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Terra Ignota #2
Seven Surrenders
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Science Fiction (2017)The second book of Terra Ignota, a political SF epic of extraordinary audacity. It is a world in which near-instantaneous travel from continent to continent is free to all.
In which automation now provides for everybody’s basic needs.
In which nobody living can remember an actual war.
In which it is illegal for three or more people to gather for the practice of religion—but ecumenical “sensayers” minister in private, one-on-one.
In which gendered language is archaic, and to dress as strongly male or female is, if not exactly illegal, deeply taboo.
In which nationality is a fading memory, and most people identify instead with their choice of the seven global Hives, distinguished from one another by their different approaches to the big questions of life.
And it is a world in which, unknown to most, the entire social order is teetering on the edge of collapse.
Because even in utopia, humans will conspire. And also because something new has arisen: Bridger, the child who can bring inanimate objects to conscious life.
In which automation now provides for everybody’s basic needs.
In which nobody living can remember an actual war.
In which it is illegal for three or more people to gather for the practice of religion—but ecumenical “sensayers” minister in private, one-on-one.
In which gendered language is archaic, and to dress as strongly male or female is, if not exactly illegal, deeply taboo.
In which nationality is a fading memory, and most people identify instead with their choice of the seven global Hives, distinguished from one another by their different approaches to the big questions of life.
And it is a world in which, unknown to most, the entire social order is teetering on the edge of collapse.
Because even in utopia, humans will conspire. And also because something new has arisen: Bridger, the child who can bring inanimate objects to conscious life.
365 pages, Hardcover
First published March 7, 2017
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January 8, 2017
Thanks to the publisher for the ARC of this novel!
This is one of those situations where extremely high expectation meets flawless delivery, and I can't be happier for it.
Too Like The Lightning was a futuristic political thriller with very heavy under and overtones about the meaning of God and what it means, with great variety and depth of exploration, to a people who are both jaded and very reliant on old Enlightenment ideas and ideals even though they're firmly set in the 25th Century.
By way of great reveals and thriller moments, we're invested in the machinations of seven enormous political entities defined by the ideals they hold since nations' borders are pretty much a dead issue with near-instantaneous travel.
We're introduced to so many great elements in that novel and even more that I'm not even touching upon here, such as gender questions, practical and general philosophy, and especially the whole realm of politics and its basic nature.
However, while all of these issues are also important in the sequel, the one that really strikes me as most important is the whole issue of God and/or Gods.
Things get really hairy when an actual incarnation of a deity in the shape of a growing little boy who is now a young man who really can perform miracles, potentially unlimited miracles, finally has the attention of the rulers of this strange, nearly utopian Earth on the brink of war and total dissolution.
On the other side of the coin and firmly in the political arena is another deity who has been locked away from his ineffableness and who has been seated firmly in the body of a regular human. His is knowledge without power as the other is power without knowledge. This spinning coin is truly hypnotic even as the enormous world-building and the political maneuvers reach a screaming intensity, and let's not lose sight of the truly wonderful characters of Mycroft and Sniper and Carlyle that carry this tale all the way through to a fascinating conclusion.
Not that this is the end of the tale, of course.
Ada Palmer has done something truly brilliant with these tales and the sheer density of ideas and the drives of such a strong underlying tales are more than enough to make me a lifelong fan and rabid reader of much, much more. I suspect that we're far from done with this. I was satisfied with the end of Too Like The Lighting and I was very satisfied with the end of Seven Surrenders, too, which is a very neat trick for any tale so complicated as these. Even so, I was heavily motivated to re-read the first in preparation for this one and I was very happy to do so.
These are extremely re-readable tales with a lot of easter eggs and multiple layers even while the text is quite easy to follow. It's a mark of something quite amazing, I believe. Just the really late realization of what the Masons really meant even though all of it had been staring in my face all along made me grin like an idiot for a good fifteen minutes. I love being surprised and being shown that I'm rather dim-witted. :)
This is a very smart read and well-worth a lot of close attention. I know that both of these novels have rocketed up to my top-favorite tales. :)
Keep a close eye out for these! The quality is quite amazing. :)
This is one of those situations where extremely high expectation meets flawless delivery, and I can't be happier for it.
Too Like The Lightning was a futuristic political thriller with very heavy under and overtones about the meaning of God and what it means, with great variety and depth of exploration, to a people who are both jaded and very reliant on old Enlightenment ideas and ideals even though they're firmly set in the 25th Century.
By way of great reveals and thriller moments, we're invested in the machinations of seven enormous political entities defined by the ideals they hold since nations' borders are pretty much a dead issue with near-instantaneous travel.
We're introduced to so many great elements in that novel and even more that I'm not even touching upon here, such as gender questions, practical and general philosophy, and especially the whole realm of politics and its basic nature.
However, while all of these issues are also important in the sequel, the one that really strikes me as most important is the whole issue of God and/or Gods.
Things get really hairy when an actual incarnation of a deity in the shape of a growing little boy who is now a young man who really can perform miracles, potentially unlimited miracles, finally has the attention of the rulers of this strange, nearly utopian Earth on the brink of war and total dissolution.
On the other side of the coin and firmly in the political arena is another deity who has been locked away from his ineffableness and who has been seated firmly in the body of a regular human. His is knowledge without power as the other is power without knowledge. This spinning coin is truly hypnotic even as the enormous world-building and the political maneuvers reach a screaming intensity, and let's not lose sight of the truly wonderful characters of Mycroft and Sniper and Carlyle that carry this tale all the way through to a fascinating conclusion.
Not that this is the end of the tale, of course.
Ada Palmer has done something truly brilliant with these tales and the sheer density of ideas and the drives of such a strong underlying tales are more than enough to make me a lifelong fan and rabid reader of much, much more. I suspect that we're far from done with this. I was satisfied with the end of Too Like The Lighting and I was very satisfied with the end of Seven Surrenders, too, which is a very neat trick for any tale so complicated as these. Even so, I was heavily motivated to re-read the first in preparation for this one and I was very happy to do so.
These are extremely re-readable tales with a lot of easter eggs and multiple layers even while the text is quite easy to follow. It's a mark of something quite amazing, I believe. Just the really late realization of what the Masons really meant even though all of it had been staring in my face all along made me grin like an idiot for a good fifteen minutes. I love being surprised and being shown that I'm rather dim-witted. :)
This is a very smart read and well-worth a lot of close attention. I know that both of these novels have rocketed up to my top-favorite tales. :)
Keep a close eye out for these! The quality is quite amazing. :)
September 5, 2017
4ish stars.
In my review of Too Like the Lightning I questioned whether that book was pretentious. After reading this second book I feel that I can confidently confirm that suspicion about this series. I think it's extremely intelligent, ambitious, and layered. It’s also ostentatious, affected and self-satisfied. Regardless, it’s very entertaining in a gaudy sort of way and, if not quite brilliant, it’s a very well realized possible future. Ultimately, the best way I can describe this book is to say that it’s a lot.
It’s intentionally frustrating and Palmer pushes all the buttons that make her audience seethe, scoff, question and contemplate. She touches on politics, gender and other social constructs, sexuality, authority, and especially religion. But is her future society really as plausible as she seems to think it is? To each his own, I suppose. In more ways than one I'm reminded of Atlas Shrugged. Decide for yourselves, readers, whether that's a recommendation or a dissuasion.
Some acts stray quite close to erotica (or maybe I'm just prude)- there’s lots of sex including bondage, rape, orgy. There are also times the novel strays close to trashy soap opera territory. Readers can play a drinking game with the number of times Mycroft shudders or weeps. It’s so interesting, though, to see the disparity between those sensibilities and the philosophical, sophisticated ones.
If this review seems negative, I hope my rating shows that I still really liked it and it’s a satisfying conclusion to the first half of the series. I’m glad for the break before the next book comes out at the end of the year, but I’m looking forward to seeing how things play out after the events of the first two books.
Posted in Mr. Philip's Library
In my review of Too Like the Lightning I questioned whether that book was pretentious. After reading this second book I feel that I can confidently confirm that suspicion about this series. I think it's extremely intelligent, ambitious, and layered. It’s also ostentatious, affected and self-satisfied. Regardless, it’s very entertaining in a gaudy sort of way and, if not quite brilliant, it’s a very well realized possible future. Ultimately, the best way I can describe this book is to say that it’s a lot.
It’s intentionally frustrating and Palmer pushes all the buttons that make her audience seethe, scoff, question and contemplate. She touches on politics, gender and other social constructs, sexuality, authority, and especially religion. But is her future society really as plausible as she seems to think it is? To each his own, I suppose. In more ways than one I'm reminded of Atlas Shrugged. Decide for yourselves, readers, whether that's a recommendation or a dissuasion.
Some acts stray quite close to erotica (or maybe I'm just prude)- there’s lots of sex including bondage, rape, orgy. There are also times the novel strays close to trashy soap opera territory. Readers can play a drinking game with the number of times Mycroft shudders or weeps. It’s so interesting, though, to see the disparity between those sensibilities and the philosophical, sophisticated ones.
If this review seems negative, I hope my rating shows that I still really liked it and it’s a satisfying conclusion to the first half of the series. I’m glad for the break before the next book comes out at the end of the year, but I’m looking forward to seeing how things play out after the events of the first two books.
Posted in Mr. Philip's Library
December 21, 2022
Brilliant, high octane intrigue. Daring, bold and as imaginative (and quite often as over the top) as top notch anime
Change is the enemy here, too many changes, too big, too fast.
General and some reminiscent works
Seven Surrenders picks up hot on the trail of the story told in Too Like the Lightning. If that book felt like a long setup of a very interesting world, this book focusses on the pieces on the board getting into motion. The plottwist in chapter 18 is really bold, and I can just imagine this whole series of books rendered in a Netflix series, in the way Altered Carbon was done.
Maybe Mycroft being first shocked senseless by the insight of Jehovah that he couldn’t commit evil for evil, and then 2/3 of the book in it turns out there is an elaborate all along plan to achieve something with his actions, is a bit strange and unbelievable. But overall this book is intricate and well executed by Ada Palmer and sometimes it even felt like I read an anime (specifically Code Geass with the Zero Requiem thread and Neon Genesis Evangelion with all the overt religious themes come to mind), while the weaving of The Iliad into science fiction reminded me a bit of Ilium by Dan Simmons.
Characters clashing
I mean Carlyle is very annoying, snivelling all the time and being pushed around, but most of the characters bickering with each other is actually quite fun and soap like in a good way.
Characters are bigger than live, the struggle between them becomes more open and the stakes are raised, with bigger plans becoming apparent:
The Eighteenth-Century aristocracy seduced, betrayed and corrupted itself until its world self-destructed into revolution. I didn’t have to destroy you, Cornel. I just turned all of you into Eighteenth-Century aristocrats and let you do it yourself.
And there is some ironic self awareness in the book as well, with one of the characters even remarking the following: It’s absurd! Madame’s turned me into the fucking Count of Monte Cristo, and there’s nothing I can do about it except to make sure my revenge doesn’t just destroy my betrayers, but also the system that did this to the world!
Big ideas compellingly woven into the story
The themes and big questions in this book, like the question if progress being possible without struggle and the threat of war or the risk of complacency, are really well heaven into the broader story. Also the dual nature of J.E.D.D. MASON and Bridger (who feels very overpowered but gets stuck by exactly the apparently unlimited nature of his power) is fascinating, with dialogue like this just randomingly popping up:
The Greek Stoics said a human being is like a dog tied behind a moving cart. The dog can struggle, tug at the rope, dig its heels in, choke and suffer as it’s dragged, or it can trot along content and trust the Driver, though it still can’t understand the purpose of the journey, or its end.
&
He said any just Driver would let the dog sit with Him in the cart, and a just God would not create a creature incapable of understanding the journey.
The believe in revelation and public outcry because of reporting by a neutral press is maybe too high, when looking at the recent past and the power of people to believe their own truths about charismatic leaders. And would the surveillance system, revealed at the end of the last book, really be such a hot topic; I mean isn’t what our intelligence agencies do every day quite akin to what’s being described?
In the end ruthlessness is met with ruthlessness and humanity (and I as reader) are left at the brink, fervently wanting to see how this story goes further in The Will to Battle:
Fine, yes, I suppose war did occur to me as a possible side effect, or bloody revolution at least, but that’s not a problem. War is useful. The name of warriors and conquerors last a lot longer than those of peacetime heroes.
Change is the enemy here, too many changes, too big, too fast.
General and some reminiscent works
Seven Surrenders picks up hot on the trail of the story told in Too Like the Lightning. If that book felt like a long setup of a very interesting world, this book focusses on the pieces on the board getting into motion. The plottwist in chapter 18 is really bold, and I can just imagine this whole series of books rendered in a Netflix series, in the way Altered Carbon was done.
Maybe Mycroft being first shocked senseless by the insight of Jehovah that he couldn’t commit evil for evil, and then 2/3 of the book in it turns out there is an elaborate all along plan to achieve something with his actions, is a bit strange and unbelievable. But overall this book is intricate and well executed by Ada Palmer and sometimes it even felt like I read an anime (specifically Code Geass with the Zero Requiem thread and Neon Genesis Evangelion with all the overt religious themes come to mind), while the weaving of The Iliad into science fiction reminded me a bit of Ilium by Dan Simmons.
Characters clashing
I mean Carlyle is very annoying, snivelling all the time and being pushed around, but most of the characters bickering with each other is actually quite fun and soap like in a good way.
Characters are bigger than live, the struggle between them becomes more open and the stakes are raised, with bigger plans becoming apparent:
The Eighteenth-Century aristocracy seduced, betrayed and corrupted itself until its world self-destructed into revolution. I didn’t have to destroy you, Cornel. I just turned all of you into Eighteenth-Century aristocrats and let you do it yourself.
And there is some ironic self awareness in the book as well, with one of the characters even remarking the following: It’s absurd! Madame’s turned me into the fucking Count of Monte Cristo, and there’s nothing I can do about it except to make sure my revenge doesn’t just destroy my betrayers, but also the system that did this to the world!
Big ideas compellingly woven into the story
The themes and big questions in this book, like the question if progress being possible without struggle and the threat of war or the risk of complacency, are really well heaven into the broader story. Also the dual nature of J.E.D.D. MASON and Bridger (who feels very overpowered but gets stuck by exactly the apparently unlimited nature of his power) is fascinating, with dialogue like this just randomingly popping up:
The Greek Stoics said a human being is like a dog tied behind a moving cart. The dog can struggle, tug at the rope, dig its heels in, choke and suffer as it’s dragged, or it can trot along content and trust the Driver, though it still can’t understand the purpose of the journey, or its end.
&
He said any just Driver would let the dog sit with Him in the cart, and a just God would not create a creature incapable of understanding the journey.
The believe in revelation and public outcry because of reporting by a neutral press is maybe too high, when looking at the recent past and the power of people to believe their own truths about charismatic leaders. And would the surveillance system, revealed at the end of the last book, really be such a hot topic; I mean isn’t what our intelligence agencies do every day quite akin to what’s being described?
In the end ruthlessness is met with ruthlessness and humanity (and I as reader) are left at the brink, fervently wanting to see how this story goes further in The Will to Battle:
Fine, yes, I suppose war did occur to me as a possible side effect, or bloody revolution at least, but that’s not a problem. War is useful. The name of warriors and conquerors last a lot longer than those of peacetime heroes.
Read
March 2, 2017The short version is, Big Secrets Blow Up Bigger.
Long version: this is a gleefully, even triumphantly messy novel, which revels in the messiness while gradually drawing us toward a conclusion.
Our differently-sane narrator repeatedly assures us of the absolute truth of their testimony while mixing gender pronouns (and assumptions), Enlightenment language with modern, modes of address, Germanic Capitalization of Nouns and glyphs of other languages, striking sparks off two thousand years of philosophy as well as classics of literature as well as some current tropes.
The general thrust is how human beings can’t stop tinkering with utopia, in this case through secrets. Or, put another way, we (apparently?) find out who is at the center of everything, and why.
There is so much going on here, in this second volume of a projected four. I am aware that we’re all going to be reading a different book. I’m also aware that a lot of what’s going on could be whizzing right over my head. And that every conclusion I come to, however tentative, might change.
But I still want to talk about it, because I want more people to read it, and talk about it. Yup, and point out what I am too clueless to get.
Here are a few of my . . . not reservations, or even issues. Things. I will call them things that I want to talk about with other readers.
First and easiest, it took me a long time to read.
I once entered a Buddhist temple so coruscant with brilliant color and gleam that I had to go out again, shut my eyes, and prepare myself before reentry. Then I was able to—slowly—take in the wild variety of elements, and appreciate a space in which every inch was taken up with art.
When I read, the type of dramatic tension that draws me most can be summed up by either two contrasts: ordinarily people in extraordinary circumstances, or extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances. The same book can delightfully mix and match.
But here, we have 100% extraordinary people in 100% extraordinary circumstances. There are no Situation Normal scenes. (Which are not “situation static” scenes that tempt the reader to skim past because nothing is happening beyond establishing shots or plot points.) That is going to be a feature for many readers, and it’s not like a negative for me, it’s just that I had to break up my reading for pauses for reflection, and come back to it when my mind was ready to engage with more headlong Situation Extraordinary.
Okay, time to shift to
So far, Palmer is playing with current tropes instead of copping to them as the One True Way. And this in the middle of a steadily rising tension that jacks up a level with each blown secret, triggering events that resonate with current affairs in an unsettlingly prescient way.
The book comes to a resolution of sorts that also manages to be a significant cliffhanger in that it sets things up for . . what?
I finished the last page in a vortex of emotional reaction akin to launching off that cliff into freefall, after which anything might happen—I might begin to fly.
This is a big, sprawling, exuberantly chaotic, fizzing-with-ideas work that everybody who complains about current SF treading the same ground ought to be reading.
I can’t predict where it’s going to go. I only know that I must be along for what I believe will be an exhilarating ride.
Copy provided courtesy of Tor Books.
Long version: this is a gleefully, even triumphantly messy novel, which revels in the messiness while gradually drawing us toward a conclusion.
Our differently-sane narrator repeatedly assures us of the absolute truth of their testimony while mixing gender pronouns (and assumptions), Enlightenment language with modern, modes of address, Germanic Capitalization of Nouns and glyphs of other languages, striking sparks off two thousand years of philosophy as well as classics of literature as well as some current tropes.
The general thrust is how human beings can’t stop tinkering with utopia, in this case through secrets. Or, put another way, we (apparently?) find out who is at the center of everything, and why.
There is so much going on here, in this second volume of a projected four. I am aware that we’re all going to be reading a different book. I’m also aware that a lot of what’s going on could be whizzing right over my head. And that every conclusion I come to, however tentative, might change.
But I still want to talk about it, because I want more people to read it, and talk about it. Yup, and point out what I am too clueless to get.
Here are a few of my . . . not reservations, or even issues. Things. I will call them things that I want to talk about with other readers.
First and easiest, it took me a long time to read.
I once entered a Buddhist temple so coruscant with brilliant color and gleam that I had to go out again, shut my eyes, and prepare myself before reentry. Then I was able to—slowly—take in the wild variety of elements, and appreciate a space in which every inch was taken up with art.
When I read, the type of dramatic tension that draws me most can be summed up by either two contrasts: ordinarily people in extraordinary circumstances, or extraordinary people in ordinary circumstances. The same book can delightfully mix and match.
But here, we have 100% extraordinary people in 100% extraordinary circumstances. There are no Situation Normal scenes. (Which are not “situation static” scenes that tempt the reader to skim past because nothing is happening beyond establishing shots or plot points.) That is going to be a feature for many readers, and it’s not like a negative for me, it’s just that I had to break up my reading for pauses for reflection, and come back to it when my mind was ready to engage with more headlong Situation Extraordinary.
Okay, time to shift to
So far, Palmer is playing with current tropes instead of copping to them as the One True Way. And this in the middle of a steadily rising tension that jacks up a level with each blown secret, triggering events that resonate with current affairs in an unsettlingly prescient way.
The book comes to a resolution of sorts that also manages to be a significant cliffhanger in that it sets things up for . . what?
I finished the last page in a vortex of emotional reaction akin to launching off that cliff into freefall, after which anything might happen—I might begin to fly.
This is a big, sprawling, exuberantly chaotic, fizzing-with-ideas work that everybody who complains about current SF treading the same ground ought to be reading.
I can’t predict where it’s going to go. I only know that I must be along for what I believe will be an exhilarating ride.
Copy provided courtesy of Tor Books.
May 5, 2018
This one is both better and worse than volume one. I think the worldbuilding gets more coherent and interesting. The philosophical elements and the plotting actually begin to pay off, at least partly. But. I think the stylisation is revealed as not worth the price of admission (by which I mean particularly the misogyny and sexual violence whose omnipresence doesn't even have plot impact other than highlighting existing themes some more - Sniper's rape [fantasy] in particular was a drawn-out exercise in "look at me, writing a 19th century book, so politically incorrect" with little purpose beyond "because I can" with a side of "look at female-bodied characters doing the raping, how ~edgy~"). I think essentialism is still essentialist even when hinging on gender rather than sex (and it can actually be more insidious and simply annoying). The way it is explored only reinforced rather than undermined the status quo. And the dehumanising of both women and the one non-binary character engendered by the stylisation was not worth it either (oh for fuck's sake those pronouns were terrible and I don't think calling Sniper "it" resulted in any value added, unless value added is pissed off and dehumanised readers).
And then there's the fact that every time feminism is mentioned by name it's to draw up some strange scenario in which postfeminism (see also: the ideology that crows about the success of feminism and thus consigns it to the past) instead of being actually largely invested in re-entrenchment of gender roles (ironic sexism, glamour of femininity, pencil skirts, SatC and new gender regimes) leads to abandonment of pronouns and the words for femininity/masculinity and thus brings about new gender oppression of genderless ("neutered") world. It's so completely divorced from how postfeminism actually perpetuates itself as to resemble rants of anti-feminists, decrying how feminism oppresses humans by forcing them to abandon "natural" gendering.
The hero worship of Apollo never rings true. The ideas the characters espouse about war and progress can only bring about hollow laughter in an Eastern European (oh that moment when Mycroft waxes poetic about how violence is good because of valour or something, give me a break, I literally see the old Gestapo building out of my window). They also sound strange in a book written by someone with a background in history.
I think the world and people - both sociology and psychology - defy my ability to suspend disbelief. And I think the religious themes never really pay off, either, regardless of Christ figures doing some Christ figuring.
I still don't get how you can have "religion is utterly private! no discussion of personal religious beliefs in larger groups!" and also Catholic kings of Spain who go to confession.
And I think there's a huge problem with how this book tries to have its cake and eat it too with regard to CLASS, caused by its reliance on tropes of a hugely classist, racist, sexist era, that doesn't get sufficiently - or at all - explored, much less deservedly exploded. We're told the world is a utopia (in progress). At the same time, the world is very blurry and opaque with regard to economic conditions beyond the existence of rents, which must be paid, and work, which doesn't exceed 20 hours a week unless you want it to. But it's those economic conditions that existence of aristocratic rulers involves, implies, creates and perpetuates. It's about wealth and its unequal distribution. But even with the invocation of rents, the world as written seems to wage wars about ideas (religious wars of the past become entangled with GENDER!!! but not with, I don't know, economic exploitation and access to natural resources?) I feel like playing with people who all belong to the ruling class and telling the reader not to hate them because they may make mistakes, are only human, but also strive to "give a better world for [the reader]" may have worked in the 18th century, but sounds utterly out of place and time post-Marx. (But then again, this book doesn't care about stomachs, only minds. I thought it would, with that debt it claims to owe to Hugo, or timely mention of how Mycroft relies on his services being needed to be fed, but that topic is then dropped almost never to arise again. This is a world of philosophers, not workers.)
I'm honestly baffled by the hype this book has received because to me it misfires, a lot.
And then there's the fact that every time feminism is mentioned by name it's to draw up some strange scenario in which postfeminism (see also: the ideology that crows about the success of feminism and thus consigns it to the past) instead of being actually largely invested in re-entrenchment of gender roles (ironic sexism, glamour of femininity, pencil skirts, SatC and new gender regimes) leads to abandonment of pronouns and the words for femininity/masculinity and thus brings about new gender oppression of genderless ("neutered") world. It's so completely divorced from how postfeminism actually perpetuates itself as to resemble rants of anti-feminists, decrying how feminism oppresses humans by forcing them to abandon "natural" gendering.
The hero worship of Apollo never rings true. The ideas the characters espouse about war and progress can only bring about hollow laughter in an Eastern European (oh that moment when Mycroft waxes poetic about how violence is good because of valour or something, give me a break, I literally see the old Gestapo building out of my window). They also sound strange in a book written by someone with a background in history.
I think the world and people - both sociology and psychology - defy my ability to suspend disbelief. And I think the religious themes never really pay off, either, regardless of Christ figures doing some Christ figuring.
I still don't get how you can have "religion is utterly private! no discussion of personal religious beliefs in larger groups!" and also Catholic kings of Spain who go to confession.
And I think there's a huge problem with how this book tries to have its cake and eat it too with regard to CLASS, caused by its reliance on tropes of a hugely classist, racist, sexist era, that doesn't get sufficiently - or at all - explored, much less deservedly exploded. We're told the world is a utopia (in progress). At the same time, the world is very blurry and opaque with regard to economic conditions beyond the existence of rents, which must be paid, and work, which doesn't exceed 20 hours a week unless you want it to. But it's those economic conditions that existence of aristocratic rulers involves, implies, creates and perpetuates. It's about wealth and its unequal distribution. But even with the invocation of rents, the world as written seems to wage wars about ideas (religious wars of the past become entangled with GENDER!!! but not with, I don't know, economic exploitation and access to natural resources?) I feel like playing with people who all belong to the ruling class and telling the reader not to hate them because they may make mistakes, are only human, but also strive to "give a better world for [the reader]" may have worked in the 18th century, but sounds utterly out of place and time post-Marx. (But then again, this book doesn't care about stomachs, only minds. I thought it would, with that debt it claims to owe to Hugo, or timely mention of how Mycroft relies on his services being needed to be fed, but that topic is then dropped almost never to arise again. This is a world of philosophers, not workers.)
I'm honestly baffled by the hype this book has received because to me it misfires, a lot.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 29, 2017
Damn, it's a great time to be a reader of Science Fiction. Authors like Ada Palmer and books like Seven Surrenders make me genuinely excited about SF and where the genre is going.
From the first page in her new novel Ada Palmer continues the story she began in the scintillating Too Like the Lightning, and the two books can be read as one story split into two halves. (I'm guessing they were written as one story, but would be too large if left as one book).
Mycroft Canner, indentured servant, friend to the powerful and one-time sadistic mass-murderer is once again our narrator, reporting on the meetings of world leaders, their secret dalliances, their power struggles, their betrayals. Through Mycroft's eyes, and occasionally the eyes of someone he has invited into his story, we see events that threaten to shatter the utopia that earth has become- a world with no war, no hunger, no want.
The characters introduced in the first novel- The Saneer-Weeksbooths, Bridger, the god-child who can bring any inanimate object to life, J.E.D.D Mason, the strange youth who can see a person's deepest secrets at a glance and appears to be the heir apparent to many of the world's leaders, Carlyle foster the Sensayer, and others continue their machinations as the revelation of a centuries old murderous plot (A plot used to keep the world from war) threatens to spark a civil war of unimaginable, epoch defining brutality.
Around this fascinating plot Palmer continues to explore ideas of gender and faith, bringing new insight and ideas to the old trope of the near genderless future where everyone gets around in androgynous robes and uses 'theys' instead of 'his' and 'hers'. one of the most fascinating ideas she presents is the impact that old gendered forms of sexuality could have in a society only a few hundred years distant from the sort of gender roles we have in 2017. Could sexuality and gendered behavior be used as a weapon in such a society? Could people unused to gendered behavior be vulnerable to seducers using old forms of behaviour? And should they succumb, could they become addicted to illicitly partaking in socially frowned upon gendered behaviour, and then be manipulated by their unprincipled seducers?
This is a novel unafraid to play with ideas like this, in an interesting and convincingly constructed future, an interlinked world where nation states have been overtaken by voluntarily joined Hives, societies formed by millions of like-minded individuals. It's a fascinating, tightly constructed work that left me in awe of Palmer's imagination and writing skills.
Palmer has a gift for interesting characters and convincing conversation- it's a rare book that can hold my interest through pages and pages of meetings and keep me coming back for more, but Palmer does this. She makes political machinations sexy, and nails the tensions and undercurrents that run beneath the conversations of the powerful, making these sections addictively entertaining.
That's not to say there's no action, no high-stakes physical threat in Seven Surrenders. There is engagingly depicted action here, but it is not the book's focus, and if you're looking for a kinetic, 'splosions-heavy story I would look elsewhere.
If however you're looking for a thoughtful SF story with intrigue, betrayal, regret and intellectual heft then this is the book for you. Seven Surrenders isn't perfect, but it's damn close to it, and I've already ordered my copy of The Will to Battle, book three in Palmer's series.
Ada Palmer is to my mind one of the bright new talents in SF, and this book cements that reputation. She has written only two books so far, and both of them deserve to be included on SF book-of-the-year lists. If this is what she can do at the start of her career I'm very much looking forward to the work she will produce when she really hits her stride.
From the first page in her new novel Ada Palmer continues the story she began in the scintillating Too Like the Lightning, and the two books can be read as one story split into two halves. (I'm guessing they were written as one story, but would be too large if left as one book).
Mycroft Canner, indentured servant, friend to the powerful and one-time sadistic mass-murderer is once again our narrator, reporting on the meetings of world leaders, their secret dalliances, their power struggles, their betrayals. Through Mycroft's eyes, and occasionally the eyes of someone he has invited into his story, we see events that threaten to shatter the utopia that earth has become- a world with no war, no hunger, no want.
The characters introduced in the first novel- The Saneer-Weeksbooths, Bridger, the god-child who can bring any inanimate object to life, J.E.D.D Mason, the strange youth who can see a person's deepest secrets at a glance and appears to be the heir apparent to many of the world's leaders, Carlyle foster the Sensayer, and others continue their machinations as the revelation of a centuries old murderous plot (A plot used to keep the world from war) threatens to spark a civil war of unimaginable, epoch defining brutality.
Around this fascinating plot Palmer continues to explore ideas of gender and faith, bringing new insight and ideas to the old trope of the near genderless future where everyone gets around in androgynous robes and uses 'theys' instead of 'his' and 'hers'. one of the most fascinating ideas she presents is the impact that old gendered forms of sexuality could have in a society only a few hundred years distant from the sort of gender roles we have in 2017. Could sexuality and gendered behavior be used as a weapon in such a society? Could people unused to gendered behavior be vulnerable to seducers using old forms of behaviour? And should they succumb, could they become addicted to illicitly partaking in socially frowned upon gendered behaviour, and then be manipulated by their unprincipled seducers?
This is a novel unafraid to play with ideas like this, in an interesting and convincingly constructed future, an interlinked world where nation states have been overtaken by voluntarily joined Hives, societies formed by millions of like-minded individuals. It's a fascinating, tightly constructed work that left me in awe of Palmer's imagination and writing skills.
Palmer has a gift for interesting characters and convincing conversation- it's a rare book that can hold my interest through pages and pages of meetings and keep me coming back for more, but Palmer does this. She makes political machinations sexy, and nails the tensions and undercurrents that run beneath the conversations of the powerful, making these sections addictively entertaining.
That's not to say there's no action, no high-stakes physical threat in Seven Surrenders. There is engagingly depicted action here, but it is not the book's focus, and if you're looking for a kinetic, 'splosions-heavy story I would look elsewhere.
If however you're looking for a thoughtful SF story with intrigue, betrayal, regret and intellectual heft then this is the book for you. Seven Surrenders isn't perfect, but it's damn close to it, and I've already ordered my copy of The Will to Battle, book three in Palmer's series.
Ada Palmer is to my mind one of the bright new talents in SF, and this book cements that reputation. She has written only two books so far, and both of them deserve to be included on SF book-of-the-year lists. If this is what she can do at the start of her career I'm very much looking forward to the work she will produce when she really hits her stride.
December 20, 2017
About halfway through Seven Surrenders, it dawned on me how nearly all the characters we’ve met in Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota fit neatly into one category or another in the traditional RPG alignment system. I don’t know enough about Palmer to know if this was intentional or not (she is obviously an intellectual, and a history scholar by trade, but who can say what she does in her spare time?) but that is ultimately beside the point. Mycroft Canner, whose perspective on the proceedings is nearly absolute, is the only one who is impossible to classify. Canner, by his own admission a slippery and untrustworthy fellow, grants himself the ubiquity and breadth of understanding he denies the other actors in his grand narrative. He aggressively typecasts each player, right down to his belligerent gendering of them. They are all slaves to their nature, in his view, and their capacity for self-deception portends the unraveling of their fragile utopia. That his opinion of other humans – born of an extreme, narcissistic self-regard – is a well-documented feature of psychopathy is not entirely lost on him, and certainly not on Palmer.
Seven Surrenders is as philosophically dense as its predecessor, and as playfully baroque in tone. Its style, a deliberate imitation of 18th century literary discourses, necessarily favors the rational over the sensational (especially the visual); while this is one of the most original, and oddly subversive, features of the series, it sometimes works against Seven Surrenders, as the second half of the novel could have benefitted from a little more sensibility over sense. But even if a crack or two shows in this volume, Terra Ignota continues to stimulate the intellect and the imagination, and I look forward to picking up the next volume.
Seven Surrenders is as philosophically dense as its predecessor, and as playfully baroque in tone. Its style, a deliberate imitation of 18th century literary discourses, necessarily favors the rational over the sensational (especially the visual); while this is one of the most original, and oddly subversive, features of the series, it sometimes works against Seven Surrenders, as the second half of the novel could have benefitted from a little more sensibility over sense. But even if a crack or two shows in this volume, Terra Ignota continues to stimulate the intellect and the imagination, and I look forward to picking up the next volume.
April 18, 2017
Originally reviewed at Bookwraiths.
My rating is 3.5 stars.
Too Like the Lightning was an ambitious, complex, thought-provoking work of science fiction, one which challenged a reader to brave its intricate futuristic world and rewarded those who did. Ada Palmer’s writing a return to the beautiful, ornate styles of the past; her measured words and nuance meanings contributing mightily to the powerful nature of the book. And Seven Surrenders is on par with its predecessor in every way, continuing the masterful breath of fresh air which this author has injected into the science fiction genre.
Continuing on with a large cast of characters led by Mycroft Canner, there is a plethora of interconnecting events transpiring everywhere in this 25th Century world. Revelations are made. Conspiracies are uncovered. Motives explained. The structures of power shaken to their foundations. The seemingly utopia society presented in Too Like The Lightning beginning to crumble and disintegrate under careful inspection. War looming eerily and horribly in the background of this peaceful place. All the plots within plots within plots too complicated, too heady for a simple description to capture. Suffice it to say Ada Palmer juggles numerous plots here without allowing any of them to fall to the ground, delivering a narrative a reader will become fully immersed in for hours, days and weeks.
What continues to set the Terra Ignota series above other current science fiction is the stimulating exploration of religion, politics, gender, and the continued evolution of humanity. All of it played out against the backdrop of a culture strange yet familiar, modern yet so very human. This future humanity still bound to the earth alone; people still divided by politics; resources still needed to drive the engines of consumption; religion still playing a significant role in people’s private life; and gender issues still a thorny one worthy of change. The author’s exploration fascinating, provocative, and frustrating in measured doses.
Prospective readers be warned though that this is a demanding series; the layered plot and slow reveals requiring dedication and determination. The philosophical discussions of its cast enlightening yet requiring outside thought to fully grasp, as Ada Palmer demands that her readers engage themselves in the discussions, open their minds to new, unfamiliar concepts, and meditate on the meanings. Many elements of the story not fully understood until later when your mind finally unwraps all the folded layers and rejoices in that stunning beauty of pure epiphany.
Seven Surrenders is everything I expected from Ada Palmer when I opened this novel: stunning prose, vivid setting, prophetic philosophy, political pensées, and fascinating characters. Where Too Like the Lightning was an unlooked-for revelation; Seven Surrenders was a much anticipated return, one which met my expectations and heightened my desire for the next book in the series. Certainly, it isn’t for everyone, but for those searching for a serious work of science fiction, Terra Ignota is the series to try.
I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. I’d like to thank them for allowing me to receive this review copy and inform everyone that the review you have read is my opinion alone.
My rating is 3.5 stars.
Too Like the Lightning was an ambitious, complex, thought-provoking work of science fiction, one which challenged a reader to brave its intricate futuristic world and rewarded those who did. Ada Palmer’s writing a return to the beautiful, ornate styles of the past; her measured words and nuance meanings contributing mightily to the powerful nature of the book. And Seven Surrenders is on par with its predecessor in every way, continuing the masterful breath of fresh air which this author has injected into the science fiction genre.
Continuing on with a large cast of characters led by Mycroft Canner, there is a plethora of interconnecting events transpiring everywhere in this 25th Century world. Revelations are made. Conspiracies are uncovered. Motives explained. The structures of power shaken to their foundations. The seemingly utopia society presented in Too Like The Lightning beginning to crumble and disintegrate under careful inspection. War looming eerily and horribly in the background of this peaceful place. All the plots within plots within plots too complicated, too heady for a simple description to capture. Suffice it to say Ada Palmer juggles numerous plots here without allowing any of them to fall to the ground, delivering a narrative a reader will become fully immersed in for hours, days and weeks.
What continues to set the Terra Ignota series above other current science fiction is the stimulating exploration of religion, politics, gender, and the continued evolution of humanity. All of it played out against the backdrop of a culture strange yet familiar, modern yet so very human. This future humanity still bound to the earth alone; people still divided by politics; resources still needed to drive the engines of consumption; religion still playing a significant role in people’s private life; and gender issues still a thorny one worthy of change. The author’s exploration fascinating, provocative, and frustrating in measured doses.
Prospective readers be warned though that this is a demanding series; the layered plot and slow reveals requiring dedication and determination. The philosophical discussions of its cast enlightening yet requiring outside thought to fully grasp, as Ada Palmer demands that her readers engage themselves in the discussions, open their minds to new, unfamiliar concepts, and meditate on the meanings. Many elements of the story not fully understood until later when your mind finally unwraps all the folded layers and rejoices in that stunning beauty of pure epiphany.
Seven Surrenders is everything I expected from Ada Palmer when I opened this novel: stunning prose, vivid setting, prophetic philosophy, political pensées, and fascinating characters. Where Too Like the Lightning was an unlooked-for revelation; Seven Surrenders was a much anticipated return, one which met my expectations and heightened my desire for the next book in the series. Certainly, it isn’t for everyone, but for those searching for a serious work of science fiction, Terra Ignota is the series to try.
I received an advanced reading copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review. I’d like to thank them for allowing me to receive this review copy and inform everyone that the review you have read is my opinion alone.
November 18, 2021
Second read, 2021: Even more impressed at the number of things included in this. This book is like a doctorate in Enlightenment philosophy plus Foundation. I just can't.
Original review below.
Hot damn. I haven't binged a book like this since Harry Potter, though this is nothing like that series. It's sort of the "Very Notter," actually. I think it is more in line with Atlas Shrugged, though less tedious.
Content warnings
Through theology, betrayal, revenge, miracles, lust, and melodrama that would make even telenovela writers suggest we tone things back a bit, we explore the limits of humanity, the strength and frailty of our lizard brains, the passion of our many forms of love. It is at once despairing and hopeful, ripe with ideas to justify another round of Ayn's self-styled disciples' proclamations about the nature of man's ambition, wrapped in prose that only those soft hearts enamored of the great philosophers could appreciate.
Do not read Too Like the Lightning without also reading this. They are one story, with all the questions in the first book and all the answers in the second. Commit to both, or recognize early that it's not worth the frustration and look elsewhere.
I found some of the moralizing and conclusions in this book unconvincing, but the questions it raised for me, the nature of mystery it offered and the extreme limits of humanity it painted are enough that I know I will not soon be done contemplating either the book's ideas or my reactions to them.
Original review below.
Hot damn. I haven't binged a book like this since Harry Potter, though this is nothing like that series. It's sort of the "Very Notter," actually. I think it is more in line with Atlas Shrugged, though less tedious.
Content warnings
Through theology, betrayal, revenge, miracles, lust, and melodrama that would make even telenovela writers suggest we tone things back a bit, we explore the limits of humanity, the strength and frailty of our lizard brains, the passion of our many forms of love. It is at once despairing and hopeful, ripe with ideas to justify another round of Ayn's self-styled disciples' proclamations about the nature of man's ambition, wrapped in prose that only those soft hearts enamored of the great philosophers could appreciate.
Do not read Too Like the Lightning without also reading this. They are one story, with all the questions in the first book and all the answers in the second. Commit to both, or recognize early that it's not worth the frustration and look elsewhere.
I found some of the moralizing and conclusions in this book unconvincing, but the questions it raised for me, the nature of mystery it offered and the extreme limits of humanity it painted are enough that I know I will not soon be done contemplating either the book's ideas or my reactions to them.
November 17, 2021
This was a group read with a few of my SFF book club buddies as a follow up to Too Like the Lightning. I think I was able to glean a lot more from it as a group read and it was interesting to see everyone's different perspectives and take aways on it. If you're considering this book, and have the opportunity to buddy read it- I highly recommend reading it that way!
I know the first book was very polarizing in that readers either enjoyed it or DNF'd or just didn't like it at all. I think if you made it through the end of the first book, you owe it to yourself to finish with Seven Surrenders. I really think they should have been sold as one huge Sci-Fi epic. I get why the publishers did it, but I think a lot of readers will miss out on at least the plot related answers we were asking after in book one. Too Like the Lightning does not feel complete without Seven Surrenders. This is part of a four book series overall, but I can tell you that Seven Surrenders does not end on the huge cliff hanger type ending we were given in Book 1.
I don't have any words to say that could do this book justice. There are too many topics covered. Religion. Individuality. Gender equality. Gender's purpose in society: whether it is completely learned or innate. Utopia. How society achieves Utopia: what it looks like for humanity as a whole. Morality. Whether a people's desire for justice and truth, a right to know, to not hide behind closed doors and propaganda, should be first before the safety of the rest of humanity. The greater good and the nature of goodness. Stagnancy vs. Progress. The nature of man. The nature of (G)od.
I don't mean to say that the author is offering answers to all of these questions, more like, she is imposing these questions to the reader. There are so many complex shades of gray in this story. They are important questions to be asked, and I have to wonder, if as Mycroft would say, Providence hasn't meant for these books to be released at this time. "Why now?" When Trump rules the USA, firing everyone who doesn't agree with him. Using his twitter accounts as his own personal form of propaganda. Calling any news channel who dares question him #FakeNews.
This is not an easy novel to digest and I think it will require multiple readings. It will be one of those books that you pick up something different from every time you read it. It is complex and intricate and we often aren't given the whole picture. People's motives are unclear and sometimes don't always make much sense in the context we receive them.
Aside from all the serious things happening, the world building was excellent. There are so many complexities to this society and I still have questions about it. I'm not sure what the difference is between blacklaws and graylaws etc. I don't understand the nature or purpose of all the Hives. Or precisely how bashes are formed. I'm not sure why The Anonymous is so important and what precisely their contributions are to society.
But most of what I love about these books is the characters. I'm still strangely attached to Mycroft. I'm attached to Sniper. I'm attached to Mother Kosala and Papadelias and Ganymede and am fascinated by all their strange interpersonal relationships. The plot is twisting and turning and once again, whenever you think you have something pegged, another bomb is dropped, another layer peeled away and everything shifts. It's like trying to solve a rubiks cube. For every shift of one square into place, another face of the cube has changed.
Overall- a fascinating and thought provoking read.
I know the first book was very polarizing in that readers either enjoyed it or DNF'd or just didn't like it at all. I think if you made it through the end of the first book, you owe it to yourself to finish with Seven Surrenders. I really think they should have been sold as one huge Sci-Fi epic. I get why the publishers did it, but I think a lot of readers will miss out on at least the plot related answers we were asking after in book one. Too Like the Lightning does not feel complete without Seven Surrenders. This is part of a four book series overall, but I can tell you that Seven Surrenders does not end on the huge cliff hanger type ending we were given in Book 1.
I don't have any words to say that could do this book justice. There are too many topics covered. Religion. Individuality. Gender equality. Gender's purpose in society: whether it is completely learned or innate. Utopia. How society achieves Utopia: what it looks like for humanity as a whole. Morality. Whether a people's desire for justice and truth, a right to know, to not hide behind closed doors and propaganda, should be first before the safety of the rest of humanity. The greater good and the nature of goodness. Stagnancy vs. Progress. The nature of man. The nature of (G)od.
I don't mean to say that the author is offering answers to all of these questions, more like, she is imposing these questions to the reader. There are so many complex shades of gray in this story. They are important questions to be asked, and I have to wonder, if as Mycroft would say, Providence hasn't meant for these books to be released at this time. "Why now?" When Trump rules the USA, firing everyone who doesn't agree with him. Using his twitter accounts as his own personal form of propaganda. Calling any news channel who dares question him #FakeNews.
This is not an easy novel to digest and I think it will require multiple readings. It will be one of those books that you pick up something different from every time you read it. It is complex and intricate and we often aren't given the whole picture. People's motives are unclear and sometimes don't always make much sense in the context we receive them.
Aside from all the serious things happening, the world building was excellent. There are so many complexities to this society and I still have questions about it. I'm not sure what the difference is between blacklaws and graylaws etc. I don't understand the nature or purpose of all the Hives. Or precisely how bashes are formed. I'm not sure why The Anonymous is so important and what precisely their contributions are to society.
But most of what I love about these books is the characters. I'm still strangely attached to Mycroft. I'm attached to Sniper. I'm attached to Mother Kosala and Papadelias and Ganymede and am fascinated by all their strange interpersonal relationships. The plot is twisting and turning and once again, whenever you think you have something pegged, another bomb is dropped, another layer peeled away and everything shifts. It's like trying to solve a rubiks cube. For every shift of one square into place, another face of the cube has changed.
Overall- a fascinating and thought provoking read.
September 15, 2019
(In this review, more than ever, you should excuse me from the mistakes that I can make in the use of the English language).
Four and half stars for the two novels.
Of course, this novel deserves a re-reading that right now I will not do. For the moment, since mostly of the open plots of the first book are closed, and therefore in practice the two novels form a quite complete duology, I will read other "things", things of science fiction, of course ;-)
From the absurd to the fascinating, from comedy or “sitcom” chapters to tragedy, from subtle but also important changes in the main story to frequent surprising plot twists... This novel even surpasses the first, so I must congratulate Ada Palmer for these two impressive novels. The books are a declaration of love for the Enlightenment and to the intellectual and philosophical movements that revolutionized and dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th Century.
About the reading experience, the plot unfolds fluently in some chapters and in others (the most, in fact) it is difficult to advance because you have to reread continuously to understand the subtleties of the story and to not lose important information (I guess it happens to me more, as I said English is not my mother tongue). I must clarify that fortunately it does not reach the level of difficulty of the first novel, however it does not prevent that at some point you can feel that your brain will explode with such complexity, which could also be said in favor of the author's wisdom with the classics from the Age of Reason and also about her good literary skills.
So, I wonder, why is this book so difficult and at the same time so captivating to read? Briefly, I will try to explain it (spoiler-free mode activated):
- A very complex and well-built story. Also with frequent and surprising plot twists, for me one of the best aspects of the novel.
- The author is aware of the literary principle: "Do not explain, suggest"; and also she dosifies the information that the reader receives in order to develop the intrigue. Most of the unsolved questions in the first book are explained here.
- [Please hold my coffee] The whole two novels are told from a subjective point of view, mostly by the main character Mycroft Canner, but interspersed in the narrative there are some comments addressed to "you" (a distant future reader) and also to a contemporary 25th Century reader/corrector who in turn reprimands the narrator questioning his style or the facts narrated. In other words, the author uses a first-person point of view in the mouth of Mycroft Canner; a second-person addressed to “you”, or when the reader/corrector discusses with Mycroft; and finally the third-person point of view about stories from other characters told by Mycroft Canner. Also note the frequent use of the royal “we”, or “pluralis maiestatis”, referred to some of the characters. You must pay attention!
- Regarding the previous point, a prose very convoluted, frequently imitating classic texts and using archaic expressions. Also in this novel there are some languages merging: Latin, French, Spanish, German; and some more in the case of the vocabulaire (Japanese, Greek, etc.). The author translates it for us, but it is a “double” read.
- The characters are very well developed, another strong point of the novel, but they are a lot and they are evolving. An example, the one that the author seems to treat with the most loving care: the tribune J.E.D.D. Mason, or Jed Mason, or the Porphyrogene, or Jehovah, or Micromégas (from Voltaire's book, considered one of the first novels of science fiction), or Tai-Kun, or... He has nearly ten names! And also, the relations between the characters are very complex, like a TV soap opera but concentrated in only one season.
- Finally, the aspects of science (fiction) and fantasy (?) involved also are an awesome add to this mixture.
I am sure that I leave a lot of important aspects to comment, but in any case it is a very, very interesting reading. As I said before, in this sequel the author resolves the main plots he had left open to the previous book, while opening a wonderful, New World to discover in the next sequel, "The Will to Battle".
Four and half stars for the two novels.
Of course, this novel deserves a re-reading that right now I will not do. For the moment, since mostly of the open plots of the first book are closed, and therefore in practice the two novels form a quite complete duology, I will read other "things", things of science fiction, of course ;-)
From the absurd to the fascinating, from comedy or “sitcom” chapters to tragedy, from subtle but also important changes in the main story to frequent surprising plot twists... This novel even surpasses the first, so I must congratulate Ada Palmer for these two impressive novels. The books are a declaration of love for the Enlightenment and to the intellectual and philosophical movements that revolutionized and dominated the world of ideas in Europe during the 18th Century.
About the reading experience, the plot unfolds fluently in some chapters and in others (the most, in fact) it is difficult to advance because you have to reread continuously to understand the subtleties of the story and to not lose important information (I guess it happens to me more, as I said English is not my mother tongue). I must clarify that fortunately it does not reach the level of difficulty of the first novel, however it does not prevent that at some point you can feel that your brain will explode with such complexity, which could also be said in favor of the author's wisdom with the classics from the Age of Reason and also about her good literary skills.
So, I wonder, why is this book so difficult and at the same time so captivating to read? Briefly, I will try to explain it (spoiler-free mode activated):
- A very complex and well-built story. Also with frequent and surprising plot twists, for me one of the best aspects of the novel.
- The author is aware of the literary principle: "Do not explain, suggest"; and also she dosifies the information that the reader receives in order to develop the intrigue. Most of the unsolved questions in the first book are explained here.
- [Please hold my coffee] The whole two novels are told from a subjective point of view, mostly by the main character Mycroft Canner, but interspersed in the narrative there are some comments addressed to "you" (a distant future reader) and also to a contemporary 25th Century reader/corrector who in turn reprimands the narrator questioning his style or the facts narrated. In other words, the author uses a first-person point of view in the mouth of Mycroft Canner; a second-person addressed to “you”, or when the reader/corrector discusses with Mycroft; and finally the third-person point of view about stories from other characters told by Mycroft Canner. Also note the frequent use of the royal “we”, or “pluralis maiestatis”, referred to some of the characters. You must pay attention!
- Regarding the previous point, a prose very convoluted, frequently imitating classic texts and using archaic expressions. Also in this novel there are some languages merging: Latin, French, Spanish, German; and some more in the case of the vocabulaire (Japanese, Greek, etc.). The author translates it for us, but it is a “double” read.
- The characters are very well developed, another strong point of the novel, but they are a lot and they are evolving. An example, the one that the author seems to treat with the most loving care: the tribune J.E.D.D. Mason, or Jed Mason, or the Porphyrogene, or Jehovah, or Micromégas (from Voltaire's book, considered one of the first novels of science fiction), or Tai-Kun, or... He has nearly ten names! And also, the relations between the characters are very complex, like a TV soap opera but concentrated in only one season.
- Finally, the aspects of science (fiction) and fantasy (?) involved also are an awesome add to this mixture.
I am sure that I leave a lot of important aspects to comment, but in any case it is a very, very interesting reading. As I said before, in this sequel the author resolves the main plots he had left open to the previous book, while opening a wonderful, New World to discover in the next sequel, "The Will to Battle".
October 7, 2019
So amazing. Just... so amazing. It's not often that even the third reading of something leaves me speechless. Read TLTL first or it won't make any sense. But... wow. So amazing. Such intensity, such depth, such beautiful beautiful pacing.
March 11, 2017
Full review on Youtube:
https://youtu.be/EiJLQcSCFTQ
I really loved this as much as Too Like the Lightning.
https://youtu.be/EiJLQcSCFTQ
I really loved this as much as Too Like the Lightning.
September 9, 2022
This sequel is a fascinating continuation of the richly conceived story begun in Ada Palmer’s masterfully written Too Like the Lightning. It doesn’t achieve the exhilarating heights of its predecessor, in large part because the voice of its narrator, Mycroft Canner, feels somehow more muted and somber here than it did in the first novel.
Palmer is wrestling with huge ideas in these books, for which I admire her greatly. I will definitely continue reading the final two novels in this 4-part future history.
Palmer is wrestling with huge ideas in these books, for which I admire her greatly. I will definitely continue reading the final two novels in this 4-part future history.
August 29, 2023
“The great breakthrough of our age is supposed to be that we measure success by happiness, admiring a man for how much he enjoyed his life, rather than how much wealth or fame he hoarded, that old race with no finish line. Diogenes with his barrel and his sunlight lived every hour of his life content, while Alexander fought and bled, mourned friends, faced enemies, and died unsatisfied. Diogenes is greater. Or does that past-tainted inner part of you—the part that still parses ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and ‘he’ and ‘she’—still think that happiness alone is not achievement without legacy? Diogenes has a legacy. Diogenes ruled nothing, wrote nothing, taught nothing except by the example of his life to passersby, but, so impressed were those bypassers, that, after the better part of three millennia, we still know this about him.”
It’s difficult to write a review for a book so specifically tailored towards myself. Furthermore, it's more difficult in a non-spoilery fashion, as I’ve done that in my review for Too Like the Lightning. So, it’s pretty much everything I outlined in my original review, but executed even better.
I believe book 1 ends in a fitting place, yet this is definitely the second half of that history. A lot of science-fiction starts with a promising premise, but the conclusion can feel lacking compared to the potential. This is not the case here, this book concludes the many plot threads from Too Like the Lightning in speculator fashion.
The book, or more specifically, the series will click with you depending on certain factors. Are you open to a soft sci-fi with intricate political maneuvering, deep discussion on philosophy and religion (and not in a shallow way) with humans that feel so alien in certain cases due to being set 300 years in the future with the writing style homaging 18th-century Victorian English writing style while being explicitly influenced by Enlightenment period philosophy? So yes, very specific, and luckily, all that sounds fantastic (for me).
This book further explores the aftermath of the Church War, the banning of organised Religion and the use of Gender (no he/she). Book 1 I felt explored both these component through Madame D’Arouet thoroughly yet here it goes a step further.
The influence of the Iliad is greater than I expected, yet it makes a lot of sense. The Renaissance, which is the author's specialty, was the period of the rediscovery of classical Greek philosophy. The more I thought about the core themes of the Iliad, the more I started thinking about how they were explored in both Apollo’s Iliad and the plot of the book. I will post an extract from my Iliad review , as I believe it relates to this book:
There are so many universal themes despite being written in the 8th century BC that still rings true in the 21st century. Honour, Glory, Mortality and Active Involvement of the Gods says a lot about the values of the Ancient Greeks. There are so many small details that are awesome to observe like how medicine would be applied. I love the exploration of rage and forgiveness. It’s those two themes that are at the core of the poem and It’s handled masterfully. I also found the Anti-War sentiments to be quite strong. One could argue it’s glorifying war but that deliberate contrast of Wartime and Peacetime state otherwise. Often the pointlessness of this war is a subject matter touched upon. Even from the offset of a regular soldier and further reinforced as you read along.
So many of these themes are explored in Seven Surrenders. How will war be conducted 300 years in the future? It’s a civilisation that has no war veterans left to teach the current generation what war was like, etc. There are a lot of anti-war sentiments and the active involvement of the gods, in this case, God has given Earth Bridger and other things of that nature. Even the theme of Rage can be an echo of Mycroft’s feelings if you know his past. There are so many small and big incidences that it can’t be a coincidence, and this is not the only text but just one of many. I’m not too well versed in Enlightenment philosophy, but even I noticed aspects plus some Osamu Tezuka mixed into it.
There are very few action sequences (though the few it has are pretty cool), it’s mainly a lot of confrontation, politicking, and discussion of metaphysics such as ontology, free will, metaphysical cosmology, and a whole bunch of intriguing topics. One of the most thrilling moments in the book is just a character debating and destroying a person's belief system because of certain knowledge. Despite this character being known for his aggression, yet the book Palmer chooses to use words as a means of torture, which is just brilliant. There are a lot of interesting conversations, and thankfully, the characters don’t feel like mouthpieces, they are just people in this world.
Elements that can be a mixed bag would be the drama. Some would say it verges on soap opera level, which makes sense. A lot of emotions can feel a tad heightened, I guess due to the nature of the world, and hammer home the point of certain conversations, giving them an extra emotional core. The story of ideas is one of the core strengths of science fiction, and I loved the duality of the cast. No two sides are necessarily good, each side has a valid reason for their actions, which is what you want when tackling such a sensitive topic. The following of various perspectives is brilliant while having the framework of a history that Mycroft wrote. I’ve discussed the writing before, so I won’t delve into that topic, but the prose is excellent as usual.
I should state: I believe the difficulty is a bit overstated, it isn't super easy. However, if you take your time, and marinate each chapter, and don't read it in a rush, I think you will have a good time. I mainly read this in 1-2 chapter chunks each day (when I read it), and I didn’t have a problem. Sometimes I had to look up a name because I forgot, but beyond that, it was a smooth experience.
I was invested in Terra Ignota from the beginning, but now I can just tell this will be something special. It’s such a unique series, a future history that anchors itself so tightly in the language and literature of the past while at the same time being so progressive. This series isn’t going to be for everyone, but it definitely deserves recognition and respect, and I can see it being discussed decades in the future.
9.5/10
March 1, 2020
February 2020 Re-read: Combined re-read review of books one and two in spoiler tags. My original review of book one remains below. There aren't actually any spoilers in the re-read review, so feel free to click through. I just wanted to keep the amount of text minimal.
February 2018: Just as a heads up, I will be calling the police at the end of this review to report a crime, because this book and its author tried to murder me. Does anyone know the legislation about this? Can I have a book arrested for assault?
Okay, but seriously, this book is a monster. There were several points where I nearly threw it across the room, I was so upset. And then I kept going and almost immediately it became clear why Palmer did that monstrous thing that I hated and that made me want to go to my bed and curl up with my cat and the warm blanket that my cat thinks is her boyfriend. It was like she was continually slapping my face, and then immediately turning around and being like, okay, but here's why I just did that! And it makes sense! And so you find yourself agreeing to your own assault.
CALL THE POLICE.
I am of course being (mostly) facetious here, but I am finding it hard to actually talk about this effing book without descending into hyperbole. It's clear to me that Ada Palmer is some kind of heinous genius who uses her powers for evil and writing books that torment me, and keeps me there with the promise of cool stuff and philosophical meanderings.
Also, all the talk about humanity and its relationship to war was legit giving me anxiety so by the end I could only read this book when the sun was up.
I actually ordered book three from my library when I was about a third of the way through this one, but that was before it betrayed me and stabbed my kidneys with knives and then dripped lemon juice on my open wounds. If you want intelligent discussion about this book, you can try Julie's review, or Erik's, because you won't find it here.
P.S. Make sure you read the Author's Note at the end, which is when she talks about the title of book one (and the epigraph for this one), Too Like the Lightning (a nod to a line from Romeo and Juliet:"Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be / Ere one can say 'It lightens.'") That is when her true evilness is revealed. I haven't had the title of a book sneak up on me like that since I read The Constant Gardener.
February 2018: Just as a heads up, I will be calling the police at the end of this review to report a crime, because this book and its author tried to murder me. Does anyone know the legislation about this? Can I have a book arrested for assault?
Okay, but seriously, this book is a monster. There were several points where I nearly threw it across the room, I was so upset. And then I kept going and almost immediately it became clear why Palmer did that monstrous thing that I hated and that made me want to go to my bed and curl up with my cat and the warm blanket that my cat thinks is her boyfriend. It was like she was continually slapping my face, and then immediately turning around and being like, okay, but here's why I just did that! And it makes sense! And so you find yourself agreeing to your own assault.
CALL THE POLICE.
I am of course being (mostly) facetious here, but I am finding it hard to actually talk about this effing book without descending into hyperbole. It's clear to me that Ada Palmer is some kind of heinous genius who uses her powers for evil and writing books that torment me, and keeps me there with the promise of cool stuff and philosophical meanderings.
Also, all the talk about humanity and its relationship to war was legit giving me anxiety so by the end I could only read this book when the sun was up.
I actually ordered book three from my library when I was about a third of the way through this one, but that was before it betrayed me and stabbed my kidneys with knives and then dripped lemon juice on my open wounds. If you want intelligent discussion about this book, you can try Julie's review, or Erik's, because you won't find it here.
P.S. Make sure you read the Author's Note at the end, which is when she talks about the title of book one (and the epigraph for this one), Too Like the Lightning (a nod to a line from Romeo and Juliet:"Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be / Ere one can say 'It lightens.'") That is when her true evilness is revealed. I haven't had the title of a book sneak up on me like that since I read The Constant Gardener.
September 18, 2017
Seven Surrenders may be more appropriately titled Too Like the Lightning, Part 2, as the whole tome was clearly conceived and written as a single unit (that just so happened to be longer than first-time authors are allowed to get away with). As such, you will feel the same about Seven Surrenders as you did about Too Like the Lightning. My own feeling is that these books offer a unique and interesting, if not quite believable, vision of the future. They’re not exactly page-turning reads, especially this second half, which occasionally gets bogged down in overly long speeches, but they’re ripe with enough suspense to keep you hooked. Their narrative qualities aside, there’s no question they explore some fascinating ideas, particularly war, gender/sexuality, and divinity. They also invoke – though it is never explicitly mentioned or discussed – psychopathy, which is going to be the focus of this essay I mean, review *wink*
Here in Seven Surrenders, we learn of Mycroft’s crime in great and disturbing detail. Honestly, it was a bit shocking. Pretty gruesome. Now Mycroft is never specifically labeled a psychopath but given his background (he witnesses nearly his entire ‘bash die in a fire when he’s quite young), his brutality, and his reasons for his crime, it’s a safe bet to label him as such. And yet he’s the protagonist and in many ways the actual BEST / most moral character in the entire novel. Interesting!
Now, unfortunately, it must be said this characterization is terribly inauthentic, probably one of my biggest critiques. Servicer Mycroft does not mesh in the slightest with Homicidal Mycroft. I was highly anticipating seeing the transformation scene that instigated this metamorphosis, but, alas, it was completely unbelievable. Basically magic. Mechanically speaking, pure plot convenience. Nevertheless, I cannot understate my joy at the character of Mycroft. A humble, service-oriented psychopath?! I’d buy that for a dollar! …Most importantly, it affords me the opportunity write on a topic I’ve long been fascinated by: the GOOD PSYCHOPATH.
For some time now, I have been playing with the insidious thought that psychopaths need not be evil. Now, clearly, the stereotyping of this diverse spectrum into a singular criminal role is simplistic and probably false more often than true. But I would go even further and state the GOOD psychopath – the one who has been trained by himself or others to wield his cold rationality in service to good – has the potential be one of the morally best people.
This idea floated around in my mindscape as a nebulous cloud for some quite time before it was crystallized into concrete form when I was playing a computer game called Shadowrun: Hong Kong. It’s based on a pen n paper game of the same name and set in a future in which magic and technology have merged and there are elves and orcs and dragons and street-samurai and cyborgs and spirits and AI and all that delicious sci-fi & fantasy stuff mashed all together.
One of the primary mechanics of the game is ESSENCE. As the game is set in the future, many people replace parts of their bodies with machinery (biological eyes with mechanical ones that can see in different light spectrums, for example). However, each replacement lowers this character’s ESSENCE, which is a spiritual/magical quantity that represents his/her humanity. Too much cyber-modification and a character’s essence will drop to 0 and that character will perish and/or suffer from severe psychological effects.
So if we think of psychopathy as ‘lacking in humanity’, then we might say a psychopath is someone who has low ESSENCE.
WELL! It turns out that in Shadowrun: HK, one of your allies has had over half his body replaced with cybernetics so that he has no ESSENCE left whatsoever… and yet he lives and thrives. His secret? Psychopathy.
He admits his psychopathy early on in your relationship and even goes on to claim that psychopathy represents the next stage in posthumanity – that ESSENCE (and therefore humanity) is in fact an anchor holding us back from our ascension into our next form: that of machine intelligences, freed from our corporeal shackles. He says that psychopaths as coldly rational beings are the most machine-like, a necessary condition to truly understand – and even program – your own thought processes. That EMOTION really only gets in the way and is unreliable, at best. Psychopaths are free from it and thus *must* rely on logic and reason.
Now I’m by no means underplaying the fact that while 1% of the (male) population are psychopaths, 25% of the prison population are. I’d never argue that psychopathy is a GOOD thing. However, there are some aspects of psychopathy that might lend themselves to positive traits. For example, one of the major differences between psychopaths and those with normal pathologies is how they experience empathy. Normal pathologies experience an automatic “spontaneous empathy.” In contrast, recent studies suggest that psychopaths have “willful empathy” or the ability to switch empathy on and off at will. In other words, psychopathy is associated with intact cognitive empathy but with impaired affective (emotional) empathy.
I would suggest this is symptomatic of psychopathy as a whole: high cognition, low emotion. Unfortunately our world is such that this often leads to criminality and evil. But what if it was trained in service of good? Could it be? Do the seeds of goodness sprout in the heart – or in the head?
Already we recognize the danger of emotion. For example, when we consider citizens for jury duty, we try to choose those with no emotional stake in the matter. We want jurors who will be able to look at a beautiful woman or a friendly old man and ignore their instinctual empathy and instead judge the case on cold hard facts.
Consider, too, the danger of conformity…
Conformity & The Black Dahlia Killer: In Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder’s collection of essays On Tyranny, he claims the success of Fascism was helped by the general human need to belong, to join a group, to fit in with the crowd. See Milgram’s electric shock experiment on the power of obedience & authority, which was designed and carried out to test the claims of many Nazi soldiers who said they were simply “following orders.”
Psychopaths, however, feel no such need to belong or to “follow orders”, which is probably why psychopathy is associated with independence and defiance to authority. Steve Hodel, suspecting his father George Hodel of being the Black Dahlia Avenger (aka a murderer), said, “[his father] was a loner, not a joiner.”
Typically, not joining in with society is a bad thing, as it means disobeying laws or rejecting social norms. But what about not joining in a lynch mob? Or a pogrom? What about a scientist who refuses to join in with accepting the currently popular theory and instead explores something else? Non-conformity (differentiated from anti-conformity) is a trait closely linked with psychopathy.
Buddhism, Jedi, & Darth Vader: I have always associated Jedi Knights with Buddhist monks. Both groups are celibate and ascetic, but even more germane to this topic, they both seek mastery over their emotions. Nirvana literally means ‘blown-out’ referring to a release from suffering and the cycle of rebirth – a state of detachment from one’s ego. This is roughly equivalent to the Light side – freedom from suffering and emotion – as opposed to the dark side, in which one becomes too attached to the world and suffers for it. When confronted by Anakin’s fears, Yoda counsels him to “train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose,” which in a sense is advocating for the adoption of certain psychopathic tendencies.
Alas, Anakin ultimately fails to follow Yoda's advice. He is unable to turn his empathy off with regards to his wife, and it ultimately consumes him and turns him to the dark side.
But what if he had been a psychopath, or at least possessed some psychopathic tendencies? What if he had managed to master his empathy, to free himself of affective empathy and instead rely on cognitive empathy?
Anakin might not have fallen to the dark side. So Mace Windu would have slain the emperor. And the Jedi would not have fallen. And the Death Star would never have been used. The Republic – and the admittedly fragile peace it maintained – would have continued.
The story here in Too Like the Lightning & The Seven Surrender is at least partially an exploration of this idea of the GOOD psychopath. Is it possible? How? Why? Under what circumstances?
In Mycroft’s case, he receives a unique education that helps him create an intellectual conception of good that, combined with his psychopathy, allows him to undertake some horrific deeds that are ultimately for the benefit of society. I’d also argue that his swift change from serial killer to servicer was only possible because of the cold rationality of his psychopathic mind. You just don’t see such fluidity of personality from people with normal pathologies.
Combine such a narrator with the themes of war and divinity, and you have yourself a pretty interesting book. I will say that it’s a bit ambitious and unfocused at times. In particular, I felt both books spent far too much ink on gender ideas, which by comparison felt rather trivial and anachronistic (in the sense that gender explorations of this particular type – with linguistic & social rather than technological foundations – seem to me like a fad or at least only the first paltry step in a much greater redefinition of humanity) and really only distracted from more interesting & timeless ideas.
Still, the Seven Surrenders was a solid book, which for the most part succeeds at the two most fundamental criteria I apply to a book: Is it FUN to read? Yes. Lots and lots of suspense and mysteries to keep you turning the pages. And is the book INTERESTING to read? Yes, as the above discussions reveal. I look forward to more work by this author.
Here in Seven Surrenders, we learn of Mycroft’s crime in great and disturbing detail. Honestly, it was a bit shocking. Pretty gruesome. Now Mycroft is never specifically labeled a psychopath but given his background (he witnesses nearly his entire ‘bash die in a fire when he’s quite young), his brutality, and his reasons for his crime, it’s a safe bet to label him as such. And yet he’s the protagonist and in many ways the actual BEST / most moral character in the entire novel. Interesting!
Now, unfortunately, it must be said this characterization is terribly inauthentic, probably one of my biggest critiques. Servicer Mycroft does not mesh in the slightest with Homicidal Mycroft. I was highly anticipating seeing the transformation scene that instigated this metamorphosis, but, alas, it was completely unbelievable. Basically magic. Mechanically speaking, pure plot convenience. Nevertheless, I cannot understate my joy at the character of Mycroft. A humble, service-oriented psychopath?! I’d buy that for a dollar! …Most importantly, it affords me the opportunity write on a topic I’ve long been fascinated by: the GOOD PSYCHOPATH.
For some time now, I have been playing with the insidious thought that psychopaths need not be evil. Now, clearly, the stereotyping of this diverse spectrum into a singular criminal role is simplistic and probably false more often than true. But I would go even further and state the GOOD psychopath – the one who has been trained by himself or others to wield his cold rationality in service to good – has the potential be one of the morally best people.
This idea floated around in my mindscape as a nebulous cloud for some quite time before it was crystallized into concrete form when I was playing a computer game called Shadowrun: Hong Kong. It’s based on a pen n paper game of the same name and set in a future in which magic and technology have merged and there are elves and orcs and dragons and street-samurai and cyborgs and spirits and AI and all that delicious sci-fi & fantasy stuff mashed all together.
One of the primary mechanics of the game is ESSENCE. As the game is set in the future, many people replace parts of their bodies with machinery (biological eyes with mechanical ones that can see in different light spectrums, for example). However, each replacement lowers this character’s ESSENCE, which is a spiritual/magical quantity that represents his/her humanity. Too much cyber-modification and a character’s essence will drop to 0 and that character will perish and/or suffer from severe psychological effects.
So if we think of psychopathy as ‘lacking in humanity’, then we might say a psychopath is someone who has low ESSENCE.
WELL! It turns out that in Shadowrun: HK, one of your allies has had over half his body replaced with cybernetics so that he has no ESSENCE left whatsoever… and yet he lives and thrives. His secret? Psychopathy.
He admits his psychopathy early on in your relationship and even goes on to claim that psychopathy represents the next stage in posthumanity – that ESSENCE (and therefore humanity) is in fact an anchor holding us back from our ascension into our next form: that of machine intelligences, freed from our corporeal shackles. He says that psychopaths as coldly rational beings are the most machine-like, a necessary condition to truly understand – and even program – your own thought processes. That EMOTION really only gets in the way and is unreliable, at best. Psychopaths are free from it and thus *must* rely on logic and reason.
Now I’m by no means underplaying the fact that while 1% of the (male) population are psychopaths, 25% of the prison population are. I’d never argue that psychopathy is a GOOD thing. However, there are some aspects of psychopathy that might lend themselves to positive traits. For example, one of the major differences between psychopaths and those with normal pathologies is how they experience empathy. Normal pathologies experience an automatic “spontaneous empathy.” In contrast, recent studies suggest that psychopaths have “willful empathy” or the ability to switch empathy on and off at will. In other words, psychopathy is associated with intact cognitive empathy but with impaired affective (emotional) empathy.
I would suggest this is symptomatic of psychopathy as a whole: high cognition, low emotion. Unfortunately our world is such that this often leads to criminality and evil. But what if it was trained in service of good? Could it be? Do the seeds of goodness sprout in the heart – or in the head?
Already we recognize the danger of emotion. For example, when we consider citizens for jury duty, we try to choose those with no emotional stake in the matter. We want jurors who will be able to look at a beautiful woman or a friendly old man and ignore their instinctual empathy and instead judge the case on cold hard facts.
Consider, too, the danger of conformity…
Conformity & The Black Dahlia Killer: In Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder’s collection of essays On Tyranny, he claims the success of Fascism was helped by the general human need to belong, to join a group, to fit in with the crowd. See Milgram’s electric shock experiment on the power of obedience & authority, which was designed and carried out to test the claims of many Nazi soldiers who said they were simply “following orders.”
Psychopaths, however, feel no such need to belong or to “follow orders”, which is probably why psychopathy is associated with independence and defiance to authority. Steve Hodel, suspecting his father George Hodel of being the Black Dahlia Avenger (aka a murderer), said, “[his father] was a loner, not a joiner.”
Typically, not joining in with society is a bad thing, as it means disobeying laws or rejecting social norms. But what about not joining in a lynch mob? Or a pogrom? What about a scientist who refuses to join in with accepting the currently popular theory and instead explores something else? Non-conformity (differentiated from anti-conformity) is a trait closely linked with psychopathy.
Buddhism, Jedi, & Darth Vader: I have always associated Jedi Knights with Buddhist monks. Both groups are celibate and ascetic, but even more germane to this topic, they both seek mastery over their emotions. Nirvana literally means ‘blown-out’ referring to a release from suffering and the cycle of rebirth – a state of detachment from one’s ego. This is roughly equivalent to the Light side – freedom from suffering and emotion – as opposed to the dark side, in which one becomes too attached to the world and suffers for it. When confronted by Anakin’s fears, Yoda counsels him to “train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose,” which in a sense is advocating for the adoption of certain psychopathic tendencies.
Alas, Anakin ultimately fails to follow Yoda's advice. He is unable to turn his empathy off with regards to his wife, and it ultimately consumes him and turns him to the dark side.
But what if he had been a psychopath, or at least possessed some psychopathic tendencies? What if he had managed to master his empathy, to free himself of affective empathy and instead rely on cognitive empathy?
Anakin might not have fallen to the dark side. So Mace Windu would have slain the emperor. And the Jedi would not have fallen. And the Death Star would never have been used. The Republic – and the admittedly fragile peace it maintained – would have continued.
The story here in Too Like the Lightning & The Seven Surrender is at least partially an exploration of this idea of the GOOD psychopath. Is it possible? How? Why? Under what circumstances?
In Mycroft’s case, he receives a unique education that helps him create an intellectual conception of good that, combined with his psychopathy, allows him to undertake some horrific deeds that are ultimately for the benefit of society. I’d also argue that his swift change from serial killer to servicer was only possible because of the cold rationality of his psychopathic mind. You just don’t see such fluidity of personality from people with normal pathologies.
Combine such a narrator with the themes of war and divinity, and you have yourself a pretty interesting book. I will say that it’s a bit ambitious and unfocused at times. In particular, I felt both books spent far too much ink on gender ideas, which by comparison felt rather trivial and anachronistic (in the sense that gender explorations of this particular type – with linguistic & social rather than technological foundations – seem to me like a fad or at least only the first paltry step in a much greater redefinition of humanity) and really only distracted from more interesting & timeless ideas.
Still, the Seven Surrenders was a solid book, which for the most part succeeds at the two most fundamental criteria I apply to a book: Is it FUN to read? Yes. Lots and lots of suspense and mysteries to keep you turning the pages. And is the book INTERESTING to read? Yes, as the above discussions reveal. I look forward to more work by this author.
September 2, 2022
Like the excitingly eccentric introductory title, Too Like the Lightning before it: unique, ambitious and thoroughly fascinating, with its various involving topics, and cleverly suspect narrative form to keep things compelling and leniently open-ended.
Terra Ignota continues to be a wholly engrossing and enjoyable read/listen, and I'm keenly looking forward to continuing with such an exceptional and audacious series.
---
Highlighting also this thought from the reading updates:
"The one thing still keeping me from trusting this completely is the very issue of gendered speech: the narrative regards several nationalities/languages, all similarly gender structured, but takes no note of languages already without such trait. Yet, as is usual, talks of the history of gendered speech as if being an all encompassing universal norm, something which the human species en masse would need to unlearn."
Terra Ignota continues to be a wholly engrossing and enjoyable read/listen, and I'm keenly looking forward to continuing with such an exceptional and audacious series.
---
Highlighting also this thought from the reading updates:
"The one thing still keeping me from trusting this completely is the very issue of gendered speech: the narrative regards several nationalities/languages, all similarly gender structured, but takes no note of languages already without such trait. Yet, as is usual, talks of the history of gendered speech as if being an all encompassing universal norm, something which the human species en masse would need to unlearn."
August 28, 2021
Seven Surrenders is sort of the other half to Too Like the Lightning, finishing the set-up for the second half of the series and tying up some loose ends from the first book while opening up much larger possibilities. If I had to choose one phrase to describe this series, it would be “over the top.” The narrative style, the number of plot twists, not shying away from being provocative when it comes to gender or religion, nothing is done by halves and everything is dialled up to 11.
Since a lot of Seven Surrenders feels like the calm before the storm before the bad thing you know is going to happen finally happens and since there is much more of jumping around the Hives than there is of Mycroft, I didn’t like it quite as much as Too Like the Lightning, but it was still one hell of a wild ride. Once again, the goodreads progress updates involved a lot of incoherent swearing, and once again, I needed a while to process the ending.
Enjoyment: 4.5/5
Execution: 4.5/5
More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.
Since a lot of Seven Surrenders feels like the calm before the storm before the bad thing you know is going to happen finally happens and since there is much more of jumping around the Hives than there is of Mycroft, I didn’t like it quite as much as Too Like the Lightning, but it was still one hell of a wild ride. Once again, the goodreads progress updates involved a lot of incoherent swearing, and once again, I needed a while to process the ending.
Enjoyment: 4.5/5
Execution: 4.5/5
More reviews on my blog, To Other Worlds.
August 14, 2017
This world is a utopia, not perfect, not finished, but still a utopia compared to every other era humanity has seen.
I procrastinated on this review by writing other reviews for books I’d read afterwards, purely because I don’t know how to marshal my thoughts together. As with Too Like the Lightning, I am baffled as to how to talk about this series without writing a several thousands-word-long essay. Like its predecessor, it's gloriously ambitious and messy and complicated and thoughtful and bizarre, albeit with a bit more plot/events this time.
Now that we’re into a second book, my test was whether Ada Palmer would be able to back up her sociological/anthropological/psychological ruminations with a real plot. And she does, for the most part: some shit goes down in this book that made me literally gasp out loud and my jaw physically dropped on the subway. It’s things that I didn’t expect to happen, at all, and which genuinely surprised me.
And there’s still so much to dissect! The reason I chose the quote above is because the line between utopia/dystopia is a very fine one, and it’s difficult to define the world of Terra Ignota. I think Yoon Ha Lee described it as a utopia that doesn’t know it’s a dystopia — and I do like that this shows you don’t have to have Hunger Games-style child murder competitions in order to be a dystopia — yet I would still rather describe this as a real honest-to-god utopia, but with fractures below the surface, ones which might hold or which might rip right open. And I think that jives with Palmer’s own view on it, courtesy this interview:
I wanted to depict that—a future that is difficult. Wow, I can have a 20-hour work week, a 150-year lifespan, I can live anywhere on Earth I want to, and still see all of my friends whenever I want, and there's been 300 years of world peace. And yet there's censorship, and people are still incompetent about gender and [some] race relations, and some things that are incredibly precious to us, like religious freedom, are gone. That isn't an easy utopia. That is also not a dystopia.
I wanted to push the reader and ask—if that were the future your efforts built, would you feel your efforts had paid off?
In the first book, Palmer introduced us all to her futuristic society and laid out all the pieces… and now, she’s flipping the table and blowing it all up in the shadow of war. You’re watching the house of cards come tumbling down, all its warts exposed.
There’s some desperate over-use of Explanatory Monologues (ugh, that whole Sister Heloise bit), but the questions raised in them are still so important: big philosophical ideas about war, complaceny, balance, and human strife being the driving motivator behind so much of our accomplishments. And I think I agree with a lot of it. Because if you become a post-scarcity utopia, then where do you go from there? How does mankind strive for the next achievement? How do you take risks if your basic lifestyle is so comfortable?
I’ve been talking about the Terra Ignota series a lot since reading the first book a month ago. Like, a lot. So as with the first one, it may be flawed but it’s still so thought-provoking, and I love that sci fi can be like this now, that it can try tackling these questions in a serious way.
Some other random thoughts:
• My favourite characters are, hands down, Papadelias and The Major — which is so predictable, because of course I would love the dogged Inspector Javert-type and the gruff war veteran. I also love Bridger, that sweet precious summer child.
• I’m still so goddamn charmed by the narration style. Trading off narrative duties and different punctuation for different languages, so you get a sense of this code-switching polyglot mindset, a fluidity in language so everything isn’t quite so Anglo-centric.
• Gender: I saw that a few readers were livid in the first book about Mycroft purposefully misgendering characters without those characters’ input, but the thing is, we’re supposed to know that he’s wrong to do so. Palmer has been very open about the fact that we should question Mycroft as a narrator, and not take his word as gospel. That’s the whole point. So like, the fact that I’m discomfited by him calling a hermaphroditic character “it” is actually exactly purposeful and I think we should be questioning his decision.
• Sexuality: The mingling of sex & politics still drives me, personally, batty. I think it was Jo Walton who described this series as being about extraordinary people doing extraordinary things, but the way it all circles back to the sexytimes salon it makes me despise every single world leader in this world, for being such hapless slaves to their sexual appetites. And once again, I do believe that it’s all a purposeful choice on the author’s part (look at these brilliant people, all undone by sexuality because we ignored dealing with it, we moved on too quickly before society could integrate it healthily), but a lot of the scenes in the salon still left me irritated because it felt gratuitous, unnecessary, over-the-top. And mostly because it paints a picture of us as weak, inherently ready to be steered and completely manipulated due to our baser urges, but a) I would like to think we have better self-control than that, and b) where do asexual & demisexual people belong in this, then? They’d be like goddamn superheroes for being able to resist this temptation while everyone else trots to Madame d’Arouet’s drum.
• I still love the Hives. I still think that non-geographical ‘strats’ (rather than nations) are, honestly, the way to go. The European Union, Humanists, Masons, Utopians, Cousins, Mitsubishi-Greenpeace, and Gordians — the other good thing about them is that, unlike the shallow factions of e.g. Divergent, these strats reflect the way you look at the world. Not just which personality traits you value, but what avenues of research you endorse. What sort of political system. Which language. Where you think the human race should focus its efforts and development (the Utopians are terraforming Mars, and the Gordians are working on transhumanism). And since you can change your citizenship at the drop of a hat, it’s all about self-determination, and choosing the exact place where you belong.
• Again, as with its predecessor, the plotting gets a little loose and wild and sloppy — at times I found my head spinning trying to remember what all the different loyalties and betrayals and triple-crosses were supposed to be — but I forgive it once more due to its staggering ambition.
===
Anyway. In conclusion: Too Like the Lightning and Seven Surrenders are depicted as part one & part two of a single narrative, and they definitely do feel like one single massive book — I didn’t feel ‘complete’ until I’d finished the second one. And then what a corker of an ending!
I can’t recommend these books to absolutely everyone because they require a lot from you; it’s not a fast fun frothy read, but rather a meandering and philosophical one. I think it might appeal to a certain type of reader and, even then, a particular mood for that reader. If someone’s looking for more thoughtful, experimental sci fi and loves worldbuilding and questions of ‘what is the ideal society’, point them in the direction of this series. I’m eagerly awaiting the next book (not out until December, sob).
I tried to avoid this review turning into an essay, but then it happened anyway.
March 21, 2017
So, I loved Too Like the Lightning. LOVED it. As in, literally counted down the days until Seven Surrenders came out. And then it did...and I read it. This book might be one of the biggest disappointments of my year.
tl;dr: Lots of what made TLtL so good is here. The complexity, the philosophy, Mycroft Canner. Most crucially, SS has the same extrapolation (that feels like unmasking) of current cultural and political trends. Ada Palmer is undeniably brilliant. But nothing new is added in terms of worldbuilding, the characters all go frankly insane, and without any grounding, the plot sinks into its own soapiness.
tl;dr: Lots of what made TLtL so good is here. The complexity, the philosophy, Mycroft Canner. Most crucially, SS has the same extrapolation (that feels like unmasking) of current cultural and political trends. Ada Palmer is undeniably brilliant. But nothing new is added in terms of worldbuilding, the characters all go frankly insane, and without any grounding, the plot sinks into its own soapiness.
September 3, 2023
7 Redditions est à l’image du tome 1 dans ses thèmes et clôt pas mal d’intrigues.
Moi, j’arrête les frais pour les raisons suivantes :
La narration : On est sur une narration première personne sauf qu’Ada veut en faire trop mais n'arrive plus à raconter correctement son histoire. Le narrateur raconte des évènements auxquels il n’a pas assisté, parle au lecteur, parle à lui-même (dans un témoignage écrit).
Les gadgets littéraires : Ada aime les gadgets.
- La ponctuation tirée de l’espagnol par moment (aucun sens)
- La présentation sous forme théâtrale (catastrophique pour relater l’action)
- Les f à la place des s par moment ( ???)
- Le non-genre (et oui) car l’autrice revient sans cesse dessus. Même dans des dialogues où le non-genre devrait être la norme, on voit des termes tels que prince/duc/épouse. Le narrateur s’embrouille, se traite lui-même de bigot/miso mais le résultat est le même.
- Le name dropping infernal (on a compris, elle a un doctorat)
L’intrigue : Décalage entre le ton très pédant et une intrigue très bête et bourrée d’incohérences. On est clairement dans le soap opera. L’autrice le reconnaît mais ça ne l’excuse pas. Surtout quand je vois le temps perdu sur des répétitions de tirades sur Dieu/Le Genre/La Guerre.
Les personnages : Pas d’attachement. Y’en a trop et je serai incapable de les décrire à part qu’ils sont fan de cosplay.
Moi, j’arrête les frais pour les raisons suivantes :
La narration : On est sur une narration première personne sauf qu’Ada veut en faire trop mais n'arrive plus à raconter correctement son histoire. Le narrateur raconte des évènements auxquels il n’a pas assisté, parle au lecteur, parle à lui-même (dans un témoignage écrit).
Les gadgets littéraires : Ada aime les gadgets.
- La ponctuation tirée de l’espagnol par moment (aucun sens)
- La présentation sous forme théâtrale (catastrophique pour relater l’action)
- Les f à la place des s par moment ( ???)
- Le non-genre (et oui) car l’autrice revient sans cesse dessus. Même dans des dialogues où le non-genre devrait être la norme, on voit des termes tels que prince/duc/épouse. Le narrateur s’embrouille, se traite lui-même de bigot/miso mais le résultat est le même.
- Le name dropping infernal (on a compris, elle a un doctorat)
L’intrigue : Décalage entre le ton très pédant et une intrigue très bête et bourrée d’incohérences. On est clairement dans le soap opera. L’autrice le reconnaît mais ça ne l’excuse pas. Surtout quand je vois le temps perdu sur des répétitions de tirades sur Dieu/Le Genre/La Guerre.
Les personnages : Pas d’attachement. Y’en a trop et je serai incapable de les décrire à part qu’ils sont fan de cosplay.
October 24, 2019
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93 points, 4 ¾ stars
Quote:
Review:
I hated reading the first book, Too Like the Lightning, so much. But after that ending there was no way in hell I could get away with not reading book two. And let me tell you, reader...
I lost my fucking mind reading this.
Don't believe me? Look at my status updates on Goodreads. If that doesn't sell you to this book, I don't know what will!
Book one was a slog. Seven Surrenders I couldn't put down. Well that's not exactly true. I kept putting it down to scream out "what the fuck" and "OH NO SHE DIDN'T". Seven Surrenders was just a wild, inescapable ride. The twists! The turns! The revelations! The WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENEDs.
It is hard to talk about this book, because so much happens during it. We start the book immediately after the events of book one. Shortly after that, everything you learned from book one has changed already, and will keep changing through the course of the book. Until the end which is almost in an entirely different universe than the start, for how much has changed. It is a battle to keep up with everything that changes and everything that happens and OH MY GOD WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!
Mycroft Canner is the world's most unreliable narrator. But that is part of what makes the story so good. He presents the story from his future self talking about his past self, and you have to learn what other people learn as they learn it, NOT as Mycroft learns it. Which means you get fooled. Again and again. And again. And just when you think he can't fool you again, he manages to do it. Again. Mycroft Canner, you asshole.
Lastly, the end. I honestly don't even know what to make of it. Not without reading the next book. In fact there were many scenes throughout the book where I just had to set it down to process what I had just read that it was remarkable. That ending, though... I just don't even know. I don't know what to feel. I don't know what I know. I feel so lost. I don't know anything.
93 points, 4 ¾ stars
Quote:
"I wrote the list but didn't think to pull a stunt like the theft. I wish I did know who it was. I'd congratulate them on a plot well laid, then deck them."
Review:
I hated reading the first book, Too Like the Lightning, so much. But after that ending there was no way in hell I could get away with not reading book two. And let me tell you, reader...
I lost my fucking mind reading this.
Don't believe me? Look at my status updates on Goodreads. If that doesn't sell you to this book, I don't know what will!
Book one was a slog. Seven Surrenders I couldn't put down. Well that's not exactly true. I kept putting it down to scream out "what the fuck" and "OH NO SHE DIDN'T". Seven Surrenders was just a wild, inescapable ride. The twists! The turns! The revelations! The WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENEDs.
It is hard to talk about this book, because so much happens during it. We start the book immediately after the events of book one. Shortly after that, everything you learned from book one has changed already, and will keep changing through the course of the book. Until the end which is almost in an entirely different universe than the start, for how much has changed. It is a battle to keep up with everything that changes and everything that happens and OH MY GOD WHAT JUST HAPPENED?!
Mycroft Canner is the world's most unreliable narrator. But that is part of what makes the story so good. He presents the story from his future self talking about his past self, and you have to learn what other people learn as they learn it, NOT as Mycroft learns it. Which means you get fooled. Again and again. And again. And just when you think he can't fool you again, he manages to do it. Again. Mycroft Canner, you asshole.
Lastly, the end. I honestly don't even know what to make of it. Not without reading the next book. In fact there were many scenes throughout the book where I just had to set it down to process what I had just read that it was remarkable. That ending, though... I just don't even know. I don't know what to feel. I don't know what I know. I feel so lost. I don't know anything.
January 23, 2020
This is such an accomplished continuation of the first book, Too Like the Lightning. I’m deeply in awe of Palmer’s way of constructing a narrative unlike anything I’ve ever written. In 2454, Mycroft, the self-proclaimed unreliable storyteller, writes to what he imagines are contemporaries, or perhaps future people, who are interested in the last days leading up to the first war in 300 years. His own role in it is of course at the center of this wildly volumptuous tale full of pathos and melodrama. The geopolitical scene is so vastly different from anything we’re used to here 400 years earlier, even the humans feel very alien. Reading it I can’t help feeling I’m a spectator to a grand play unfolding at the world’s largest theater, and I’m just along for the ride. Palmer borrows well known themes, names and allegories left and right without shame and rearranges them in her own imagined future, and it’s highly entertaining and very addictive.
April 22, 2017
Again 3.5 stars.
This is really Too Like the Lightning, continued, as it picks up right after TLtL ends, no time wasted. (Most of) the setups are finally paying off. Stuff is going down. Mayhem! Mayhem! So it's worth reading, even if only to learn what came out of all this worldbuilding.
One interesting thing is that the book very much follows in the tradition of 19th century novel - think Dumas (father), think Hugo. There is a lot of similar sensibility (think steady, reasonable people who burst into sobs at any opportunity). There is also much more focus on the world itself than on any particular character. I'm... not actually sure I enjoy that too much, although I appreciate the effort.
There is a lot of fun stuff (again, the politics; some of the post-humanism, too). Overall though, I have to say that while I find the plot engaging (for the most part) - I burned through the book in under two days - I disagree with the worldviews presented in this narrative in so many ways. Here, the gender stuff gets into truly terrible territories, with characters explicitly equating "feminine" with "gentle, caring, nurturing" and "masculine" with "achieving". So the narrator suddenly refers to one of the characters as "she", although previously they were a "he", because at this point they are "gentle and frail" (or sth). There is a character who is referred to as "it", because... ugh. It's not like the bloody default pronoun in this world isn't "they". There is challenging the reader, and then there is this.
Sex (as in intercourse).
Metaphysics / religion. Oddly enough (for me), I just didn't really care or I was annoyed.
What else? Well, there is the big behind-the-scenes
Minor continuity quibbles:
I'm cautiously curious what happens next, but I'm not sure I will pick up the next book on release. Maybe sometime later, though.
This is really Too Like the Lightning, continued, as it picks up right after TLtL ends, no time wasted. (Most of) the setups are finally paying off. Stuff is going down. Mayhem! Mayhem! So it's worth reading, even if only to learn what came out of all this worldbuilding.
One interesting thing is that the book very much follows in the tradition of 19th century novel - think Dumas (father), think Hugo. There is a lot of similar sensibility (think steady, reasonable people who burst into sobs at any opportunity). There is also much more focus on the world itself than on any particular character. I'm... not actually sure I enjoy that too much, although I appreciate the effort.
There is a lot of fun stuff (again, the politics; some of the post-humanism, too). Overall though, I have to say that while I find the plot engaging (for the most part) - I burned through the book in under two days - I disagree with the worldviews presented in this narrative in so many ways. Here, the gender stuff gets into truly terrible territories, with characters explicitly equating "feminine" with "gentle, caring, nurturing" and "masculine" with "achieving". So the narrator suddenly refers to one of the characters as "she", although previously they were a "he", because at this point they are "gentle and frail" (or sth). There is a character who is referred to as "it", because... ugh. It's not like the bloody default pronoun in this world isn't "they". There is challenging the reader, and then there is this.
Sex (as in intercourse).
Metaphysics / religion. Oddly enough (for me), I just didn't really care or I was annoyed.
What else? Well, there is the big behind-the-scenes
Minor continuity quibbles:
I'm cautiously curious what happens next, but I'm not sure I will pick up the next book on release. Maybe sometime later, though.
September 28, 2022
This is the second volume of Terra Ingota series, but more correctly it should be viewed as the second part of the first volume, for the formal first volume, Too Like the Lightning, ends up not even with a cliffhanger but just in the middle of the story. Recently, in September Hugo & Nebula Awards: Best Novels group read the first volume as its monthly read and because I’ve just recently finished re-reading it, I decided to go on with this book.
The story starts where the previous book ended and a great number of characters and their interactions once again make it hard to follow. However, we, readers, get answers to a lot of questions, from what were the reasons for a heinous crime committed by the narrator of both books, Mycroft Canner, to how exactly victims of murders by mass transport system were chosen. There is much more mass action in this book, for a lot of secrets are made public and after three centuries of peace, the world once again may face war.
From what I see, this is a love-or-hate type of SF series, I for one like it very much, for it can use phrases like For three centuries we had lived out our rose-tinted daydream, convinced that we were peaceful creatures, good at heart, like Locke or Jean-Jacques’s Noble Savages; now we woke to find ourselves still brutish humans in the thrall of Hobbes. but a lot of readers are turned off by its Baroque ornate style, the unreliability of the narrator and fluid gender attribution among other things.
The story starts where the previous book ended and a great number of characters and their interactions once again make it hard to follow. However, we, readers, get answers to a lot of questions, from what were the reasons for a heinous crime committed by the narrator of both books, Mycroft Canner, to how exactly victims of murders by mass transport system were chosen. There is much more mass action in this book, for a lot of secrets are made public and after three centuries of peace, the world once again may face war.
From what I see, this is a love-or-hate type of SF series, I for one like it very much, for it can use phrases like For three centuries we had lived out our rose-tinted daydream, convinced that we were peaceful creatures, good at heart, like Locke or Jean-Jacques’s Noble Savages; now we woke to find ourselves still brutish humans in the thrall of Hobbes. but a lot of readers are turned off by its Baroque ornate style, the unreliability of the narrator and fluid gender attribution among other things.
February 24, 2020
I've taken a day to think about this since finishing it and I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.
This is probably in part due to the fact that I listened to this part rather than eye-reading it like the first one. Listening made it a lot harder to follow all the different moving parts in this and to pick up on all the references Palmer has woven into it.
I remain extremely intrigued by her worldbuilding and the ways in which the future politics and moral and ethical questions this book deals with resonate with contemporary questions.
I also still like Mycroft, a truly excellent unreliable narrator. Though
However, I also feel like I might appreciate this more once I've read the further parts of this series.
This is a 3.5-star read rounded up, but with the caveat that I'm not sure how much listening to it inflects this.
This is probably in part due to the fact that I listened to this part rather than eye-reading it like the first one. Listening made it a lot harder to follow all the different moving parts in this and to pick up on all the references Palmer has woven into it.
I remain extremely intrigued by her worldbuilding and the ways in which the future politics and moral and ethical questions this book deals with resonate with contemporary questions.
I also still like Mycroft, a truly excellent unreliable narrator. Though
However, I also feel like I might appreciate this more once I've read the further parts of this series.
This is a 3.5-star read rounded up, but with the caveat that I'm not sure how much listening to it inflects this.
May 1, 2016
Genius.
Too Like the Lightning began a story brilliantly, audaciously, full of subtle complication—and this is that book's ending. (Though the story, I think, is far from over.)
Too Like the Lightning began a story brilliantly, audaciously, full of subtle complication—and this is that book's ending. (Though the story, I think, is far from over.)
November 19, 2020
For some reason I thought this book semed way shorter than the first one, but I’m realizing now it’s just that I read Too Like the Lightning in hardcover, so it seemed thicker and more imposing. That being said, Seven Surrenders was less exhausting and easier to digest than the first book. At first I thought that was because I was just used to Ada Palmer’s writing, but now I think it’s also because this book is more focused. Whereas the first book educated us about this future world, Seven Surrenders is much more invested in unravelling both the political plot at the heart of this book as well as the existential and epistemological questions Palmer cloaks in this science fiction story.
This book picks up where the last one left off (so spoilers for the first book, but not for this one). Mycroft Canner, convicted murderer in a world of peace, must protect Bridger, a child with god-like abilities, from those who would corrupt or manipulate them. Meanwhile, we learn more about a conspiracy at the highest level—a conspiracy to murder just enough people every year, basically using statistical analysis to determine who to murder to keep the world’s powers balanced and humanity at peace. At the centre of this story? Mycroft’s fervent belief that J.E.D.D. Mason is another universe’s god made flesh, and that they and Bridger together can avert a war brewing despite anyone’s best efforts to the contrary.
What strikes me immediately about Palmer’s writing is how she brings her Renaissance historian perspective to writing the future. I commented on this in my review of the first book, but let’s talk about it again. This book has shadows of Umberto Eco. Its scenes are mostly intense dialogues between two or more characters, dialogues that verge upon philosophy and shade into the deepest questions of the human condition. Seven Surrenders asks us to consider what qualities make good leaders, how gender roles and ideas influence our behaviour, and how our religious and spiritual beliefs shape our ability to conceive of the world. Although set in the future, the language and intrigue would equally belong to the seventeenth century (something one character lampshades after the climax of the story). This is, of course, the purpose of science fiction in general (to explore the human condition and hypotheticals thereof), but Palmer’s use of Renaissance and Enlightenment motifs creates an interesting, compelling style to the entire piece. It’s challenging and not something I would like to read all the time, but I appreciate having my mind challenged in this way.
The gender stuff, of course, really jumped out at me. I read and reviewed Too Like the Lightning at the same time that I was questioning my own gender (and eventually landed on woman, hi!). So of course I’m interested in how science fiction books reimagine gender. In this 25th century, Palmer imagines a world that has pursued what we might call gender abolition. It’s not that sex is gone, but no one is supposed to care about anyone else’s gender—everyone is supposed to use they/them pronouns. This sounds liberating, but honestly as a trans person it kinda sounds like just a different kind of hell. Having fought so hard to figure out (and now assert) my true gender, the idea of erasing/ignoring that identity in a quest to erase gender roles and stereotypes doesn’t appeal to me. Gender abolition’s goals are noble but conflate the symptoms with the disease: gender as a social construct is not a problem, but the ways we police gender are. So I appreciate that Palmer depicts some of the problems with this approach to dealing with gender stereotyps. A kind of prohibitionism of gender is apt to backfire because it creates the opportunity for a “gender-aware underground,” which in this case becomes the framework for allowing an egotistical megalomaniac to corrupt and manipulate the major leaders of this world.
One of the subplots in Seven Surrenders eventually coalesces around the Cousins, a Hive (think … philosophical movement turned into club) that focuses on doing good for others. Without getting into spoilers, let’s just say that the subplot hinges on the idea that the Cousins embody the feminine in our society, but because this future society has worked to eradicate stereotypical gender roles, they’ve also eradicated the language that allows people to express this idea. As a result, the Cousins are at an existential impasse, unable to fully grasp and articulate the true nature of their work.
This made me think of Eugenia Cheng’s thought-provoking x + y: A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender . Cheng also zeroes in on the difficulty of using terms like masculine and feminine while avoiding stereotypes. For that reason, she proposes new language—particularly the terms ingressive and congressive to describe behaviours, because we can more easily divorce these from our concepts of genders. This seems to be missing from Seven Surrenders—that is, I don’t agree with Palmer that it follows that, if we abolish gender, we also lose language to discuss traditionally gendered activities. As Cheng points out, it is going to be work, but I think we can shift our language to abolish gender stereotypes when talking about behaviour (I just don’t think that should or needs to then turn into an abolition of gender itself).
Finally, let’s consider the religious themes in this book. One of the big reveals of Too Like the Lightning was that Mycroft (and many other powerful people) think J.E.D.D. Mason is literally the incarnation of a god from another universe. Palmer further develops this idea here while still keeping the idea fairly postmodern: there is room to interpret this as metaphorical, to view J.E.D.D. Mason as a particularly delusional youth shaped by his bespoke upbringing. Consequently, I found this particular mystery unremarkable. I don’t really care whether or not J.E.D.D. Mason is a god. But the idea that J.E.D.D. and Bridger complement one another is far more intriguing. And here we come full circle, for Palmer uses this plot to explore Western ideas on the best way to govern a society, to avoid war, to have peace. Some characters believe a benevolent dictatorship by J.E.D.D. Mason, perhaps assisted by the miraculous powers of Bridger, would ensure the continuity of peace. Others believe it would lead to stagnation or more division. That is ultimately one of the most interesting mysteries in Seven Surrenders.
Will I read the next book? Yes but not right away—I need a break again. This is definitely not candy science fiction; there’s so much going on here. And just in general, the style and the heavy focus on so many named characters is exhausting. So take this as the high praise it is when I say that, despite such frustrations, I still enjoyed and found this book a valuable addition to my 2020 reads.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
This book picks up where the last one left off (so spoilers for the first book, but not for this one). Mycroft Canner, convicted murderer in a world of peace, must protect Bridger, a child with god-like abilities, from those who would corrupt or manipulate them. Meanwhile, we learn more about a conspiracy at the highest level—a conspiracy to murder just enough people every year, basically using statistical analysis to determine who to murder to keep the world’s powers balanced and humanity at peace. At the centre of this story? Mycroft’s fervent belief that J.E.D.D. Mason is another universe’s god made flesh, and that they and Bridger together can avert a war brewing despite anyone’s best efforts to the contrary.
What strikes me immediately about Palmer’s writing is how she brings her Renaissance historian perspective to writing the future. I commented on this in my review of the first book, but let’s talk about it again. This book has shadows of Umberto Eco. Its scenes are mostly intense dialogues between two or more characters, dialogues that verge upon philosophy and shade into the deepest questions of the human condition. Seven Surrenders asks us to consider what qualities make good leaders, how gender roles and ideas influence our behaviour, and how our religious and spiritual beliefs shape our ability to conceive of the world. Although set in the future, the language and intrigue would equally belong to the seventeenth century (something one character lampshades after the climax of the story). This is, of course, the purpose of science fiction in general (to explore the human condition and hypotheticals thereof), but Palmer’s use of Renaissance and Enlightenment motifs creates an interesting, compelling style to the entire piece. It’s challenging and not something I would like to read all the time, but I appreciate having my mind challenged in this way.
The gender stuff, of course, really jumped out at me. I read and reviewed Too Like the Lightning at the same time that I was questioning my own gender (and eventually landed on woman, hi!). So of course I’m interested in how science fiction books reimagine gender. In this 25th century, Palmer imagines a world that has pursued what we might call gender abolition. It’s not that sex is gone, but no one is supposed to care about anyone else’s gender—everyone is supposed to use they/them pronouns. This sounds liberating, but honestly as a trans person it kinda sounds like just a different kind of hell. Having fought so hard to figure out (and now assert) my true gender, the idea of erasing/ignoring that identity in a quest to erase gender roles and stereotypes doesn’t appeal to me. Gender abolition’s goals are noble but conflate the symptoms with the disease: gender as a social construct is not a problem, but the ways we police gender are. So I appreciate that Palmer depicts some of the problems with this approach to dealing with gender stereotyps. A kind of prohibitionism of gender is apt to backfire because it creates the opportunity for a “gender-aware underground,” which in this case becomes the framework for allowing an egotistical megalomaniac to corrupt and manipulate the major leaders of this world.
One of the subplots in Seven Surrenders eventually coalesces around the Cousins, a Hive (think … philosophical movement turned into club) that focuses on doing good for others. Without getting into spoilers, let’s just say that the subplot hinges on the idea that the Cousins embody the feminine in our society, but because this future society has worked to eradicate stereotypical gender roles, they’ve also eradicated the language that allows people to express this idea. As a result, the Cousins are at an existential impasse, unable to fully grasp and articulate the true nature of their work.
This made me think of Eugenia Cheng’s thought-provoking x + y: A Mathematician’s Manifesto for Rethinking Gender . Cheng also zeroes in on the difficulty of using terms like masculine and feminine while avoiding stereotypes. For that reason, she proposes new language—particularly the terms ingressive and congressive to describe behaviours, because we can more easily divorce these from our concepts of genders. This seems to be missing from Seven Surrenders—that is, I don’t agree with Palmer that it follows that, if we abolish gender, we also lose language to discuss traditionally gendered activities. As Cheng points out, it is going to be work, but I think we can shift our language to abolish gender stereotypes when talking about behaviour (I just don’t think that should or needs to then turn into an abolition of gender itself).
Finally, let’s consider the religious themes in this book. One of the big reveals of Too Like the Lightning was that Mycroft (and many other powerful people) think J.E.D.D. Mason is literally the incarnation of a god from another universe. Palmer further develops this idea here while still keeping the idea fairly postmodern: there is room to interpret this as metaphorical, to view J.E.D.D. Mason as a particularly delusional youth shaped by his bespoke upbringing. Consequently, I found this particular mystery unremarkable. I don’t really care whether or not J.E.D.D. Mason is a god. But the idea that J.E.D.D. and Bridger complement one another is far more intriguing. And here we come full circle, for Palmer uses this plot to explore Western ideas on the best way to govern a society, to avoid war, to have peace. Some characters believe a benevolent dictatorship by J.E.D.D. Mason, perhaps assisted by the miraculous powers of Bridger, would ensure the continuity of peace. Others believe it would lead to stagnation or more division. That is ultimately one of the most interesting mysteries in Seven Surrenders.
Will I read the next book? Yes but not right away—I need a break again. This is definitely not candy science fiction; there’s so much going on here. And just in general, the style and the heavy focus on so many named characters is exhausting. So take this as the high praise it is when I say that, despite such frustrations, I still enjoyed and found this book a valuable addition to my 2020 reads.
Originally posted on Kara.Reviews, where you can easily browse all my reviews and subscribe to my newsletter.
May 23, 2019
There was a point in this book where a character in disguise reveals their true identity and it was so hokey that an eyebrow arched clear off my face and the only thing keeping me from slamming the book shut and hurling it into the nearest Little Free Library next to the faded book-length business advice listicles and fax machine instruction manuals was the hope that one of the characters would become Fred Armisen in the SNL skit The Californians and say, as the camera zoomed in on his perplexed grimace, "what'reYOUdoingheeeerrre?!?!" It was, sadly, the most trying but certainly not the only moment when I wondered when the book would be over.
Let's focus on Mycroft, since I thought he was the character with the most promise in the first book.
So why wasn't *that* the novel? There's an interesting theory about the cyclical nature and intensity of war, plus a man driven to do horrible things for good reasons changes his mind. You've got an idea, an arc, change, maybe even progress, with lots of drama, betrayal, violence, love and lust in the mix. But all we get to read about is reformed Mycroft, which is basically a static Mycroft. His intentions, opinions, and capabilities haven't shifted much since page 1, which is kind of boring. Even our understanding of these things doesn't change much, we just get more and more context around his past, but not really about his present.
In place of this kind of development, we get a lot more of those interesting ideas and theories attempting to float some relatively stale characters and convoluted politics. As in the first book, that was enough to sustain me, but I'm not sure I can do a third and a fourth.
Let's focus on Mycroft, since I thought he was the character with the most promise in the first book.
So why wasn't *that* the novel? There's an interesting theory about the cyclical nature and intensity of war, plus a man driven to do horrible things for good reasons changes his mind. You've got an idea, an arc, change, maybe even progress, with lots of drama, betrayal, violence, love and lust in the mix. But all we get to read about is reformed Mycroft, which is basically a static Mycroft. His intentions, opinions, and capabilities haven't shifted much since page 1, which is kind of boring. Even our understanding of these things doesn't change much, we just get more and more context around his past, but not really about his present.
In place of this kind of development, we get a lot more of those interesting ideas and theories attempting to float some relatively stale characters and convoluted politics. As in the first book, that was enough to sustain me, but I'm not sure I can do a third and a fourth.
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