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elenahect 's review for:

Exordia by Seth Dickinson
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.