407 reviews for:

Exordia

Seth Dickinson

3.99 AVERAGE

johnbyers1500's review against another edition

4.5

dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

grayhem's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous challenging dark inspiring tense slow-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

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the topics and themes of exordia are, almost without exception, very closely aligned with my special interests. you might argue that this puts me in some irrelevant minority or makes me biased. whatever. even to me the book is a little slow and a little dry in places. but boy, once it got going, i was screaming, laughing, hooting, crying, you name it. enormously cathartic. the spiel on self organized criticality murdered me where i stood. also thank you Seth for probably the clearest explanation of entropy i have ever read. 

fridabida's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark funny mysterious tense

unnaturalhistory's review

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

---

This book was a wild ride, and sometimes felt like three different books. All of those books were great, and none of them were what I expected, but I can also see why people might bounce off of this one. Hope we get a sequel. 

djmcg's review against another edition

3.0

adventurous challenging dark slow-paced

robject's review against another edition

5.0

informative reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

---

Brilliant 

robincarey's review against another edition

3.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny sad tense slow-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

elenahect's review

2.75

challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

---

 On the one hand: a sickly gleaming novel about American military intervention in the Middle East, the suffering of the Kurds, global politics, and ontological good and evil; the astrophysics of a soul and the building blocks of the universe and the trolley problem taken apart six ways to Sunday.

On the other: what did I just read? The snake aliens who talk like Cate Blanchett? The demiurge as an Annihilation-esque mathematical horror? The indigestible amount of jargon between particle physics, air traffic, higher-level mathematics, khai philosophy and fractals? The messy bisexual not-quite-a-throuple with incredibly divorced energy and extrajudicial killings in the Obama administration? I have no idea how to rate this - and am both ambivalent that it's over and glad I read it. Honestly? I'd hoped there'd be more Zoroastrian mythology. 

testaroscia's review against another edition

4.0

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Shades of Stephenson techno dumps but it is a good page turner that was a pleasure to get back to every day.

benstanley's review against another edition

4.5

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

---

damn. this was story made for me, with hilarious writing and characters that were utterly fascinating. and i did it such a disservice by taking a 2.5 month break between starting and finishing it (thanks work)

we also got a bit lost in the weeds on the math and physics in the middle there