There's a lot of wizard school stories out there. The Ninth House is something different. Something with a lot more teeth. The sort of book that would jump Harry Potter in a dark alley with brass knuckles and a tire iron. And I love it for that. Because The Ninth House is here to talk serious business, but it's going to have fun and look good doing it.
It's a story about magic. And about how the epicentre of that magic is, well, Yale. About how the young and wealthy spend themselves and others (mostly others) to do impossible things. And how those things typically just happen to align with maintaining their own wealth and power. About how even if you give people the ability ot move through walls, or see the future, or change the weather, or create unbreakable contracts, they'll still mostly do people things with it, in a frenzy of patronising and self-aggrandising bullshit. The Ninth House knows most of the people in the story are terrible, and that's important - it wants to put a lens up against the structural underpinnings of both the magical school myth and our own society. And so here they are, the elite, doing magic to keep themselves that way, and being about as ugly as any street-level hustler while they do it, just with larger levers and a touch more self-delusion.
Maybe that sounds a bit grim. But what it really feels like is sharp. This is a story with a razor edge to it, one so fine you won't feel it until it suddenly takes your breath away. Because this Yale feels like a dream poisoned by our own hubris. The slumbering spires, the gothic elegance and opulence of the buildings, which help capture a lavish sense of place, also evoke a lavish sense of wealth and privilege. This is a small community which feels real, as it lives and breathes small scandals and petty grievances between teenagers with far too much power and money and nowhere near enough oversight. This is a Yale whose gatekeeping is real as well as metaphorical. The dive into blue chip money blended with old-school blood rituals is a marvel.
Speaking of oversight - that's why we're here. Our protagonist works for Lethe , the group tasked with keeping an eye on all the others, to make sure that if they're murdering homeless people while using them to predict the stock market, they at least do it quietly. Or, to be fair, not at all. Because nobody needs the attention. Nobody wants to ask or answer any questions, rock the boat, make things uncomfortable. Lethe is here to keep everyone in line, but is also complicit in keeping things comfortable. Their existence is dependent on all the other houses, all the other rich young things, relying on a balance of power and a need to avoid too much notice. And now, you see, there's been a murder. Maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe it does. Maybe it was magical. Maybe it wasn't. But Alex Stern, the newest Lethe adherent, is going to investigate it, at the very least so that she can keep her scholarship. And she's also not quite what anyone expects.
I don't want to talk too much about Alex as a protagonist, because her character is revealed slowly over the course of the story. But I will say that she fits the profile of the troubled, the traumatised, the person who assumes the worst because for them the worst has already happened. Alex is all brittle, sharp edges, leaving cuts on everything she runs into. She's smart, and funny, and deeply pragmatic and driven. And maybe held together like a shattered pane of glass, but a whole person, on and off the page. And that's fair for the supporting cast, too - some we see in more detail than others, but even the broadest brush stroke characters have some fine details that make you see them as people, as individuals. Granted, usually right before they do something heinous, but still.
So yes. This is, I'm unwilling to call it "magic school for grown ups". It's magic school with an examination of power, of violence and abuse and systemic oppression. Magic with a harder edge. Magic with teeth. And this is a book that'll sink those teeth in and not let go until it's done with you.
So go pick it up - what are you waiting for?
No comments:
Post a Comment