of their problems, but they're also not really the heroes in this situation. Like their anger is understandable and their actions are sometimes heinous. They're paranoid and they murder a lot of people for thinking that they're working with the emperor. Like the the point is there aren't any good guys in war. This book does not shy away from how nasty war gets, and I liked that. And really just exploring this new planet and being with regular people in this setting was great for a large chunk of the book. It's just once the plot really gets going again, things started to go downhill. Like I don't think it ever gets as bad as the second book did. But the last like third to half of Nona the Ninth just didn't grab me the same way the first half did because Gideon is now alive and has a new body and she's invulnerable to harm now and claims to be an heir to the nine houses. Uh and then characters go to enter the locked tomb and Nona finally realizes that she is Alto. She is the body and Harrow's soul is now in Alto's body. So they open the tomb and tomb and they switch their souls back. So Alto gets brought back to life and then she travels up the river, finds the emperor and stabs him. >> Are you ready for pain? Are you ready for suffering? >> Throughout all of this, we are getting flashbacks to when the emperor was young and we see exactly how he ruined the world. It's basically just a bunch of really long lore dumps. And some of the lore is kind of cool, but there's that phrase again, kind of. Like the presentation of everything is so obnoxious and unfunny that I just I have trouble getting into this. Basically, God Emperor John was a guy on Earth and he wanted to send 10 billion humans to colonize another solar system because the Earth was polluted and dying. In the process, he accidentally discovers slashinvents necromancy. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the book either, but [ __ ] it. I'm willing to roll with that. And then the powerful rich people betray god Emperor Jon and they send the colony ships without his permission and he tries to stop them. In the process, he starts a nuclear war which kills most of humanity. >> Boy, that escalated quickly. >> And then he uses that power to try and reach out and destroy the ship of the evil rich people. But in the process, he kills all of the other planets in our solar system, too. And so that's how the resurrection beasts were created. Like God Emperor John accidentally created them. And he absorbed a part of Earth's soul, which is what gave him all of his powers. That's why he's such a powerful necromancer. Uh, and the remainder of the Earth's soul became Alto, the body. You know, I'm I'm simplifying a bit here, but the point is most of this nonsense is God Emperor Jon's fault. Like, the rebels are right to hate him and the other necromancers. At the same time, I think they need him to defeat the resurrection beasts, cuz he's only killed about half of them. Maybe they should keep him around until he stops being useful. Just just saying. All that said, I think that's a pretty good twist. I I think it ties into the story nicely. It gives me a new perspective on the characters, mostly Jon, and it's also just good lore. You know, I thought the political undertones were clumsy because they basically just say, "The rich are ruining the planet and want to flee while the rest of us die." Which, yeah, that's that's not wrong, but it's as subtle as a boot to the face. And it also kind of contradicts itself because ultimately the one who killed most of humanity was God Emperor John. like the rich [ __ ] would have caused a lot less trouble if he didn't interfere. And I think that might have been intentional on the author's part. Like it's yet another thing that the last book might shed some light on it, but it is I'm not sure if that was meant to be contradictory or not. And the planets all having souls is cool. It just raises questions because planets vary wildly in size and composition. Are their souls all the same size and power? Like, is Jupiter's soul just as large and powerful as Earth's? Does being a gas giant affect anything as opposed to being a terrestrial planet? You know, big planets sometimes have moons that are the size of small planets. Do those have souls? Like, Earth having a soul makes sense since it supports life. But if barren rocks like Mercury have souls, does that mean every barren rock and asteroid in the universe also has one? Like, do smaller rocks have souls, too? Like what what is the line between animate and inanimate in this universe? I'm willing to let these questions slide and I'm willing to let any inconsistencies slide because dead planets turning into Eldrich zombies is just a cool idea, but the questions are still there and I needed to present them. So now you know why I had to hide so much behind the spoiler section. Like there is some cool lore here. It's wrapped up in a confusing story and it's told in a weird way and it's presented via terrible jokes and bad dialogue. If you just read the wiki or even if you just hear me describe it to you, it's pretty dope, but this isn't a wiki page. It's a book series. Like, the lore and the world building are important, but they don't exist by themselves. I liked Gideon and Harrow as characters. I liked some of the world building. I liked one or two of the big reveals, but ultimately the bad presentation just completely sinks The Locked tomb for me. I straight up don't know what they were thinking with a lot of this. Overall, The Locked Tomb is just kind of mediocre. Maybe the final book will change my opinion on that, but just eh, it's mediocre. Uh, my complaints almost all boil down to the crappy pros, the obtuse mysteries, and the bad jokes. If those weren't there, or if they were less prevalent, then maybe these books could have been great. And if you can get into the humor and the writing more than me, you'll probably like them. Just don't try to get me to like them. >> [snorts] >> If you watched this far, uh, thank you. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe, all of that stuff I'm supposed to do, and I will see you later. Goodbye. Hello to everyone who watched this far. Thank you so so much for getting to this point. And especially thanks to all the names you see on screen. These are my patrons. And if you want to get your name here, as well as get early access to videos and some bonus content, then consider donating. It starts at just $1 a month. Verbal shoutout goes to ThreeCat Day, Arthur D. 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