Seven Surrenders
★★★★★
The world accelerates towards conflict as the revelations of corruption in the seven factions of humanity threaten to end three hundred years of near-utopia. In a post-scarcity world with no memory of warfare and no borders, the consequences for civilisation could be existential.
This second entry in the enlightenment-inspired Terra Ignota sequence is a book of reveals, as over three days the consequences of book one shatters the world’s political system. Palmer’s utopia is rotten — in search of peaceful pluralism humanity has surrendered progress, morals, gender, and religion, but this can be sustained no longer. Each chapter uncovers another level of betrayal, another secret, a new twist.
As with the previous book of the series, Palmer has no intention of making this an easy read. A mere Dramatis Personae is barely adequate where a recap is needed to focus the blur of characters, many of whom have a profusion of flowery names and titles. Scenes are dialogue-heavy, awash with the unreliable narrator’s monologues and fourth-wall breaking. It’s a book where relating the series of events eludes me — I’m in the flow, inhaling the world through the layering of conversations and debates, immensely enjoyable in the moment, but frustrating later recall.
It’s a narrative built on weaponised sexual transgression. It’s an extensive debate on philosophy, gender, and religion. It deliberately obfuscates the boundary between technology and miracle, doubling down with an unreliable narrator. It is by turns performatively pretentious, preachy, and full of melodramatic weeping epiphanies. I should not like it, but I love it. It’s messy, demanding feeling over comprehension, seeping into your flesh as you read. Everyone will experience this book differently — my experience was intoxicating.
