Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota Series #4)

by Ada Palmer

Overview

From the 2017 John W. Campbell Award Winner for Best Writer, Ada Palmer's Perhaps the Stars is the final book of the Hugo Award-shortlisted Terra Ignota series.

World Peace turns into global civil war.

In the future, the leaders of Hive nations—nations without fixed location—clandestinely committed nefarious deeds in order to maintain an outward semblance of utopian stability. But the facade could only last so long. The comforts of effortless global travel and worldwide abundance may have tempered humanity's darkest inclinations, but conflict remains deeply rooted in the human psyche. All it needed was a catalyst, in form of special little boy to ignite half a millennium of repressed chaos.

Now, war spreads throughout the globe, splintering old alliances and awakening sleeping enmities. All transportation systems are in ruins, causing the tyranny of distance to fracture a long-united Earth and threaten to obliterate everything the Hive system built.

With the arch-criminal Mycroft nowhere to be found, his successor, Ninth Anonymous, must not only chronicle the discord of war, but attempt to restore order in a world spiraling closer to irreparable ruin.

The fate of a broken society hangs in the balance. Is the key to salvation to remain Earth-bound or, perhaps, to start anew throughout the far reaches of the stars?

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466858770
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/02/2021
Series:	Terra Ignota Series , #4
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

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 cappella vocal music on historical themes, most of which she performs with the group Sassafrass. She writes about history for a popular audience at exurbe.com and about SF and fantasy-related matters at Tor.com. Too Like the Lightning is her debut fiction book.
Ada Palmer (she/her) 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 cappella vocal music on historical themes, most of which she performs with the group Sassafrass. She writes about history for a popular audience at exurbe.com and about SF and fantasy-related matters at Tor.com. Too Like the Lightning was her debut fiction book.

Editorial Reviews

07/12/2021

Palmer’s spellbinding conclusion to her Terra Ignota series sees her previously utopian futuristic world plunged into war. It’s 2454 and, after the events of The Will to Battle, Mycroft Canner, master criminal and the series’ chronicler thus far, is nowhere to be found, leaving Ninth Anonymous to pick up the telling of his story and prevent the world from falling to pieces. As technology fails and Earth’s Prince is targeted in attacks, it’s up to Ninth Anonymous to forge new alliances and turn the tide of war. In byzantine, lyrical prose, Palmer chronicles cutthroat political maneuvering and imagines advanced weaponry that could change the course of the future. The well-built intrigue keeps the pages turning on the way to a satisfying ending. Series fans are sure to appreciate this high-octane series closer. Agent: Cameron McClure, Donald Maass Literary. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

"The eloquence of Palmer's reflections on social issues cannot be denied." —Library Journal, starred review, on Seven Surrenders

"Palmer crafts one of the most compelling narrative voices around in describing this impossible, fascinating and plausibly contradictory world." —RT Book Reviews, 4-1/2 stars, on Seven Surrenders

“More intricate, more plausible, more significant than any debut I can recall…If you read a debut novel this year, make it Too Like the Lightning.” —Cory Doctorow

"The Terra Ignota books are is the kind of science fiction that makes me excited all over again about what science fiction can do.” —Jo Walton on Too Like the Lightning

From the Publisher

2021-09-01
The fourth and final volume in the Terra Ignota series, a science fantasy set on a 25th-century Earth where people affiliate by philosophy and interest instead of geography.

For the first time in centuries, the world is seized by war—once the combatants actually figure out how to fight one. While rivalries among the Hives provide several motives for conflict, primary among them is whether J.E.D.D. Mason, the heir to various political powers and apparently a god from another universe in human form, should assume absolute rule over the world and transform it for the better. Gathering any large group to further the progress of the war or the possibility for peace is hampered by the loss of the world transit system of flying cars and the global communications network, both shut down by parties unknown, indicating a hidden and dangerous faction manipulating the situation for its own ends. As events play out, they bear a strong resemblance to aspects of the Iliadand the Odyssey, suggesting the persistent influence of Bridger, a deceased child who was also probably a god. Is tragedy inevitable, or can the characters defy their apparent fates? This often intriguing but decidedly peculiar chimera of a story seems to have been a philosophical experiment, but it’s difficult to determine just what was being tested. The worldbuilding—part science, part magic—doesn’t really hold up under scrutiny, and the political structure defies comprehension. The global government consists of an oligarchy of people deeply and intimately connected by love and hate on a scale which surpasses the royal dynasties of old, and it includes convicted felons among their number. Perhaps the characters are intended as an outsized satiric comment on the way politicians embrace expediency over morality or personal feelings, but these supposedly morally advanced potentates commit so many perverse atrocities against one another it is difficult to engage with them as people. At times, they seem nearly as alien as J.E.D.D. Mason.

Curiously compelling but not entirely satisfying.

Kirkus Reviews