Booklist: At just about six months old (in a nineteen-year-old body), Nona lives a full life. She recounts her dreams to her protectors and works as a teacher’s aide at a local school. She’s been grudgingly accepted by a gang of streetwise kids and is trusted to watch a beloved teacher’s dog. At the edges of Nona’s life, glimpses of other truths occasionally slip through: there’s a giant blue sphere hanging in the sky, for one thing. Zombies are a problem. Occasionally Nona and her family are kidnapped by a clandestine local cell and interrogated about her true identity, but she manages to find the best in even those situations. In this ancillary volume set between Harrow the Ninth (2020) and the forthcoming Alecto the Ninth, Muir takes the time to explore unfolding calamity through the eyes of a true innocent. The book is set over the course of five days in the prelude to an apocalyptic event, with chapters interspersed where the reader learns how the death and resurrection of the people of Earth came to pass. Muir fans will be even more eager for the imperial scope of Alecto once they’ve finished Nona’s quiet character study.
Sep 162022