Ada Palmer
Author of Too Like the Lightning
About the Author
Series
Works by Ada Palmer
Ex Urbe Ad Astra 1 copy
Associated Works
Shadow & Claw: The First Half of The Book of the New Sun (1980) — Introduction, some editions — 4,128 copies, 63 reviews
Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of The Book of the New Sun (1982) — Introduction, some editions — 2,709 copies, 32 reviews
The Routledge Handbook of the Stoic Tradition (Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy) (2016) — Contributor — 20 copies
Pythagorean knowledge from the ancient to the modern world : askesis, religion, science (2016) — Contributor — 7 copies
Lucretius Poet and Philosopher: Background and Fortunes of De Rerum Natura (Trends in Classics - Supplementary Volumes,… (2020) — Contributor — 3 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1981-06-09
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Washington, DC, USA
- Places of residence
- Annapolis, Maryland, USA
Chicago, Illinois, USA - Education
- Bryn Mawr College
Harvard University (PhD, 2009) - Occupations
- Professor of History (University of Chicago)
- Agent
- Amy Boggs
Members
Reviews
Seven Surrenders: Book 2 of Terra Ignota (Terra… by Ada Palmer
6/10
I had forgotten until I finished it that this book is the first in a series, so I keep expecting some answers but only got more questions.
The world-building is dense, maddeningly and somewhat unnecessarily so, I think. I would have appreciated some infodumps (which I normally don’t like)—there was just so much to absorb without much explanation. Even trying to figure things out from context was challenging, especially at first.
I get that the writing style is meant to be like 18th century literature but I found it wearying. I also didn’t enjoy the scenes in Madame’s brothel and the juxtaposition of political plotting with sexual activity. It felt contrived and I found it hard to believe that the characters, based on what we knew of them so far, would behave as described.
At this point, I find the many threads of the plot hard to follow and I keep asking myself if all that convoluted-ness is necessary. I don’t know if continuing the series will result in a big enough payoff for me. Other than Bridger, I don’t like any of the characters and find I din’t care about most of them. The characters to whom I did feel some connection turned out to be other than they seemed.… (more)
I had forgotten until I finished it that this book is the first in a series, so I keep expecting some answers but only got more questions.
The world-building is dense, maddeningly and somewhat unnecessarily so, I think. I would have appreciated some infodumps (which I normally don’t like)—there was just so much to absorb without much explanation. Even trying to figure things out from context was challenging, especially at first.
I get that the writing style is meant to be like 18th century literature but I found it wearying. I also didn’t enjoy the scenes in Madame’s brothel and the juxtaposition of political plotting with sexual activity. It felt contrived and I found it hard to believe that the characters, based on what we knew of them so far, would behave as described.
At this point, I find the many threads of the plot hard to follow and I keep asking myself if all that convoluted-ness is necessary. I don’t know if continuing the series will result in a big enough payoff for me. Other than Bridger, I don’t like any of the characters and find I din’t care about most of them. The characters to whom I did feel some connection turned out to be other than they seemed.… (more)
Despite all the reviews warning me of this, nothing prepared me for the utter confusion that greeted me page after page. Imagine, if you will, reading a book on say, Quantum Mechanics, where you are asked to understand some advanced concepts that are presented (a) out of logical order, (b) with symbols/equations that won't be defined for another 100 pages and (c) with language that often breaks the fourth wall and takes the occasional jaunt into Latin. That is what reading this book was like. And the QM analogy is appropriate in more ways than one because gender and sexuality are fluid in this world which means gendered pronouns are swapped out for generic pronouns adding yet another layer of obscurity and difficulty to the work. There is a dizzying array of characters, each with a complicated affiliation to various nation-state like entities called Hives and the same character is addressed using different names at different points depending upon the person speaking!!! All this effort to understand the world-building feels unjustified in the face of a reward that is a relatively standard trope in SF - trouble brewing in a seemingly Utopian world that has achieved its peace and prosperity by suppressing some of the very things that make us human. That said, I am willing to concede that I am not smart enough to appreciate the finer points of this novel.
Two stars for now just based on this reading experience but that might change in the future.… (more)
Two stars for now just based on this reading experience but that might change in the future.… (more)
And so the Terra Ignota saga draws majestically to a close. The ambition and complexity of this series is truly incredible. I've never read any other sci-fi quite so dense with historical and literary material. The plot, style, world-building, and characters are all distinctively erudite. Each book demands the reader's full attention to keep up at all, let alone get the most from it. I'm sure that I missed a great deal, but definitely benefited from some familiarity with [b:The Iliad|1371|The Iliad|Homer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1625333695l/1371._SX50_.jpg|3293141], [b:The Odyssey|1381|The Odyssey|Homer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390173285l/1381._SY75_.jpg|3356006], Hobbes's [b:Leviathan|91953|Leviathan|Thomas Hobbes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1326788684l/91953._SY75_.jpg|680963], and Rousseau's [b:The Social Contract|12651|The Social Contract|Jean-Jacques Rousseau|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1388197284l/12651._SY75_.jpg|702720]. Knowledge of French and Latin also helped. As with the previous books in the series, it took me at least fifty pages to adjust to the narrative style, remember the characters, and recall their basic allegiances. Once I did, the book became extremely compelling.
In the previous Terra Ignota books, war threatened. In [b:Perhaps the Stars|35424671|Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota, #4)|Ada Palmer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609718655l/35424671._SY75_.jpg|56800624], war breaks out; a war unlike any other I've read about. Ada Palmer asks how a utopian global society would conduct a world war while attempting to minimise casualties and damage. The ideological splits that precipitated it are real and complex, but none of the sides want to wholly destroy the others. Their means of harm reduction are suitably ingenious: non-lethal weapons that cause lasting fatigue ('tiring guns'), unilateral suspension of global communications and travel systems, and agreement that combatants and non-combatants must be visually distinguishable by uniforms, among other strategies. The 9th Anonymous has taken over chronicling duties and recounts the outset of world war from the city of Romanova. There are echoes of the pandemic in the bandwidth lags during video calls, fears of local plague outbreaks, and similarity of tiring gun symptoms to Long Covid.
I had the satisfaction of yelling, "Called it!" twice during the ensuing thrilling web of events.The first was ten chapters in, when Mycroft returned. Bridger's lasting power has cast him as Odysseus; the similarities of his account of being lost at sea to the Odyssey are immediately evident. This is the first example in the book of an unsettling yet fascinating concept: characters being forced (seemingly by Bridger) into literary narratives that subsume their identity and free will. Mycroft must play out the Odyssey; reborn Achilles must play out the Iliad (again) with Cornel MASON as Patroclus and Sniper as Paris; Madame abruptly dies off-page as a victim of 18th century drama plots. Despite these threads of irresistible narrative determinism, overall the war follows an unpredictable path as it fragments. I think this exchange is too oblique to constitute spoilers:
The narrator's and thus the reader's expectations of the war are repeatedly challenged and subverted. There are some spectacularly tense and exciting action sequences, as well as unexpected twists.The second event I correctly predicted was Sniper's return to kill Achilles in chapter 25, appropriately titled 'The Wrath of Achilles'. Of course, I predicted this because of the Iliad replay going on. Sniper's reappearance after a long mysterious absence was perfectly timed for dramatic effect and their subsequent role particularly memorable. Sniper manages to stand out in an enormous cast that, frankly, I struggle to keep track of. The range of honorifics do make this tricky - even the helpful dramatis personae at the beginning can only assist so much when titles and allegiances keep shifting, plus new people turn up. I kept up sufficiently to follow and enjoy the plot, without necessarily knowing who everyone referred to was.
Although for much of the book there is no global communications network, the narrators are so central to events that this does not meaningfully restrict their account. When Mycroft returns, they share narrative duties with the 9th Anonymous. I really enjoyed the conversational nature of these shared chapters and was genuinely chilled when it emerged the two were becoming one person. Godlike Bridger and Jehovah need Mycroft, so they gradually take over the body of 9th Anonymous. The final interview with Sniper before 9th Anonymous essentially dies so Mycroft can live is very poignant. The end of 9th Anonymous is prefigured by the creepy chapter when they are deliberately kept helpless and incapacitated in hospital by someone they thought was a friend. Giving their final chapter the title 'No-one' is a neat Odyssey reference.
A strong theme of the whole series is the importance of roles and titles over and above the individuals that hold them. While the godlike children need Mycroft preserved, this is because no-one else seems able to perform his particular role of translating between them and humanity. Emperor, King, Censor, and Anonymous roles are all passed along. The war disrupts both global political dynamics and changes the leaders representing prominent groups. Yet the value of individuals is certainly not discounted; Jehovah declares his hatred of death as it extinguishes unique souls. On a lighter note, why would anyone trust a person named Felix Faust? That's a comic book villain name if ever I heard one. Sure enough, he turns out to be untrustworthy.
This review is rambling as there is just SO MUCH going on in [b:Perhaps the Stars|35424671|Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota, #4)|Ada Palmer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609718655l/35424671._SY75_.jpg|56800624] and Terra Ignota as a whole. Palmer dissects themes and tropes of hard sci-fi such as the pursuit of immortality, space exploration, and first contact with aliens via Homer and 18th century philosophy. Other writers have attempted elements of this, e.g. [b:Ilium|3973|Ilium (Ilium, #1)|Dan Simmons|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390894862l/3973._SY75_.jpg|3185401], but this is by far the most ambitious and thorough synthesis of far future and literary past that I've read. The series is deeply concerned with humanity's past, present, and future. Questions given significant attention in this book include: should humanity perfect ourselves or explore the stars? Are there reasons not to do both? How can we govern ourselves to ensure social stability, individual choice, and universal comfort? What is important to preserve from the past? After a war, who judges what crimes were committed and how the guilty are to be punished? The narrative is full of striking comments like this:
Other favourite moments I'm tempted to quote include the Diary of a U-beast chapter told in code output, the speech on empire, 9th Anonymous moving the mountain, and the rise of Alexander. This is getting too long, though, so I will simply praise the quality of Palmer's writing instead. How to summarise my thoughts on Terra Ignota? I would describe it as sincerely grandiose, inaccessible, and demanding. While reading [b:Perhaps the Stars|35424671|Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota, #4)|Ada Palmer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609718655l/35424671._SY75_.jpg|56800624] I struggled to recall the many events of the prior three books from years ago and wondered if I should re-read them all. I can only imagine that reading the four books together as a single narrative would be utterly overwhelming, albeit probably glorious.
I'm not sure how widely to recommend Terra Ignota, as I do not think everyone would get on with it. I think if you can digest the first fifty to eighty pages, you'll be hooked. (Read a wikipedia summary of the Iliad and Odyssey first if you've never read either.) Then let the elaborate narrative style sweep you along, without dwelling on who every single character is and exactly what they've done. There were too many for me to keep track of, but this did not prevent me from greatly enjoying the profusion of ideas, allusions, debates, dilemmas, and dramas. I think this series would require utter obsession to fully appreciate its every nuance. I am not that reader, as I flit about in search of variety and novelty. Terra Ignota would reward exacting re-reads, as every line has significance. The one thing I feel this series lacks is visuals. It is rich in thoughts, feelings, philosophy, and incident, but descriptions of the characters and settings are layered in Homeric metaphor or intellectual details rather than being visually evocative. I do not intend this as a criticism, as it seems a function of stylistic priorities. Interesting, though, that I have a very visual imagination yet after circa 1,800 pages lack any mental images of Terra Ignota. Perhaps my mind was too preoccupied with the challenges of decoding the text to find space for visualisation. Nonetheless, this is undoubtedly a series that will linger in my mind and act as a catalytic link between other books in several genres. I wonder what Ada Palmer will write next.… (more)
In the previous Terra Ignota books, war threatened. In [b:Perhaps the Stars|35424671|Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota, #4)|Ada Palmer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609718655l/35424671._SY75_.jpg|56800624], war breaks out; a war unlike any other I've read about. Ada Palmer asks how a utopian global society would conduct a world war while attempting to minimise casualties and damage. The ideological splits that precipitated it are real and complex, but none of the sides want to wholly destroy the others. Their means of harm reduction are suitably ingenious: non-lethal weapons that cause lasting fatigue ('tiring guns'), unilateral suspension of global communications and travel systems, and agreement that combatants and non-combatants must be visually distinguishable by uniforms, among other strategies. The 9th Anonymous has taken over chronicling duties and recounts the outset of world war from the city of Romanova. There are echoes of the pandemic in the bandwidth lags during video calls, fears of local plague outbreaks, and similarity of tiring gun symptoms to Long Covid.
I had the satisfaction of yelling, "Called it!" twice during the ensuing thrilling web of events.
"Older and more immortal is the enemy we knew we would awaken with our war. Distance."
"Distance," I repeated, and felt an oceanic echo in the word, a new and crueler facet of Jehovah's unrelenting Peer. "It is your war, Kohaku? I thought it wasn't, that it was Jehovah's war instead, but here we are Mitsubishi battling Masons over land, just as you predicted."
"My war has come," the number-prophet answered, slowly. "So has Tai-kun's, Perry's, Danae's, Apollo's. Distance makes one war a hundred wars. They speciate, like sparrows breeding alone on every island until they no longer recognise each other's chirps. See these Cycladic freedom fighters? They wage a rebel's war for home and liberty; they would no more abandon their islands to escort you to distant Tai-kun than your Shearwaters would abandon their dream of Tai-kun's better world to guard the Cyclades."
A dry sob hurt. "Then was it all for nothing?" I had to ask. "Jehovah's Act, trying to make two sides worth dying for? Did it all fail?"
"No. This is a fractal war. The larger shapes still lend their structure to the whole, and larger powers, by forging their macro-peace, will forge the thousand micro-peaces, too." His smile was shadow. "And not everything has fractured."
The narrator's and thus the reader's expectations of the war are repeatedly challenged and subverted. There are some spectacularly tense and exciting action sequences, as well as unexpected twists.
Although for much of the book there is no global communications network, the narrators are so central to events that this does not meaningfully restrict their account. When Mycroft returns, they share narrative duties with the 9th Anonymous. I really enjoyed the conversational nature of these shared chapters and was genuinely chilled when it emerged the two were becoming one person. Godlike Bridger and Jehovah need Mycroft, so they gradually take over the body of 9th Anonymous. The final interview with Sniper before 9th Anonymous essentially dies so Mycroft can live is very poignant. The end of 9th Anonymous is prefigured by the creepy chapter when they are deliberately kept helpless and incapacitated in hospital by someone they thought was a friend. Giving their final chapter the title 'No-one' is a neat Odyssey reference.
A strong theme of the whole series is the importance of roles and titles over and above the individuals that hold them. While the godlike children need Mycroft preserved, this is because no-one else seems able to perform his particular role of translating between them and humanity. Emperor, King, Censor, and Anonymous roles are all passed along. The war disrupts both global political dynamics and changes the leaders representing prominent groups. Yet the value of individuals is certainly not discounted; Jehovah declares his hatred of death as it extinguishes unique souls. On a lighter note, why would anyone trust a person named Felix Faust? That's a comic book villain name if ever I heard one. Sure enough, he turns out to be untrustworthy.
This review is rambling as there is just SO MUCH going on in [b:Perhaps the Stars|35424671|Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota, #4)|Ada Palmer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609718655l/35424671._SY75_.jpg|56800624] and Terra Ignota as a whole. Palmer dissects themes and tropes of hard sci-fi such as the pursuit of immortality, space exploration, and first contact with aliens via Homer and 18th century philosophy. Other writers have attempted elements of this, e.g. [b:Ilium|3973|Ilium (Ilium, #1)|Dan Simmons|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1390894862l/3973._SY75_.jpg|3185401], but this is by far the most ambitious and thorough synthesis of far future and literary past that I've read. The series is deeply concerned with humanity's past, present, and future. Questions given significant attention in this book include: should humanity perfect ourselves or explore the stars? Are there reasons not to do both? How can we govern ourselves to ensure social stability, individual choice, and universal comfort? What is important to preserve from the past? After a war, who judges what crimes were committed and how the guilty are to be punished? The narrative is full of striking comments like this:
The trolley problem does not describe our reality. Physics is cruel in many, many ways, but not that way. Yet because we all debate it, normalise it, know it, we live psychologically in the trolley problem, expecting it to be the default ethics of our world. Yes, there are corollaries - deadly missions, quarantines - but if we had admitted our kinder reality, that Nature rarely burdens us with such a choice - Cinna? No, Martin! Martin! - might the Saneer-Weeksbooth founders, who saw they could save 50,000 lives by taking one, have asked themselves: Is there a better way to use this data than to kill? Did we poison our ethics with the trolley problem? Is it bad for us, our minds, our souls, to dive, even in thought experiment, into a universe so artificially unkind?
Other favourite moments I'm tempted to quote include the Diary of a U-beast chapter told in code output, the speech on empire, 9th Anonymous moving the mountain, and the rise of Alexander. This is getting too long, though, so I will simply praise the quality of Palmer's writing instead. How to summarise my thoughts on Terra Ignota? I would describe it as sincerely grandiose, inaccessible, and demanding. While reading [b:Perhaps the Stars|35424671|Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota, #4)|Ada Palmer|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1609718655l/35424671._SY75_.jpg|56800624] I struggled to recall the many events of the prior three books from years ago and wondered if I should re-read them all. I can only imagine that reading the four books together as a single narrative would be utterly overwhelming, albeit probably glorious.
I'm not sure how widely to recommend Terra Ignota, as I do not think everyone would get on with it. I think if you can digest the first fifty to eighty pages, you'll be hooked. (Read a wikipedia summary of the Iliad and Odyssey first if you've never read either.) Then let the elaborate narrative style sweep you along, without dwelling on who every single character is and exactly what they've done. There were too many for me to keep track of, but this did not prevent me from greatly enjoying the profusion of ideas, allusions, debates, dilemmas, and dramas. I think this series would require utter obsession to fully appreciate its every nuance. I am not that reader, as I flit about in search of variety and novelty. Terra Ignota would reward exacting re-reads, as every line has significance. The one thing I feel this series lacks is visuals. It is rich in thoughts, feelings, philosophy, and incident, but descriptions of the characters and settings are layered in Homeric metaphor or intellectual details rather than being visually evocative. I do not intend this as a criticism, as it seems a function of stylistic priorities. Interesting, though, that I have a very visual imagination yet after circa 1,800 pages lack any mental images of Terra Ignota. Perhaps my mind was too preoccupied with the challenges of decoding the text to find space for visualisation. Nonetheless, this is undoubtedly a series that will linger in my mind and act as a catalytic link between other books in several genres. I wonder what Ada Palmer will write next.… (more)
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