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3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Have you been wondering if you should read this book? Have you heard just how polarizing it is, and wondered if it’s for you? Not to worry, this simple test below will help you make up your mind!
Please add a point against each bullet point if you have an appetite or tolerance for it. Add them up and compare to have your answer!
PROS OF TERRA IGNOTA
An elaborate, dense worldbuilding heavy on religion, history, and political sciences
Sci-fi disguised as 18th century treatise that aims to scandalize with both ideology and porn -- or vice versa
Unreliable and, frankly, pretty fucking disturbed narrator
Typesetting porn
G7 anime melodrama
Sorting system that makes you go sortinghatchats on big tech corporations
People kinkshaming each other for gender and religion
Deliberate authorial decisions meant to push you out of your zone of comfort
CONS OF TERRA IGNOTA
An elaborate, dense worldbuilding heavy on religion, history, and political sciences
Sci-fi disguised as 18th century treatise that aims to scandalize with both ideology and porn -- or vice versa
Unreliable and, frankly, pretty fucking disturbed narrator
Typesetting porn
G7 anime melodrama
Sorting system that makes you go sortinghatchats on big tech corporations
People kinkshaming each other for gender and religion
Deliberate authorial decisions meant to push you out of your zone of comfort
See what I mean? It’s a take it or leave it kind of a book. Objectively it’s an ambitious speculative fiction that was clearly written by someone very qualified to write it. Will you like it? Beats me. The chances of you ragequitting at any point or inhaling it are about equal, so pick your poison.
Did I like it?
Sure did :D
I have been forewarned about the unreliable narrator, and sufficiently intrigued by votes splitting on whether I would love or hate it. (For extra suspense, the votes were cast for opposite reaction than that of the voters.)
It’s that rare kind of a book that I enjoy without having any emotional investment in any characters, because it’s really good at something else. In this case -- at being a very thought-through speculative fiction that you unpeel layer by layer though multiple untrustworthy sources (the narrator, Mycroft, is the kind of person whose issues have issues) and an array of literary techniques. It is also really fucking good at scratching my IR itches -- referencing texts I’ve actually studied, but in a manner I think accessible to many, landing some cultural notes with stunning accuracy (oh how I loved the comment that Papadelias loved some historic figure so much he was “willing to forgive them for not being Greek”), and demonstrating every step of the way just how much THOUGHT went into it.
A caveat -- I feel the need to reiterate that I’m absolutely capable of enjoying books that can handwave such ambitious tasks in favour of simple entertainment (I am looking at Bags of Dicks in Space, the cheerful corporate fraudsters that they are), so this kind of deliberation and thought is not mandatory for me to enjoy a book. More often than not, I’ll easily put up with garbage WB for the sake of some sizzling character dynamics and entertainment factor, but it just feels so SATISFYING when a book rises to the challenge.
Another caveat -- lest you draw parallels with Three Body Problem and similar worldbuilding-heavy books. The reason for my having zero investment in characters is not because they are secondary, or cardboard -- they carry a lot of complexity (of psychoses) and diversity (of kinks) as well as competence amongst themselves. It’s more about what kind of narrative this is, not what kind of characters they are.
Further thoughts won TLTL ith SPOILERS.
Being forewarned about Mycroft’s innate bonkerness was one of the factors that established my early distancing from character’s emotional wellbeing. It didn’t stop me from being very interested in what was happening on the page, but as to who screwed over whom, I did not particularly care :DD It also didn’t make me change my opinions on characters with every reveal of what they were up to -- be it either Mycroft’s criminal track record, G7 host club gang bang or teenage mogul murderbash.
The gender issues. Bob the Expectations Builder was alert and awake when my friend bitterly complained that this book’s gender shenanigans betrayed her by not being Ann Leckie. Well. I confirm -- it is very much not Ann Leckie. I don’t mean to imply Ada Palmer is in any way less sensitive to the subject, but her authorial choice was to give voice to someone who is uh, depraved and deprived and also deliberately provokes the audience by invoking de Sade and similar in mushing together provocation by mushing together sex and sociopolitical philosophy and theology. The arbitrary gender assignations he makes to people confused me -- not to the degree of offending on principle, because see above, but for the really dubious fucking logic behind it. It was also originally hard to keep track of in between the intense worldbuilding details clicking together, so, thanks for being very unhelpful, Mycroft XD I guess what I’m saying is, it’s hard for me to get earnestly scandalized when I know that they are out to be scandalizing.
One thing that kept jumping out at me was how chamber the world felt. The premise is clear -- the invention of superfast cars that could travel around the globe in 4 hours or under, geographical distances lost meaning, eroding the concept of nations as we know them today. Cool. I’m on board with that. But also every power that be has a disgraced criminal Mycroft employed and in their confidences, constantly running errands for them with each other’s awareness, handing super confidential data and being blackmailed and loyalty-kinked left and right. Forget the concept of the conflict of interests -- it died when G7 graduated out of the same brothel -- but it also creates a feeling that in this world, there is barely anyone besides the handful of the high and mighty who are constantly screwing each other, both literally and figuratively. I’m sure this distorted, voyeuristic vision is distorted and voyeuristic on purpose. On the other hand -- how stupid are the G7 XD
While I’m on this subject, the incestuous little G7 brothel hijinks are ridiculous beyond measure, this isn’t even anime levels of stupid sparkly implausibility XD It just so hard to take them seriously!
Unlike their leaders, the Hives themselves made a certain amount of sense. Whenever I see scifi do future geopolitics along the lines of “this is pan-US/China” or “united earth federation” whatnot, I always shed a single tear of disappointment because HAVE YOU SEEN HISTORY, FRIENDS. Or the news. The way it mixed and matched governance archetypes with historial inertia and looked at power sources beyond nation states -- that was cool.
Important Questions I want answered at some point in the future:
What happened when King of Spain touched dicks with sparkly Ganymede, and why does he regret it so bad :D
How did languages of other Hives become a taboo, and what are the set of rules that govern who GETS to know more than two languages. Also, can’t you just fucking learn another one on your own in secret.
Who the fuck invented this ridiculous JEDD Mason, and is there a USB socket in his pants that hooks him to his mothership when he sleeps.
Why would Gordians have been the most popular unless limited to Brillist pool? Are pop quizzes really that popular with the masses?
???
Profit.
As you see, I’m feeling very patient and unstressed about learning other plot points and resolutions in time. Definitely reading the sequels, and hope the library reservation comes to me before I forget the essentials of the local IR.
Please add a point against each bullet point if you have an appetite or tolerance for it. Add them up and compare to have your answer!
PROS OF TERRA IGNOTA
An elaborate, dense worldbuilding heavy on religion, history, and political sciences
Sci-fi disguised as 18th century treatise that aims to scandalize with both ideology and porn -- or vice versa
Unreliable and, frankly, pretty fucking disturbed narrator
Typesetting porn
G7 anime melodrama
Sorting system that makes you go sortinghatchats on big tech corporations
People kinkshaming each other for gender and religion
Deliberate authorial decisions meant to push you out of your zone of comfort
CONS OF TERRA IGNOTA
An elaborate, dense worldbuilding heavy on religion, history, and political sciences
Sci-fi disguised as 18th century treatise that aims to scandalize with both ideology and porn -- or vice versa
Unreliable and, frankly, pretty fucking disturbed narrator
Typesetting porn
G7 anime melodrama
Sorting system that makes you go sortinghatchats on big tech corporations
People kinkshaming each other for gender and religion
Deliberate authorial decisions meant to push you out of your zone of comfort
See what I mean? It’s a take it or leave it kind of a book. Objectively it’s an ambitious speculative fiction that was clearly written by someone very qualified to write it. Will you like it? Beats me. The chances of you ragequitting at any point or inhaling it are about equal, so pick your poison.
Did I like it?
Sure did :D
I have been forewarned about the unreliable narrator, and sufficiently intrigued by votes splitting on whether I would love or hate it. (For extra suspense, the votes were cast for opposite reaction than that of the voters.)
It’s that rare kind of a book that I enjoy without having any emotional investment in any characters, because it’s really good at something else. In this case -- at being a very thought-through speculative fiction that you unpeel layer by layer though multiple untrustworthy sources (the narrator, Mycroft, is the kind of person whose issues have issues) and an array of literary techniques. It is also really fucking good at scratching my IR itches -- referencing texts I’ve actually studied, but in a manner I think accessible to many, landing some cultural notes with stunning accuracy (oh how I loved the comment that Papadelias loved some historic figure so much he was “willing to forgive them for not being Greek”), and demonstrating every step of the way just how much THOUGHT went into it.
A caveat -- I feel the need to reiterate that I’m absolutely capable of enjoying books that can handwave such ambitious tasks in favour of simple entertainment (I am looking at Bags of Dicks in Space, the cheerful corporate fraudsters that they are), so this kind of deliberation and thought is not mandatory for me to enjoy a book. More often than not, I’ll easily put up with garbage WB for the sake of some sizzling character dynamics and entertainment factor, but it just feels so SATISFYING when a book rises to the challenge.
Another caveat -- lest you draw parallels with Three Body Problem and similar worldbuilding-heavy books. The reason for my having zero investment in characters is not because they are secondary, or cardboard -- they carry a lot of complexity (of psychoses) and diversity (of kinks) as well as competence amongst themselves. It’s more about what kind of narrative this is, not what kind of characters they are.
Further thoughts won TLTL ith SPOILERS.
Being forewarned about Mycroft’s innate bonkerness was one of the factors that established my early distancing from character’s emotional wellbeing. It didn’t stop me from being very interested in what was happening on the page, but as to who screwed over whom, I did not particularly care :DD It also didn’t make me change my opinions on characters with every reveal of what they were up to -- be it either Mycroft’s criminal track record, G7 host club gang bang or teenage mogul murderbash.
The gender issues. Bob the Expectations Builder was alert and awake when my friend bitterly complained that this book’s gender shenanigans betrayed her by not being Ann Leckie. Well. I confirm -- it is very much not Ann Leckie. I don’t mean to imply Ada Palmer is in any way less sensitive to the subject, but her authorial choice was to give voice to someone who is uh, depraved and deprived and also deliberately provokes the audience by invoking de Sade and similar in mushing together provocation by mushing together sex and sociopolitical philosophy and theology. The arbitrary gender assignations he makes to people confused me -- not to the degree of offending on principle, because see above, but for the really dubious fucking logic behind it. It was also originally hard to keep track of in between the intense worldbuilding details clicking together, so, thanks for being very unhelpful, Mycroft XD I guess what I’m saying is, it’s hard for me to get earnestly scandalized when I know that they are out to be scandalizing.
One thing that kept jumping out at me was how chamber the world felt. The premise is clear -- the invention of superfast cars that could travel around the globe in 4 hours or under, geographical distances lost meaning, eroding the concept of nations as we know them today. Cool. I’m on board with that. But also every power that be has a disgraced criminal Mycroft employed and in their confidences, constantly running errands for them with each other’s awareness, handing super confidential data and being blackmailed and loyalty-kinked left and right. Forget the concept of the conflict of interests -- it died when G7 graduated out of the same brothel -- but it also creates a feeling that in this world, there is barely anyone besides the handful of the high and mighty who are constantly screwing each other, both literally and figuratively. I’m sure this distorted, voyeuristic vision is distorted and voyeuristic on purpose. On the other hand -- how stupid are the G7 XD
While I’m on this subject, the incestuous little G7 brothel hijinks are ridiculous beyond measure, this isn’t even anime levels of stupid sparkly implausibility XD It just so hard to take them seriously!
Unlike their leaders, the Hives themselves made a certain amount of sense. Whenever I see scifi do future geopolitics along the lines of “this is pan-US/China” or “united earth federation” whatnot, I always shed a single tear of disappointment because HAVE YOU SEEN HISTORY, FRIENDS. Or the news. The way it mixed and matched governance archetypes with historial inertia and looked at power sources beyond nation states -- that was cool.
Important Questions I want answered at some point in the future:
What happened when King of Spain touched dicks with sparkly Ganymede, and why does he regret it so bad :D
How did languages of other Hives become a taboo, and what are the set of rules that govern who GETS to know more than two languages. Also, can’t you just fucking learn another one on your own in secret.
Who the fuck invented this ridiculous JEDD Mason, and is there a USB socket in his pants that hooks him to his mothership when he sleeps.
Why would Gordians have been the most popular unless limited to Brillist pool? Are pop quizzes really that popular with the masses?
???
Profit.
As you see, I’m feeling very patient and unstressed about learning other plot points and resolutions in time. Definitely reading the sequels, and hope the library reservation comes to me before I forget the essentials of the local IR.
This was well reviewed - somewhere - so I checked it out. I wish I knew who had recommended it to me, so I can not listen next time.
Terrible to get into - I did try. Four pages, including a prayer to the reader. Slow reading, and confusing, so I quit there. I'm sure some will say it gets better - too bad.
The author is a professor of History. She also composes and performs Rennaisance-tinged a capella music.
This was the first in a series, so she is popular with others. Good for her.
Terrible to get into - I did try. Four pages, including a prayer to the reader. Slow reading, and confusing, so I quit there. I'm sure some will say it gets better - too bad.
The author is a professor of History. She also composes and performs Rennaisance-tinged a capella music.
This was the first in a series, so she is popular with others. Good for her.
3,5
Un univers génialissime et un narrateur que j'adore.
Sauf que la moitié du temps, j'avais l'impression d'être complètement larguée dans les personnages et les intrigues politiques. Je suis suffisamment intriguée pour poursuivre par contre. J'imagine que je vais finir par me démêler. Mais la finale m'a beaucoup plu!
Un univers génialissime et un narrateur que j'adore.
Sauf que la moitié du temps, j'avais l'impression d'être complètement larguée dans les personnages et les intrigues politiques. Je suis suffisamment intriguée pour poursuivre par contre. J'imagine que je vais finir par me démêler. Mais la finale m'a beaucoup plu!
This started off kind of dense and hard to follow but maybe 1/4 or 1/3 of the way in it really picked up and I got in to it. Lots of Enlightenment era references that I am probably missing but that hasn't really detracted too much from my interest in it overall.
No me resulta fácil valorarla; hasta la mitad de la lectura estuve a punto de dejarla, y aunque luego me enganchó sigue tiendo cosas que me rechinan bastante.
De momento la forma de contar la historia. Ese narrador tan aficionado a los circunloquios, con sus referencias al siglo dieciocho y, sobre todo, sus conversaciones con el lector, se me ha hecho cargante a ratos. Tampoco el mundo me ha convencido mucho, me ha resultado plano. Vemos la capa superior, su élite, pero no da la impresión de que debajo se mueva nada. Tampoco me termino de creer la distribución de la humanidad en Hives.
Pero lo peor han sido algunos de los personajes, exagerados hasta la extenuación, como el mismo narrador, Dominic o, especialmente, Ganymede. ¿Realmente con esa descripción quieren que me tome el personaje en serio?
A pesar de todo esto, estos defectos (para mi gusto) pasan a segundo lado cuando comienza la acción. Mi problema es que Palmer basa la narración en empezar por un hecho localizado y poco a poco ir introduciendo nuevos personajes y ramificaciones. Y muestra tan poco a poco que hasta el 40% del libro no me pareció que empezara a pasar nada realmente. Menos mal, porque había puesto mi límite para abandonarlo en el 50%.
Digo menos mal porque a partir de ahí realmente la historia se pone interesante. Sigue con los defectos que he mencionado antes (todo lo de París me parece tremendamente falso), pero a esas alturas la historia ha cogido bastante interés y pasan a segundo plano.
Para que os hagáis una idea de mis sensaciones, os diré que me ha dejado con curiosidad de saber qué ocurre finalmente, pero sin ganas de empezar el siguiente volumen. Quizás si la pillo en alguna oferta...
De momento la forma de contar la historia. Ese narrador tan aficionado a los circunloquios, con sus referencias al siglo dieciocho y, sobre todo, sus conversaciones con el lector, se me ha hecho cargante a ratos. Tampoco el mundo me ha convencido mucho, me ha resultado plano. Vemos la capa superior, su élite, pero no da la impresión de que debajo se mueva nada. Tampoco me termino de creer la distribución de la humanidad en Hives.
Pero lo peor han sido algunos de los personajes, exagerados hasta la extenuación, como el mismo narrador, Dominic o, especialmente, Ganymede. ¿Realmente con esa descripción quieren que me tome el personaje en serio?
A pesar de todo esto, estos defectos (para mi gusto) pasan a segundo lado cuando comienza la acción. Mi problema es que Palmer basa la narración en empezar por un hecho localizado y poco a poco ir introduciendo nuevos personajes y ramificaciones. Y muestra tan poco a poco que hasta el 40% del libro no me pareció que empezara a pasar nada realmente. Menos mal, porque había puesto mi límite para abandonarlo en el 50%.
Digo menos mal porque a partir de ahí realmente la historia se pone interesante. Sigue con los defectos que he mencionado antes (todo lo de París me parece tremendamente falso), pero a esas alturas la historia ha cogido bastante interés y pasan a segundo plano.
Para que os hagáis una idea de mis sensaciones, os diré que me ha dejado con curiosidad de saber qué ocurre finalmente, pero sin ganas de empezar el siguiente volumen. Quizás si la pillo en alguna oferta...
What a terrible, beautiful, awful, brilliant, frustrating, wonderful, disgusting book.
I wanted to read something contemporary in science fiction that is in the tradition of LeGuin, Sturgeon, Wolfe: original ideas, controverting worlds, poetic language. I was wrong to believe the hype that this book was that. Much was revealed in the Author's Note, in which she writes of an ardent, even painful desire to enter the ranks of Voltaire et al, to be in the conversation of great ideas and writers. The book reads as written by someone who really wants to be a writer.
I have marked this as read although I gave up two thirds through. I tried, but at that point I realized that I just didn't care, at all, about any of the characters, nor about the story (thin as it was even by then). This is a world-building book, and it is an unusual world to imagine deriving from the current one. One would expect some heavy lifting to explain how such fundamental aspects of human nature and human culture as religion and gender could not only be so radically changed and institutionally enforced, but lead to a utopian global civilization. And yet the author hadn't done this by the point I gave up. Given the light approach to grand ideas that the author has, I could not expect a satisfying explanation for the world she presents, so why keep reading? In just the same way, one strains to see why the main characters, all but two of whom are the leading lights of the civilization, the super celebrities of the age, are so fantastic? The author does nothing at all to explain why -- what have they accomplished? What are their great talents? She seems limited to describing their fabulous hair and outfits.
Too, characters who are all universally happy and successful are, like the world portrayed, unconvincing and frankly uninteresting. Humans have complex psychologies, they suffer and worry, they feel lack. None of hers do -- the world is described as one in which everyone is happy. However, again, there is no explanation for how this transformed human race came to be, beyond the gee whiz of being able to travel anywhere on earth in a couple of hours. How does that lead to such radical changes in human nature?
I could be wrong, and in the final third of the book, or in one of the three following novels, all is explained... but I lost interest and hadn't seen evidence of an ability to construct complex ideas, nor of any real skill as a pure writer.
I have marked this as read although I gave up two thirds through. I tried, but at that point I realized that I just didn't care, at all, about any of the characters, nor about the story (thin as it was even by then). This is a world-building book, and it is an unusual world to imagine deriving from the current one. One would expect some heavy lifting to explain how such fundamental aspects of human nature and human culture as religion and gender could not only be so radically changed and institutionally enforced, but lead to a utopian global civilization. And yet the author hadn't done this by the point I gave up. Given the light approach to grand ideas that the author has, I could not expect a satisfying explanation for the world she presents, so why keep reading? In just the same way, one strains to see why the main characters, all but two of whom are the leading lights of the civilization, the super celebrities of the age, are so fantastic? The author does nothing at all to explain why -- what have they accomplished? What are their great talents? She seems limited to describing their fabulous hair and outfits.
Too, characters who are all universally happy and successful are, like the world portrayed, unconvincing and frankly uninteresting. Humans have complex psychologies, they suffer and worry, they feel lack. None of hers do -- the world is described as one in which everyone is happy. However, again, there is no explanation for how this transformed human race came to be, beyond the gee whiz of being able to travel anywhere on earth in a couple of hours. How does that lead to such radical changes in human nature?
I could be wrong, and in the final third of the book, or in one of the three following novels, all is explained... but I lost interest and hadn't seen evidence of an ability to construct complex ideas, nor of any real skill as a pure writer.
Remember that meme "This is the future that liberals want"?
I love how Ada Palmer shows exactly that future, post-gender, post-violence, post-family, post-church, post-national, post-spatial even, when every place in the world can be reached by flying cars in a few hours. A globalist utopia. And then she is very methodical in exposing the underbelly that keeps this system working - a ruling elite, almost inbred, that stretches the rules as far as they go - including with one big revelatory cliffhanger that ends the book and leaves you wanting more.
Add to that some of my favourite themes like wonder returning to a secularized world in the form of the miracle child bridger and guilt and atonement, and you have the perfect book for me. I'm fairly sure I did not follow all the allusions and explanations about 18th century philosophy, but the narration works well as a distancing device the way palmer intended it to be.
I can hardly wait to continue my journey.
I love how Ada Palmer shows exactly that future, post-gender, post-violence, post-family, post-church, post-national, post-spatial even, when every place in the world can be reached by flying cars in a few hours. A globalist utopia. And then she is very methodical in exposing the underbelly that keeps this system working - a ruling elite, almost inbred, that stretches the rules as far as they go - including with one big revelatory cliffhanger that ends the book and leaves you wanting more.
Add to that some of my favourite themes like wonder returning to a secularized world in the form of the miracle child bridger and guilt and atonement, and you have the perfect book for me. I'm fairly sure I did not follow all the allusions and explanations about 18th century philosophy, but the narration works well as a distancing device the way palmer intended it to be.
I can hardly wait to continue my journey.