Seven Surrenders

I enjoyed this conclusion to the first part of the Terra Ignota series. Whilst the first book, Too Like The Lightning, is mostly slow set up and world building, this one is the pay-off. There's a good amount of action and far less pretentious philosophy and theorising. The story moves on fast and at times even reads more like a space opera. After a difficult first book, this is where I really started to enjoy the series. That being said, the sequel still has many of the problems that faced the first. Characters continue to speak and think in long awkward paragraphs - so long that it'd take multiple reads to understand the point. Philosophy and history has been shoe-horned in without genuinely adding to the plot. Finally, the characters feel like standard archetypes or cookie-cutter models, and aren't particularly interesting or engaging. Overall it's far more readable than it's predecessor, but unfortunately still falls short of being great sci-fi. I'm not going to read the sequel anytime soon.

holy SHIT what a ride

This series is pretty thought-provoking. I rarely read series, but since this was originally planned as a quartet with a fully developed arc, I am making an exception for Terra Ignota. I wish I knew more about philosophy so I could really understand the references to historical thinkers, but the story is still great even if I can't fully appreciate the depth of research.

It is so, so striking to see Palmer, who obviously lavishes enormous systematic attention on "worldbuilding", blow her own world up.

Great continuation of the series. Whereas the first entry had a lot happening, I felt that - with most characters now introduced - the second book flows even nicer. The world and its proceedings are as imaginative as ever, and Ada Palmer's prose makes you want to keep reading.

This whole series is full of interesting ideas and questions (it’s a world unlike anything I’ve read before), and I enjoyed this book more than the first in the series, but ultimately I think it is not for me. Heavier on philosophy and what feels like academic ideas and complicated plot rather than putting you in the head of a character, which is what I’m more interested in.

A great construction of a book, unfolding in layers and characters. It’s both highly addictive and hard to read, which is a strange combination. While a lot of the built world is hard to believe, it is at the same time apparently coherent and written in a way that salves questions you might push against it. The unfolding of the characters happens in tandem with the plot, and as each develop the story gets faster and both harder to believe and less needing of your belief. Like the first book, I thoroughly enjoyed it, but can’t give it 5 stars because I can’t decide who else might enjoy it.