Leigh Bardugo - Ninth House

While the basic premise of Ninth House is not substantially different to many recent fantasy novels, this has a refreshing and contemporary take and is written with anger and passion. Alex "Galaxy" Stern arrives at Yale but doesn't really fit in. Not surprising, because she is rubbing shoulders with the children of the elite, but she herself is a misfit. The survivor of a multiple murder related to drugs, a school drop out she is quite angry with the world. But she has something that no one else has at Yale - she can see ghosts. Specifically "grays" the dead who haven't fully stayed... well dead. She has seen them since childhood, and not just that, she's been flashed and sexually abused by them.

Alex isn't a normal undergraduate at Yale. But this is also no normal fantasy novel. In fact it is very much a novel born out of recent years that have seen sexual abuse and "rape culture" in colleges exposed and protested. It is, to a certain extent, a novel that has come out of the "me too" generation. As such this is adult fantasy, in the sense that its themes and events are unpleasant and, sadly, all too real. Magic abounds, but it isn't pure, selfless and kind - it is used and abused by the power structures that exist in our world. In Leigh Bardugo's world however, the criminals can hide their traces much more easily.

Alex arrives at Yale on a special scholarship. She is to be a sort of magical cop, tasked with monitoring the magical societies on campus that use Yale's' strange affinity with the occult to channel power and energy. Being Yale, there are multiple captains of industry, politicians and entertainment stars that owe their ongoing wealth, power and privilege to the magical societies that they continue to fund. 

While the concept is well done, the book does stand on a few well trodden tropes. Alex is helped in her quests by Dawes, a quiet, very intelligent young woman who knows everything there is about magic and would rather spend time with her studies. Comparisons to Hermione in Harry Potter are of course obvious. Alex's mentor Darlington, an improbable figure who quotes obscure poets and is from a very different class of wealth to Alex, goes missing. Her attempts to find a murderer on campus, that may or may not be related to the magical societies are thus hampered by his absence and her general lack of clarity on what is happening. There's an intriguing metaphor here - Alex doesn't have time to do her actual studies because of the magical stuff, but nor does she study the magical stuff that would help her do her job. 

All in all this is a rather clever book. I look forward to the imminent sequel and feel refreshed by a new generation of fantasy authors that don't just have an "it will all come out alright in the end" attitude to the story. Life is gritty, scary and unpleasant at times. Addressing this in novels is a strength and it makes this book even more fascinating - though I imagine there are plenty at Yale that won't get its critique of wealth and power at all.

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