Seven Surrenders
Ratings26
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings26
Average rating4.2
"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"--
Featured Series
4 primary booksTerra Ignota is a 4-book series with 4 primary works first released in 2016 with contributions by Ada Palmer.
Reviews with the most likes.
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.
The first book took a while to sell me. It's hard to look past the obscure philisophy and history lessons. It's difficult to keep straight all the gender fluidity, which makes it hard to imagine in your head what people look like and what the scene looks like. All that said, once you get into it the story takes off and it is a lot of fun to try and figure out whats going on.
Multi-layered, frustrating, annoying, intelligent - brilliant!
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.
