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sincetheflood's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Genocide, Gun violence, and War
Moderate: Racism and Xenophobia
Minor: Rape and Homophobia
the_descolada's review against another edition
challenging
dark
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I could not put this book down, my god. Staying up super late multiple nights because I couldn’t stop reading is such a great problem to have, and Exordia gave me that problem more than any book I’ve read in a few years.
This is a very different book than Baru, but Seth’s evocative prose and dark humor is familiar from page one, and the laser focus on defamiliarizing real world injustices is again the core of the work. Despite being far more immediate (Exordia is set during the Obama administration in our world, with an alternate history beginning from the moment the book starts), the heaviness of the topics never gets overwhelming. There’s some incredible (and extremely fitting) tonal dissonance here, with every perspective character having their own sense of disaffected humor about the apocalyptic situation they’ve been thrown into.
I described this to my friend after just starting as “if the Books of Sorrow were written with Gideon the Ninth’s tone and just straight up in our world,” and I think that remains true throughout. There’s a huge amount of references peppered in, and it helps maintain that lighter tone to balance the despair of what is essentially a doomsday clock ticking down throughout the book - and it helps keep things grounded, honestly. I never felt it took away from the gravity of things, or was unnatural - after all, if I, an early 21st century sci fi nerd, was thrown into some fucked up alien bioweapon mystery, it’s hard to say my first thought wouldn’t be “oh shit, this is just like the Andromeda Strain!”
Having seven (eight?) different protagonist (or deuteragonist, I don’t know which they qualify as) PoVs is pretty wild but works perfectly here. Every character has such a unique outlook that you can instantly figure out whose head you’ve popped into even before any identifying names or things are mentioned - Seth’s mastery of the tonally cohesive PoV shifts was something I had loved in Tyrant, especially, and they’re equally impressive here. The characters are lovable, hatable, and everything in between - and each as mentioned is so distinct and compelling that I can’t say there was a single character who I was unhappy to get into their head. And that’s saying something, given who some of these characters are, but I’ll leave the specifics a surprise. Predictably, my favorites were the dysfunctional autistic butch-femme lesbians, but I really loved all of them in the end.
The base premise is almost comical in how small it starts to how much it escalates - a cynical, disillusioned Kurdish genocide survivor, Anna Sinjari, meets a terrifying (and yes…very hot. I’m a simple woman) alien in Central Park, and this seemingly chance encounter sees her roped into a small group of scientists, soldiers, and her own mother in a desperate countdown to solve an otherworldly mystery and save their world. The twists and turns of the plot are intense, so engaging that I was bouncing up and down at times (there’s plenty of sci-fi insanity that I absolutely eat up), and tightly paced.
Seth seems to really enjoy writing ethical dilemmas to great effect, and Exordia is ruthless in that area, taking the base concept of the trolley problem and the moral justification for what someone would sacrifice for the greater good and carving it apart for narrative weight. What greater good does the sacrifice serve? Is it actually good? Who gets to make the choice, and do they have a choice but to make it? There’s a lot to dig into here, and Exordia is a four course meal.
One aspect of this simply taking place in our world, rather than being an alternate universe like Baru, is that the defamiliarized commentary is even more on the nose. Whereas Baru is a commentary on empire and homophobia as a whole, transparently pulling from primarily American history of genocide and imperialism to shape a culture unlike our own in many ways to defamiliarize this moral exploration, Exordia is just literally about real world American imperialism and enabling of genocide in the MENA region, primarily the ramifications of the military industrial complex’s usage of drone warfare and the extremist regimes armed and encouraged by “counterterrorism.”
All this sets the stage for the question of what happens when a bigger fish arrives, one just as hell bent on empire building and justifying its own atrocities. The sci-fi intervention into this banal evil is at the same time a reflection of that evil, and asking if the world has the capacity for resistance to both. Exordia’s answer is profound, and far from easy, but entirely fitting for the ethical dilemma that runs throughout the book, creeping up on you slowly as you start to recognize what shape it takes in this story.
The central material conflict of the book, a locked box mystery of sorts that you piece together with the characters, is fucked up and fun and scary, a reality shifting threat that treads the line between body horror, meta-narrative, and lovecraftian math. It’s extremely cool, and I think it’ll be right up the alley of fans of The Andromeda Strain, The Locked Tomb, The Books of Sorrow and other parts of Destiny lore, and a lot of other SFF stories where ethics, horror, and mystery mix together.
I don’t want to say too much about the climax and the ending - going into this book without knowing too much was an incredible experience that had me on the edge of my proverbial seat - but the ending left me asking myself some very similar questions as I had at the end of Traitor, and I cannot wait for a reread when the physical book is in my hands to see what little foreshadowed things I can pick up on.
I don’t think people are going to be quite as completely emotionally Destroyed at the ending of this one as Traitor, but…it is very much a Seth Dickinson book, and they have quite the talent for making every thread tie together at the end to make the reader feel every emotion at once and realize that this could never have gone any other way. I cried, I laughed, sometimes simultaneously, and a book that can do that to me is entirely worth the experience - and what an experience this was.
Absolutely fucking incredible, I want more of these characters and everything they’re wrapped up in, 10/10.
I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
This is a very different book than Baru, but Seth’s evocative prose and dark humor is familiar from page one, and the laser focus on defamiliarizing real world injustices is again the core of the work. Despite being far more immediate (Exordia is set during the Obama administration in our world, with an alternate history beginning from the moment the book starts), the heaviness of the topics never gets overwhelming. There’s some incredible (and extremely fitting) tonal dissonance here, with every perspective character having their own sense of disaffected humor about the apocalyptic situation they’ve been thrown into.
I described this to my friend after just starting as “if the Books of Sorrow were written with Gideon the Ninth’s tone and just straight up in our world,” and I think that remains true throughout. There’s a huge amount of references peppered in, and it helps maintain that lighter tone to balance the despair of what is essentially a doomsday clock ticking down throughout the book - and it helps keep things grounded, honestly. I never felt it took away from the gravity of things, or was unnatural - after all, if I, an early 21st century sci fi nerd, was thrown into some fucked up alien bioweapon mystery, it’s hard to say my first thought wouldn’t be “oh shit, this is just like the Andromeda Strain!”
Having seven (eight?) different protagonist (or deuteragonist, I don’t know which they qualify as) PoVs is pretty wild but works perfectly here. Every character has such a unique outlook that you can instantly figure out whose head you’ve popped into even before any identifying names or things are mentioned - Seth’s mastery of the tonally cohesive PoV shifts was something I had loved in Tyrant, especially, and they’re equally impressive here. The characters are lovable, hatable, and everything in between - and each as mentioned is so distinct and compelling that I can’t say there was a single character who I was unhappy to get into their head. And that’s saying something, given who some of these characters are, but I’ll leave the specifics a surprise. Predictably, my favorites were the dysfunctional autistic butch-femme lesbians, but I really loved all of them in the end.
The base premise is almost comical in how small it starts to how much it escalates - a cynical, disillusioned Kurdish genocide survivor, Anna Sinjari, meets a terrifying (and yes…very hot. I’m a simple woman) alien in Central Park, and this seemingly chance encounter sees her roped into a small group of scientists, soldiers, and her own mother in a desperate countdown to solve an otherworldly mystery and save their world. The twists and turns of the plot are intense, so engaging that I was bouncing up and down at times (there’s plenty of sci-fi insanity that I absolutely eat up), and tightly paced.
Seth seems to really enjoy writing ethical dilemmas to great effect, and Exordia is ruthless in that area, taking the base concept of the trolley problem and the moral justification for what someone would sacrifice for the greater good and carving it apart for narrative weight. What greater good does the sacrifice serve? Is it actually good? Who gets to make the choice, and do they have a choice but to make it? There’s a lot to dig into here, and Exordia is a four course meal.
One aspect of this simply taking place in our world, rather than being an alternate universe like Baru, is that the defamiliarized commentary is even more on the nose. Whereas Baru is a commentary on empire and homophobia as a whole, transparently pulling from primarily American history of genocide and imperialism to shape a culture unlike our own in many ways to defamiliarize this moral exploration, Exordia is just literally about real world American imperialism and enabling of genocide in the MENA region, primarily the ramifications of the military industrial complex’s usage of drone warfare and the extremist regimes armed and encouraged by “counterterrorism.”
All this sets the stage for the question of what happens when a bigger fish arrives, one just as hell bent on empire building and justifying its own atrocities. The sci-fi intervention into this banal evil is at the same time a reflection of that evil, and asking if the world has the capacity for resistance to both. Exordia’s answer is profound, and far from easy, but entirely fitting for the ethical dilemma that runs throughout the book, creeping up on you slowly as you start to recognize what shape it takes in this story.
The central material conflict of the book, a locked box mystery of sorts that you piece together with the characters, is fucked up and fun and scary, a reality shifting threat that treads the line between body horror, meta-narrative, and lovecraftian math. It’s extremely cool, and I think it’ll be right up the alley of fans of The Andromeda Strain, The Locked Tomb, The Books of Sorrow and other parts of Destiny lore, and a lot of other SFF stories where ethics, horror, and mystery mix together.
I don’t want to say too much about the climax and the ending - going into this book without knowing too much was an incredible experience that had me on the edge of my proverbial seat - but the ending left me asking myself some very similar questions as I had at the end of Traitor, and I cannot wait for a reread when the physical book is in my hands to see what little foreshadowed things I can pick up on.
I don’t think people are going to be quite as completely emotionally Destroyed at the ending of this one as Traitor, but…it is very much a Seth Dickinson book, and they have quite the talent for making every thread tie together at the end to make the reader feel every emotion at once and realize that this could never have gone any other way. I cried, I laughed, sometimes simultaneously, and a book that can do that to me is entirely worth the experience - and what an experience this was.
Absolutely fucking incredible, I want more of these characters and everything they’re wrapped up in, 10/10.
I received an ARC of this novel from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Violence, Gun violence, Body horror, and Genocide
Moderate: Xenophobia and Racism
Minor: Rape and Homophobia
gilroi's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I would like to thank NetGalley for allowing me to read this ARC in return for an honest review:
This is an excellent novel, both thrilling and conceptual, literary and human, serious and fun.
It is also going to piss a lot of people off because it does not automatically reveal all the kinks and knots in its worldbuilding. This isn't to say the worldbuilding is particularly cryptic or difficult. It's just extremely detailed. Even then, it's structured in such a way that the important parts are almost always re-explained as soon as they become relevant. But a lot of readers, especially SFF ones, immediately break at the thought that something isn't immediately, transparently obvious. It's okay, guys. You're not supposed to understand everything. The people explaining are aliens and quantum physicists. Be at peace.
If you can get over that hurdle, you'll find a highly emotional and philosophical and fun story about humanity, colonialism, failure, pain, moral philosophy, and love. The moral philosophy part was a particular treat for me, because it slapped me in the face. I've said before that moral philosophy is 'the most useless' philosophy because its main purpose seems to be obfuscating theoretical models of behavior for the amusement of privileged old men who will never have to face those choices. This book gave me the finger. It points to the ways those theoretical models are in fact real and are faced by real people daily. I love it when books prove me wrong.
My only substantive complaint is the pacing, though I am personally extremely sensitive to pacing because my attention span hasn't been the greatest since COVID. The... second eighth of the book? There's a bit of a lag, when we're jumping between timelines, that feels a bit like this novel was at one point a novella or a novelette that was elongated. But I am also just personally not a fan of switching around in timelines and POVs too much. And it's a credit to this book that the switching POV didn't turn me off completely.
All and all, I'd love it if this became the new SF, especially MilSF. I want more morality in my space battles, more questioning the fabric of existence, more reckoning with America's seedy colonialist past and present and, let's be real, future. More military SF should question the military industrial complex. Shake the foundations of the genre! Feed me good food. This book was a feast.
This is an excellent novel, both thrilling and conceptual, literary and human, serious and fun.
It is also going to piss a lot of people off because it does not automatically reveal all the kinks and knots in its worldbuilding. This isn't to say the worldbuilding is particularly cryptic or difficult. It's just extremely detailed. Even then, it's structured in such a way that the important parts are almost always re-explained as soon as they become relevant. But a lot of readers, especially SFF ones, immediately break at the thought that something isn't immediately, transparently obvious. It's okay, guys. You're not supposed to understand everything. The people explaining are aliens and quantum physicists. Be at peace.
If you can get over that hurdle, you'll find a highly emotional and philosophical and fun story about humanity, colonialism, failure, pain, moral philosophy, and love. The moral philosophy part was a particular treat for me, because it slapped me in the face. I've said before that moral philosophy is 'the most useless' philosophy because its main purpose seems to be obfuscating theoretical models of behavior for the amusement of privileged old men who will never have to face those choices. This book gave me the finger. It points to the ways those theoretical models are in fact real and are faced by real people daily. I love it when books prove me wrong.
My only substantive complaint is the pacing, though I am personally extremely sensitive to pacing because my attention span hasn't been the greatest since COVID. The... second eighth of the book? There's a bit of a lag, when we're jumping between timelines, that feels a bit like this novel was at one point a novella or a novelette that was elongated. But I am also just personally not a fan of switching around in timelines and POVs too much. And it's a credit to this book that the switching POV didn't turn me off completely.
All and all, I'd love it if this became the new SF, especially MilSF. I want more morality in my space battles, more questioning the fabric of existence, more reckoning with America's seedy colonialist past and present and, let's be real, future. More military SF should question the military industrial complex. Shake the foundations of the genre! Feed me good food. This book was a feast.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Homophobia, Xenophobia, Lesbophobia, Genocide, Murder, and War
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