The Locked Tomb Books in Order

The Locked Tomb is a far-future science fantasy series set in a decaying empire ruled by an immortal Emperor and divided among the Nine Houses. Each House has its own necromantic specialty, its own customs, and its own way of surviving in a system that feels old, holy, and deeply unstable. The books mix space opera scale with gothic mood, so one page might give you ancient bone magic and the next a nasty joke or a knife fight.

At the center, especially at the start, are Gideon Nav and Harrowhark Nonagesimus of the Ninth House. Gideon is a swordswoman who wants out. Harrow is a brilliant necromancer carrying the weight of a dying House on her back. Their relationship powers the whole series: part rivalry, part duty, part devotion, part disaster. If you like stories where two people keep saving and ruining each other in equal measure, this is very much that kind of ride.

The first book, Gideon the Ninth, begins like a locked-room mystery in a haunted palace. The heirs of the Nine Houses and their cavaliers are summoned to compete for a terrifying kind of immortality, and the contest quickly turns bloody. Muir uses that setup to teach you the rules of the world, but never in a dry way. You learn by following Gideon through duels, clues, grudges, and a growing sense that something is badly wrong underneath the Empire's official story.

Then the series swerves.

Harrow the Ninth and Nona the Ninth open the world outward while making the emotional stakes more personal. The later books deal with war, memory, identity, and what it means to share a body, a soul, or a life with somebody else. One book traps you inside a damaged mind on the Emperor's station. Another drops you into a city under siege, where an apparently ordinary girl becomes the center of forces much larger than she understands. The surprises matter, so this is a series best entered with as few spoilers as possible.

Tone is a huge part of why these books stand out. They are gruesome, funny, sorrowful, clever, and often deliberately disorienting. Muir likes puzzle-box storytelling. She expects readers to notice odd details, sit with confusion, and trust that the pieces are being placed for a reason. That can make the books feel dense at first, but it also makes rereading especially rewarding.

In short, expect necromancers in space, yes, but also expect a series about faith, loyalty, grief, and the strange bargains people make for love. Read Gideon the Ninth first, then keep going in order. The further you go, the bigger and stranger the universe gets.