outofrange reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Keeps it up
4 stars
A satisfying and thought-provoking second installment.
Hardcover, 365 pages
English language
Published Nov. 27, 2017 by Tor Books.
4 stars
(48 reviews)
From 2017 John W. Campbell Award winner, Ada Palmer, the second book of Terra Ignota, a political science fiction epic of extraordinary audacity
In a future of near-instantaneous global travel, of abundant provision for the needs of all, a future in which no one living can remember an actual war…a long era of stability threatens to come to an abrupt end.
For known only to a few, the leaders of the great Hives, nations without fixed locations, have long conspired to keep the world stable, at the cost of just a little blood. A few secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction can ever dominate, and the balance holds. And yet the balance is beginning to give way.
Mycroft Canner, convict, sentenced to wander the globe in service to all, knows more about this conspiracy than he can ever admit. Carlyle Foster, counselor, sensayer, has secrets as well, and …
From 2017 John W. Campbell Award winner, Ada Palmer, the second book of Terra Ignota, a political science fiction epic of extraordinary audacity
In a future of near-instantaneous global travel, of abundant provision for the needs of all, a future in which no one living can remember an actual war…a long era of stability threatens to come to an abrupt end.
For known only to a few, the leaders of the great Hives, nations without fixed locations, have long conspired to keep the world stable, at the cost of just a little blood. A few secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction can ever dominate, and the balance holds. And yet the balance is beginning to give way.
Mycroft Canner, convict, sentenced to wander the globe in service to all, knows more about this conspiracy than he can ever admit. Carlyle Foster, counselor, sensayer, has secrets as well, and they burden Carlyle beyond description. And both Mycroft and Carlyle are privy to the greatest secret of all: Bridger, the child who can bring inanimate objects to life.
Shot through with astonishing invention, Ada Palmer's Seven Surrenders is the next movement in one of the great science fiction epics of our time.
Woile reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Review of 'Seven surrenders' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Fantastic book! Such an amazing creation form Ada Palmer. Makes me wanna live in this Utopia.
Woile reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Review of 'Seven Surrenders' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Fantastic book! Such an amazing creation form Ada Palmer. Makes me wanna live in this Utopia.
heavyboots reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Focuses down on the absolute most BORING parts from TLTL
1 star
TLTL was interesting in that it sort of explores the concept that "God" (or at the very least something capable of creating miracles) suddenly walks amongst us in a future, theoretically tamed world, where people are all part of various houses and affiliations that work together to keep the world operating on an even keel. THIS book, however, takes the most boring and irrelevant bits of that (IMHO) and runs for an entire freaking novel with them. It was supremely frustrating to come off of reading TLTL and have all the fascinating ideas and such that I had floating around in my head dumped into the ice water of a 350+ page exploration of how the entire system could be turned on its head by one woman playing sexual politics. Very disappointing!
anaulin reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Review of 'Seven surrenders' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Enno reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Review of 'Seven surrenders' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Would you destroy the world to create a better one? This book was great, with all of it's twists and turns, even though the wonderful world-building of the Utopia in the first book gets undone, and by the end of it, my sincere hope is that the third book will actually build something better.
settingshadow reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Review of 'Seven Surrenders' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I gulped this book down after finishing Too Like The Lightning. It honestly stood up to binge reading. I thought I had Palmer's number this time through -- and in some ways I did in that twists were less shocking than they'd been in the first book -- but this still managed to be a genuinely thrilling book with a lot to think about.
Here's my final warning: I was the first person in my group to finish Seven Surrenders. Friends don't let friends read Ada Palmer alone. This is the sort of book that you need a buddy to digest with.
loppear reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Review of 'Seven surrenders' on Goodreads
4 stars
Ambitious pair of novels, only a few loose elements, wild mystery chase through a glorious dense sea of 18C enlightenment ideals and underbelly and the classics, roman and sci-fi, in a consistently future-oriented questioning of belief and human/social capacity. This one will probably grow on me for a while.
Andy H. reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Review of 'Seven surrenders' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I don't like these books, but I find them interesting and unusual enough to want to finish them anyway. Here's a compromise rating, I guess.
Daniel Darabos reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Review of 'Seven Surrenders' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
[book:Too Like the Lightning|26114545] was brilliant, and Seven Surrenders continues on the same track. Still the two defining features for me are 1) there is a hundred times more plot here than in other books and 2) with all that plot there is still room for a narrator whose presence is continuously felt.
The plot is massive and involves a myriad characters, set in a strange world where factions and people stand for various philosophies and theologies. It is very stimulating reading, enjoyable as a giant puzzle and as a source of ideas to ponder long after closing the book.
Compared to the first book, we start off knowing more (of course) and the stakes are higher. We get more answers than questions this time, but digesting it all is still a challenge. As a character is praised in the book for never using the same trick twice, Ada Palmer …
[book:Too Like the Lightning|26114545] was brilliant, and Seven Surrenders continues on the same track. Still the two defining features for me are 1) there is a hundred times more plot here than in other books and 2) with all that plot there is still room for a narrator whose presence is continuously felt.
The plot is massive and involves a myriad characters, set in a strange world where factions and people stand for various philosophies and theologies. It is very stimulating reading, enjoyable as a giant puzzle and as a source of ideas to ponder long after closing the book.
Compared to the first book, we start off knowing more (of course) and the stakes are higher. We get more answers than questions this time, but digesting it all is still a challenge. As a character is praised in the book for never using the same trick twice, Ada Palmer avoided doing that in the first book. Here, though, a couple times we are present at a scene where a secret the reader already knows is exposed to characters. It is done graciously, of course, and each time we learn more about the characters and the secrets in the process. These are the only speed bumps where the plot does not move at its normal break-neck speed. Normally every page contains an unexpected revelation or twist.
How with the giant and rushing plot then does Ada Palmer find the time for such thoughtful narration?
You may, if you wish to aid us, pray as well, reader. The Hand that weaves Providence knows everything from creation to infinity, and takes account of the future when He plans the past; if prayer has any power to sway Fate, then even though, from your perspective, Carlyle was either saved or not saved long ago, it could still be your prayer, now, as you read, that swayed the Judge.
Beneath that grotesque shell he might be any kind of man, [...]. It hurts not knowing, but you feel this all the time, do you not, reader? Frustration’s itch as you boil with questions which I and my peers, distant or dead, cannot be made to answer.
A hush; as centuries are too rough a measure for the passing of an age, so seconds cannot track the tides of emotion which flowed across Caesar’s face, eroding away his masks of stone and iron and baring something human.
I had to interrupt reading another sci-fi book to read Seven Surrenders when it was released, so I have a baseline to compare against. All of that book feels like filler compared to the Terra Ignota books. Things happen, but the plot does not really move forward. If we still live in the same world after a scene, Ada Palmer would omit that scene.
This makes room for so many thoughts! I am so ill-educated about classical philosophers, that I cannot know to attribute the genius of a paragraph to them or to the author. They are all in this together for sure.
Classical philosophy as I have met it before often seemed too abstract. Today you can just go to work, buy food, eat it. Nothing prevents you from doing the same tomorrow, and nature ensures you do not need to think about infinity. So what does philosophy matter? These books answer that by driving toward a future where we do need to decide what we want for ourselves.
The dizzying moment in the first book is when Mycroft's crimes are revealed. We find it hard to even believe it, much less understand why he committed them. It feels like there can be no answer. And of course we get an answer in book two!
As emotionally striking the revelation of their crimes was, knowing the explanation is possibly even worse. If you accept the explanation, you are in a way also guilty of those crimes.
Yet the explanation is incomplete. We still do not know what happened to the Canner bash' or why the Mardis were exactly set in motion. Mycroft considers two people Gods, but still has more respect for Apollo Mojave and more affection for Saladin, two people we know barely anything about. With so many questions answered, does it matter whether some still remain? Maybe not. But after these two books I have learned to see conspiracy everywhere.
It will be a long wait until the next two books!
LuisVilla reviewed Seven Surrenders by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota, #2)
Review of 'Seven surrenders' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
If Too Like The Lightning frustrated you, steel yourself and read this anyway. The payoff on your investment will be huge. TLTL was often a slog, but this is not that - complex, yes, but also moves at an amazing pace, with the most satisfying ending of a second book in a trilogy(?) that I can remember. Well worth the read.
(I do recommend rereading TLTL before reading this - there are a lot of details in the first book that get tied in to the second book, so having it fresh in your head will enrich the reading experience.)
