Book-Thirsty Thursday: The Will to Battle, Ada Palmer

Ada Palmer’s The Will to Battle improves over Seven Surrenders, although it doesn’t necessarily improve the flaws from earlier entries.

There’s something vaguely off about Terra Ignota as a series, and I think, after reading The Will to Battle (sent to me by Tor), I may have finally figured it out. It’s a book that is, at least to this reader, more concerned with dealing with questions of philosophy and godhood than ultimately putting together a good story or characters.

Palmer has mostly set the science fiction aside — it’s only a backdrop here, replaced by a political thriller crossed with a book that ruminates on the nature of God. I still like Palmer’s world, as I said when I reviewed Seven Surrenders. I love how her version of humanity has set aside even gendered pronouns in speech (our primary narrator, Mycroft Canner, still uses them, though). The complexity of the Hives and the various tiers of laws makes for a world that I could read about for a long time.

It’s that, in her use of old conventions, Palmer makes a book that’s also difficult to read. In particular, what bothered me most is that the paragraphs here are just huge blocks of text. I understand, I think, her choice, but there’s a reason that fiction has generally moved away from it. The reader’s eyes might flat out glaze over or even result in some dreaded skimming.

I said when I read Seven Surrenders that I didn’t particularly like her Reader jumping in. I do not like it again with her now adding in Thomas Hobbes. If there’s one text that you might want to acquaint yourself with ahead of diving into this one, it’s Leviathan … even if you just scroll through the Wikipedia article. That’s actually where Palmer derives the title from (and yes, she explains it … more than once … through Mycroft).

I feel like this all seems quite negative, and on some level, it is. I can’t say that I outright loved this book in the sense that I could read it over and over again like some of my favorites from this year. But I can’t say that I simply disliked it, either. It’s just not a book that I enjoy reading on the level of simply looking forward to it, even with its dealing with subjects that I enjoy and in a favorite genre of mine.

Next: 20 female masters of science fiction to add to your reading list

What I can say, though, is that I actually enjoy finally figuring out what Terra Ignota refers to. I get it. Like everything else in this book, there are levels and layers to it all, but for once, it’s actually satisfying … and not something to sift through and ruminate. With all the complications that Palmer has going in this series, something relatively simple comes like a relief.