The Will to Battle
The Will to Battle ― the third book of 2017 John W. Campbell Award winner Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series ― a political SF epic of extraordinary audacity
“A cornucopia of dazzling, sharp ideas set in rich, wry prose that rewards rumination with layers of delight. Provocative, erudite, inventive, resplendent.” ― Ken Liu, author of The Grace of Kings
The long years of near-utopia have come to an abrupt end.
Peace and order are now figments of the past. Corruption, deception, and insurgency hum within the once steadfast leadership of the Hives, nations without fixed location.
The heartbreaking truth is that for decades, even centuries, the leaders of the great Hives bought the world’s stability with a trickle of secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction could ever dominate. So that the balance held.
The Hives’ façade of solidity is the only hope they have for maintaining a semblance of order, for preventing the public from succumbing to the savagery and bloodlust of wars past. But as the great secret becomes more and more widely known, that façade is slipping away.
Just days earlier, the world was a pinnacle of human civilization. Now everyone ― Hives and hiveless, Utopians and sensayers, emperors and the downtrodden, warriors and saints ― scrambles to prepare for the seemingly inevitable war.
“Seven Surrenders veers expertly between love, murder, mayhem, parenthood, theology, and high politics. I haven't had this much fun with a book in a long time.” ― Max Gladstone, author of Three Parts Dead
Readers also enjoyed
Ada Palmer
Ada Palmer is a professor in the history department of the University of Chicago, specializing in Renaissance history and the history of ideas. Her first nonfiction book, Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance, was published in 2014 by Harvard University Press. She is also a composer of folk and Renaissance-tinged a capella music, most of which she performs with the group Sassafrass. Her personal site is at adapalmer.com, and she writes about history for a popular audience at exurbe.com and about SF and fantasy-related matters at Tor.com.
Terra Ignota
John W. Campbell and Compton Crook award-winning author Ada Palmer presents a political science fiction epic of extraordinary audacity in the Terra Ignota series.
In a utopian future, the leaders of the great Hives, nations without fixed locations, have kept the world stable, at the cost of just a little blood. A few secret murders, mathematically planned. So that no faction can ever dominate, and the balance holds. Mycroft Canner and Carlyle Foster are aware of this conspiracy - as well as the secret that could end it: Bridger, the child who can bring inanimate objects to life.
Terra Ignota consists of four books and considered as a complete series. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
