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4.0 

Perhaps the Stars

By Ada Palmer
Perhaps the Stars by Ada Palmer digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

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.

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

55 Reviews

4.0
“Terra Ignota is very dear to me, and so whether my opinions of the series' conclusion were glowing or otherwise, they could never be impartial! I was so excited to receive a review copy - I've been anticipating it for a long time now, and had adored the previous three installments (I had been mid-way through a re-read before I found out I'd gotten an ARC of this one). It's hard to discuss Perhaps the Stars without reflecting on Terra Ignota as a whole - and there is so much to say about the series! I'm on a mission to get more people to read it, so that I can talk about it endlessly, and hear other thoughts too. This installment differed in some ways from the previous three - there was a lot more plot, and we were hearing voices other than Mycroft's far more frequently. I found seeing this universe unfold, suddenly not within Mycroft's head, to be quite jarring at first - but I became equally attached to other narrators in time. I'm always more drawn to characters, rather than plot - but despite the novels occasional play-by-play of the actual warfare, and events therein, rather than the more personal slant Mycroft always gave, I absolutely adored this book. Just before the mid-way point, the narrative really started to kick in - plot points occurred which made me gasp, and I ended up staying up past my bedtime, on multiple occasions, for "just one more chapter". (The irony here being that some of the chapters are monoliths! Although I raced through it, this is not a quick book - I can't wait for my physical copy to arrive (I definitely haven’t cancelled my pre-order!) so I can see what a doorstopper it is. As previously in Terra Ignota, however, this book isn't just gripping because of the plot - there was a philosophical discussion near the end which literally made me have to put the book down and have a little think. I love that this series has that effect - it achieves what the best of sci-fi does, encouraging you to think, to reflect on the present and dream of the possible future. Of all weeks, this one was a good one for me to have read Perhaps the Stars I think - I feel like I needed this, and the small burst of hope and inspiration it's given me. Thanks to Macmillan / Tor and Netgalley for the ARC.”
“A few weeks of my life l never get back. Kept waiting for it to get better, but it never did.”

About Ada Palmer

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.

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