Tamsyn Muir

Muir was born March 14, 1985, in New South Wales, Australia. Her family moved to New Zealand when she was nine months old, so Muir grew up in Howick, New Zealand.^[2][3] In 2010, she earned a degree in education.^[2] She is also a 2010 graduate of the Clarion Workshop.^[4] She currently lives and works in Oxford, United Kingdom.^[5][6] In 2014, she married Matt Hosty, a classicist in the University of Oxford, whom she met in the Homestuck fandom.^[7][8] Muir, who is a lesbian,^[9][10] describes their relationship as platonic and refers to Hosty as her "moirail".^[11]

Muir's short story "The Deepwater Bride", published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 2015, was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette,^[12] the World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction,^[13] the Eugie Award,^[14] and the Shirley Jackson Award for best novelette.^[15]

Gideon the Ninth, Muir's first novel and the first book of The Locked Tomb series, was published in 2019. It was awarded the 2020 Locus Award for Best First Novel and the 2020 Crawford Award, presented annually by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts. It was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel and the Hugo Award for Best Novel. It finished third in the Goodreads Choice Awards for best science fiction in 2019.^[16]

The second book in The Locked Tomb, Harrow the Ninth, was published in August 2020,^[17] and was a finalist for the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Novel.^[18] It was followed by Nona the Ninth, a surprise addition^[19] to the planned trilogy of Gideon the Ninth, Harrow the Ninth, and Alecto the Ninth, in 2022.^[20] Alecto the Ninth, now the series' fourth instalment, was initially announced for release in 2023,^[20] but a cover and release date have not been revealed. The most recent update, as of July 2024,^[update] is confirmation from Muir's publicist at San Diego Comic-Con that Muir was still writing the book.^[21]

Muir's fantasy novella Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower was published in July 2020.^[22] It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly.^[23]

Muir wrote the teleplay for the twelfth episode of Secret Level, based on the video game Spelunky, which aired in 2024.^[24] She adapted Siobhan Carroll's short story For He Can Creep into the tenth episode of the fourth volume of Love, Death & Robots, which aired in 2025.^[25]

After completing The Locked Tomb, Tor will be publishing Muir's cyberpunk western novella trilogy, beginning with Go Marching In.^[26]