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The year is 2454.
The sun is setting on a hard-won golden age. For three centuries, humanity has enjoyed peace and prosperity fuelled by technological abundance, oracular data analytics, careful censorship... and just a little blood.
In a world dominated by seven factions, or 'Hives', the price of peace has been a few secret murders, mathematically planned to ensure political and economic balance. But now the secret is out, the balance is slipping and war beckons.
Convict Mycroft Canner knew this war was coming - he committed his terrible crimes to forestall it. Now, he has just one card left, a wild card no degree of statistical genius could have predicted: a thirteen-year-old child with the power to work miracles. Turning thought into matter, matter in life, this child has the power to save the world, or to doom it.
About the author
Ada Palmer is an author, historian and composer. She did her PhD at Harvard, teaches History at the University of Chicago, blogs at ExUrbe.com, composes close harmony folk music and performs with the a capella group Sassafrass.
Visit her website www.adapalmer.com or follow her on Bluesky at @adapalmer
Summary
In a future of near-instantaneous global travel, of abundant provision, a future in which no one living can recall an actual war... a long era of stability threatens to come to an abrupt end.
Foreword
The second episode in the ambitious Terra Ignota series from a Hugo-shortlisted author.
Report
'Provocative, erudite, inventive, resplendent' Ken Liu
