lunasariel | Terra Ignota - Seven Surrenders

Next up!

Seven Surrenders, by Ada Palmer.

To begin at the end: Bridger's death (or "death?" Somehow I get the feeling we haven't seen the last of him). In hindsight the foreshadowing for this was just exquisite, even though it hit me as a complete surprise - even going back as far as the opening epithet of this book/the title of TLTL! And Mycroft even predicted that meeting J.E.D.D. would destroy Bridger, and darn if that isn't exactly what happened...just not in the way Mycroft predicted. Actually, I take that back - Mycroft predicted that meeting J.E.D.D. would turn Bridger into something else, something he wasn't ready for. This was clearly a reference to J.E.D.D.'s spooky not-quite-mind-reading powers, but it's undeniable that Bridger absolutely wasn't ready for the trauma of seeing his miraculous gifts turned to destruction and death twice - first, he was tricked by Sniper into animating the assassin Lifedoll, and second, by resurrecting J.E.D.D., he precipitated World War (again).

Bridger's death (or "death") was absolutely heartbreaking, even though I don't think it'll stick. I had been coming to realize how deeply Mycroft loved him, but I don't think I realized just how much until he was trying to talk Bridger into staying. May I just say: OW MY HEART. Mycroft, the original silver-tongued charmer, who could "talk a fox into skinning itself," unable to talk a very determined preteen out of unmaking himself. I'm not quite sure what to think of Achilles/the Major yet (another "ohhhhhhh" moment that I didn't see coming - he does have some oddly advanced opinions on Greek gods, but I assumed that was just a standard 20th century classical education talking), but he seems markedly less of a dickhead than Homer's Achilles (Bridger's influence/perception, maybe?), so I'm at least hopeful. Also, I'm tickled by how close I was with my "Mycroft is actually an Ancient Greek" tinfoil hat theory from TLTL.

The Gender Thing is another thing that has really started to pay off. One of the things that I started to enjoy in TLTL but am now coming to more fully appreciate is just how deep her foreshadowing goes. I'm like that conspiracy theory board guy meme every time I realize she's been setting something up for like 400 pages and then pulls it all together with a single sentence. Case in point, I hadn't pinged just how few world leaders were women/biologically female, but whoever pointed it out (Madame? Dominic?) is absolutely right that one Hive leader out of seven (and that one the ultra-feminine, ultra-empathic, ultra-cuddly Cousins) is abysmal by today's standards, let alone that of a future utopia. I do agree that the current exacerbated disparity is due chiefly to Madame's manipulations and the particular sort of gender dynamics she fosters, but it is interesting, and very telling, that there were cracks there for her to work her way into in the first place. And similarly, she's... not wrong when she (or, again, this might have been Dominic) points out that it's not necessarily gender that's been banned, it's femininity. The Masons still have their suits, but I think the only place dresses are still seen is on Cousins (again), and even then they're called wraps.

So, there are problems. Gender disparity still exists; the cracks are papered over but not gone. The whole system's miraculous stability and peace only exist because of a small but significant number of murders (more on this below). Most of the world's leaders solve their problems via Sexy 18th Century Philosopher LARP. And yet, on a level of verisimilitude, her world works! It works!!! It's sometimes messy and chaotic, but in the way that the real world is messy and chaotic, not like it is when the author is out to make a point about Mess and Chaos. There's such a sense of robustness, of lived-in-ness, of almost tactile reality. I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say it's almost Tolkienesque. It's such a joy to be able to wander around in this world, where the author has thought about transit systems and taxes and municipal governments, and not worry about stepping wrong/asking the wrong question and bringing the whole movie set down. To extend the metaphor, it's very much like the Hobbiton they built in New Zealand - they started working on it a year and some change in advance, so that the flowers would naturally grow in the gardens, the hobbit-holes would acquire some real weathering, and their interiors would feel naturally lived-in. Of course, it's not quite on Tolkien's whole scale of "fifty-odd years of legendarium-building and three whole-ass languages," but that sense of deep respect for one's constructed world, and commitment to Doing It Right, is there.

I think my favorite bits, plot/character-wise, were Dominic getting his horrible claws into... I mean, talking to and more-than-halfway converting Carlyle, J.E.D.D.'s death and resurrection (OK, more like Sniper's assassination/manifesto/duel with Dominic), and the chapter actually titled Seven Surrenders.

To take the last first: Seven Surrenders (chapter) was one of the most stunningly elegant pieces of writing I've seen in a LONG time. I'd spent the whole book going (right along with the characters, mind you) "is this it??? is this the moment when the world collectively loses its last grip on sanity and gives up on the hope of peace?", but this is where it all went down. The tension here was just incredible, btw. In another excellent example of stunt writing, I should by all rights have rolled my eyes and called it quits at the...fourth? fakeout "this is it, this is how the war starts!!!", but every single one of them - O.S.'s reveal and arrest, that one city forcibly redistributing Mitsubishi land, the reveal of the rot at the heart of the CFB, just ratcheted the tension up higher. But when everything came home to roost in Seven Surrenders (chapter), it was just... wow. It did that very Ada Palmer thing where it zipped back and forth through time and various locations, and yet it was perfectly clear what had happened. It was very "competence porn but evil", the way you realized just how meticulously Madame and/or J.E.D.D. (jury's still out as to who's driving that particular plot and to what extent, btw) had sewn up all of the Hives. It took years, and it used all of the Hives' greatest strengths and values against them. Madame's conversation with Mushi Mojave was particularly enlightening and/or heart-wrenching.

As for Dominic's conversation with Carlyle, it hurts so good. I think Mycroft went out of his way to be particularly viscerally off-putting here - Carlyle vomiting and "wriggling like a half-crushed maggot", the flashback to a teenaged Dominic menstruating and his pet carnivores licking up the blood, and all that on top of the conversation itself. Of course I was hoping that Carlyle would successfully fight Dominic off, deploying his sensayer training against this particular sort of spiritual poison. But when Julia promised to give him to Dominic, she really wasn't kidding. I actually thought this was the first of the titular seven surrenders, when Carlyle agreed to stay with Dominic for a little more spiritual evisceration, rather than escape with Voltaire. This also just so happened to be an incredibly information-dense chapter - we learned that Carlyle is a Deist, that he has "fallen" (broken his oath), and that Dominic has likely done the same but doesn't want to talk about it. Interesting.

J.E.D.D.'s death and resurrection... wow. From Tully's spittle-emitting fury, to J.E.D.D.'s strange icy calm, all the way through the visceral (pun not intended) horror of J.E.D.D.'s death and the confusion of his resurrection and Bridger's horror, up to Sniper's declaration of war (or thereabouts), dramatic rooftop duel with Dominic, and flight over apparent thin air. Damn, this dude needs a John Williams soundtrack. And poor Mycroft! It actually took me a solid minute to realize that his symptoms - greyed-out vision, inability to breathe, a feeling of heaviness on the chest - weren't the physiological effects of terror and grief, nor were they the result of him overworking himself as usual; he was straight-up having a heart attack after his pacemaker shorted out. I think it says something about him, and about this world, that this is one of the *less* concerning options.

Other things, more or less as I come up with them:

What the FUCK is up with Casimir Perry/Merion Kraye? He starts up as "the Outsider" who everybody (especially Mycroft) loves to hate. Then he's delighted to be an insider in Madame's salon, and apparently enjoys watching Andō and Ganymede get it on. And then suddenly the whole thing turns into a soap opera (extremely bold of Ada Palmer to lead with "That’s not an answer, it’s a penny dreadful," btw) and he's Princesse Danaë's scorned lover, Carlyle's biological father, and also kinda the Princesse's brother's scorned lover, whom he got together with as revenge against said Princesse! And then the Princesse's brother tries to kill him! And then he reveals himself to be the mastermind behind a baroque plot to infiltrate Europe's Parliament and reveal Madame's salon to the world! And then he's *also* the mastermind behind the plot to assassinate the entire Parliament at once, himself included! Oh, and also, because things weren't complicated enough, he was also behind yet another plot to oust Spain as the European PM and is/was sleeping with the crown prince of Spain. I, just, what. XD I find it hilarious that the rest of the G7 brothel (thanks for the phrase,

cafemassolit !), who are actively engaged in recreating Enlightenment social and literary norms, which were known for their High Drama, just kind of look at this dude, nonplussed.

So it looks like the main conflict is shaping up to be, not certain Hives vs. certain other Hives, but Sniper's Hiveguard vs. J.E.D.D. Mason's Remakers. Given my druthers, I think I would be team Hiveguard if I were in the TI-verse. However wondrous J.E.D.D. is as a person (and see here Terry Pratchett in Lords and Ladies on how elves are wonderous/inspire wonder/terrific/inspire terror/etc.), the One Enlightened Despot system of government he's espousing functionally spells the end of free choice, even if some Hives survive in name only. And to me, that's the joy and the strength of the Hive system - it's flexibility, its balance between free choice and community, and most particularly the fact that it has a built-in opt-out system that strengthens, not weakens, the whole. A world governed by J.E.D.D. sounds like well-ordered, well-thought-out, stifling death.

And on the other hand... the thing is, I actually rather like, even admire, O.S. as people, and I can even respect it as a concept. They’ve consulted all the relevant data and come to the conclusion that this is the best way to preserve their society. They’ve done their best to minimize losses, and it’s true that the net effect has been a positive one. …That being said, though, “Cool Motive, Still Murder” definitely still applies, especially since O.S. appears to engender, or at least enable, people like Thisbe as much as it does Ockham, Sniper, or Eureka. But I believe them when they say that the problems facing the world are fixable within the existing framework, rather than tearing it all down and starting over.

That being said, though, I SUPER both admire and respect Ada Palmer for not taking a side, authorially speaking. Oh, *Mycroft* sure takes a side, but Mycroft is nothing if not unreliable. I love that the world of TI isn't divided neatly into Morally Infallible Heroes and Hideous Evil Monster Villains. The characters I like the most as people and those that I think are good people actually only rarely overlap - I'm fascinated by Dominic and Madame, while definitely not wanting to ever be within fifty miles of each, and the fact that I find the S-Ws, Ganymede, and even Mycroft (to a certain extent) charming and engaging doesn't mean that I'm giving them a free pass for all of the murders. Yes, even if the math checks out. Yes, even if it really wasn't that many people. Yes, even if the net global effect was a positive one.

This was the book where I firmly decided that I would be a European. I initially leaned Humanist because the Saneer-Weeksbooths seemed chill and fun (in hindsight: HAHAHAHAHAHAHA), but then I realized that my whole anti-competitive, anti-achievement-for-achievement's-sake spirit would disqualify me from the word go. Then I thought Mitsubishi, since I could do with being a member of Greenpeace. But then I found out about their whole shareholder democracy system, and realized I could never be happy like that. Cousins are a hard no, Masons are too hierarchical and rules-oriented (although R2 is the purest Ordo Vitae Dialogorum Mason I've ever seen; he and Martin would get along so well <3), and Utopians and Gordians both seem fun but I have a feeling both would exhaust me in the long run. I could always go Greylaw (or Whitelaw, maybe? I think I care about The Way Things Should Be enough), but there's this cool Hive system, why not use it? That left me with European, which, come to think of it, is actually a pretty good fit. They probably have some of the coolest archives, especially in my favorite areas of history (Napoleonic-era Europe and pre-Cromwell Ireland), and the more I think about it, the more I realize that my sense of self is very much formed by where I live. California is increasingly unaffordable (and flammable), but it's my home, and I truly don't want to live anywhere else; I think it's the most beautiful place in the whole world. (Which kinda leads to the aforementioned affordability and flammability problems, as everybody wants to live here, but, that's understandable, I guess.)

But more than that, I realized that I would happily swear fealty to Isabel Carlos II, the King of Spain. It became clear over the course of 7S that most of the world's leaders are completely batshit insane - Cornel MASON and Ganymede kind of have it baked in, Andō is going to scheme himself right off a cliff one of these days, and Kosala is hobbled by the Cousin Problem (what if I hurt somebody's feelings??? uwu). Felix Faust is at least aware that everyone is batshit insane, but he doesn't seem inclined to do much about it, and the Utopians have (apparently) checked out a long time ago. Spain, on the other hand, floored me with his quiet dignity and indefatigable decency, even when all about him was going to shit. I was absolutely ready to go to the barricades for him when he swept into what remained of the Parliamentary offices, minutes after watching his child's grisly death (along with virtually all of his colleagues') broadcasted live to billions of people, and he Kept Things Going. He remembered who had the keys to the emergency drawer. He knew who to call and what to say. He was compassionate, and respectful, and provided desperately-needed stability and direction in a world that suddenly seemed alarmingly lacking in all of those things. And, maybe most importantly, for him "stability and direction" don't mean mob rule and scapegoating. He reminds people that, if he can choose empathy and honesty in extremis, so can they. Granted, he may have all of the political self-preservation instincts of Ned Stark, but I respect the living shit out of him, and he has that Vorkosigan-like quality that allows other people to discover that they can be their best selves around him. I would be happy to follow him, because, out of all the Hive leaders, I would trust him to make good decisions for his Hive and for the world at large.

Oh, and I'm still puzzling over whether, and if so why, Apollo Mojave's coat is showing everyone in military uniforms from different eras. Madame had "the bleached white of a nurse's uniform" (which is kind of odd in itself, since I don't think there's a less nurturing, healing character in all of canon), Cornel MASON had something kind of First or Second World War-y, Ockham Saneer had some sort of futuristic battletech armor, and Mycroft himself had what sounded like contemporary (to us) camouflage.

My favorites right now, in no particular order:

Spain my beloved.
Mycroft (yes, still).
Ockham Saneer. What can I say, I'm weak for competence and fealty separately; the combination is devastating. Ada Palmer writes really good Starkly characters, okay??? (The way he surrendered, omg - now *that's* dignity.)
Bridger. Look, sometimes a family is two serial killers, God, and a handful of animated toys. I kid, I kid, but there was just something so bizarrely wholesome about Mycroft and Saladin falling asleep in each other's arms after they're reunited, Bridger coming to rescue either/both of them, Mycroft having a tender-but-serious "you've had to make some really hard grown-up decisions and you've done so well; I'm so proud of you" conversation with him, and all three of them having a good cuddle. It's also important to note that this conversation takes place while Mycroft and Saladin are locked in a cage (at Mycroft's request), their reunion involved some light cannibalism, and Bridger is equipped with Mjolnir, Hermes' sandals, a teleporter, Excalibur, and a lazer gun. Nobody sees anything weird about this at all.
Cato. Jesus fucking Christ someone give this guy a hug. T.T
Martin. My lawful good detective darling. He just wants to Do Good!!!
Papa. Papa is a delight, full stop. His Sam Vimes-like outrage at being promoted to the point where he has to, like, hobnob and make policy decisions instead of do actual police work, his clever use of gas masks during the O.S. arrest, and his detective bros routine with Martin. But also, the following conversation:

Carlyle: "I think Thisbe just tried to kill me. D:"

Papa: "That's great!!! :DDD"

Ganymede, mainly for fairly shallow reasons. I do think whichever of the Typer twins called him "flipping insane" was a bit harsh (I mean, you live with both Sniper *and* Cato. Oh, and Thisbe, too, but she's a different kind of flipping insane), but I do like him mainly for his capacity for High Drama.

Mix of "Hmmm" (intrigued) and "Hmmmmmm" (concerned and/or alarmed):

Dominic. I don't know whether I should be concerned for him, or concerned for the people around him. Maybe both? Like, he seems perfectly happy, but his life's ambitions seem to be a) protect J.E.D.D./God, b) make and/or see J.E.D.D./God cry, and c) taste His tears. I don't know if we'll ever get an answer to the question of why he's Like That (aside from "that's Madame's world for you *shrug*"), but at this point, I'm not 100% sure we need one. He's supremely competent, supremely deadly, and would probably give the Brillists a field day.
Sniper. His/their/its (I think I'm gonna stay with they/them/their for Sniper, since it/its reminds me so strongly of Murderbot and he/him is just Mycroft being Mycroft) chapter has me REAL CONCERNED about Sniper. Aside from the fact that they seems to be semi-seriously injured, and in ways that aren't entirely accounted for by the end of the book, they're...huh. It really severely squicks me out that their kink is apparently dehumanization to the point of gleefully accepting what looks an awful lot like sexual assault, but such is the power of Ada's writing that I can take a step back and see how this fits into the whole Nurturist debate - Sniper is a freely-consenting adult, and nobody is getting hurt (kind of, more or less); just because I find something uncomfortable or squicky doesn't mean it's necessarily morally wrong. And it really was quite sweet that they have apparently used their doll-like state to help their fans who aren't yet ready for a real human being to become more comfortable. By the end of the book I was much less concerned, or at least differently concerned - Sniper seems uncomfortably close to Enjolras of Les Mis fame, but WOW the chutzpah it took to assassinate God while delivering your manifesto to a worldwide audience, fight a rooftop duel with a transplant from the eighteenth century, and make their escape across (apparent) thin air, all while not-so-subtly showing off their Olympic-level pentathlon skills. Like, ya gotta respect that combination of skills and conviction.
Carlyle. I'm similarly *really* concerned about Carlyle, you guys. I found his chapter with Dominic one of the most powerful, moving, and information-dense in the whole book, but wow was it hard to read. I guess I kinda hoped that when Julia promised to "give" Carlyle to Dominic he would twig to the manipulation and resist, but this is where Dominic's whole Evil Competence Porn comes into play. It's not that he's lying, or even twisting the truth per se, but I think Julia described the style of sensaying she learned from Dominic as "flaying," and that's very much the impression I get here.
Cornel MASON. If the King of Spain is Ned Stark, Caesar is Stannis Baratheon - his strength of character and iron steadfastness have always been his best qualities, but now they're coming back around to bite him. Oh, and he's in metaphorical and literal bed with a terrifying force of oppression and destruction with really nice boobs.

Anti-favorites/"fuck you in particular":

Casimir Perry/Merion Kraye. See above for "what is UP with this dude." But more than that, I loved just how frustrated with him (and, similarly, with Anonymous' mouthpiece, Brody DeLupa) Mycroft got. Like, Mycroft hangs out with a lot of objectively powerful, brilliant, terrifying people. He fears them and/or respects them, by and large. But with Perry-Kraye and DeLupa, his attitude is so clearly "UUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHH I can't even with this idiot *facepalm*."
Joyce Faust/ Madame d'Arouet. Good lord, talk about "competence kink but evil," and add some "Brillist but evil" on for spice! Also, her name might be one of my favorite authorial choices in the whole book - "Joyce" is such a quotidian, middle-aged-white-lady-from-the-suburbs-y kind of name; Joyce should be one of my mother-in-law's jazzercize/walking buddies, not a heartless mastermind who destroys people's psyches for fun and sends the world plunging into war just to see if she can. She's so utterly devoid of anything even remotely approaching remorse or compassion - it's all been burned away to make space for more brilliance. I also think it's interesting that she apparently doesn't believe that J.E.D.D. is divine; she's certainly willing to play into it, but I'm decently sure that she thinks he's just a successful proof-of-concept, nothing more.
Julia Doria-Pamphili. EW EW EWWWWWWW. That is all.
J.E.D.D. Mason, kinda? Right now my theory is that he and Bridger are both Utopian experiments/agents provocateur; they're clearly two sides of the same coin, anyway. We know that the Utopians are the only Hive currently building and stockpiling weapons, and given the whole motif of "would you destroy this world to make a better one?" and how thoroughly destabilizing both of them are, I could see them being Utopian-created clones(? given Bridger's extremely marked likeness to Apollo Mojave, at least). TBH, I spent most of the book thinking that they were androids of some sort, even if ones engineered to grow and develop physically like a human would, but then we got some *very* explicit confirmation that J.E.D.D. is entirely organic. Eh, whatever. Point is, I don't think his intentions are deliberately malicious, but his effects certainly are. I think it was Bridger who summed him up the best - "Every word they say it feels like it’s true, but at the same time like I shouldn’t be hearing it." I mean, he managed to entirely re-write Mycroft Canner's whole-ass personality in like two sentences. His gift seems to be not quite telepathy, but the ability to see things truly, in an awful kind of way.
Tully Mardi. In an interesting inverse of the "cool motive, still murder" that definitely applies to O.S., Tully is a case of "cool trauma, still a warmongering dick." Although I did get a genuine lol out of that time he took his “Revolution! War! Murder! Death! Death! Deeeeaaaattthhhh!!!” routine to the Gordians, and was met with a politely interested silence as “the expressionless Brillists just took notes in a dozen silent formats, or whispered technical terms in breath-soft German.” Tully was very confused that his rabble-rousing was having the opposite effect - instead of arguing with him and/or rioting, they just, like, wait politely until he's done talking and then ask him searching questions about how long he's been obsessed with death. XD

Oh, and one final thing: Mycroft has been hitting the point real hard that the question we should be asking about Bridger/J.E.D.D. isn't "why me?", but "why now?" My going theory is that the Utopians have figured out wormholes/parallel dimensions, now that my cyborg theory has been pretty thoroughly torpedoed.

Oops, sorry, FINAL final thing: Bestchat (a Utopian-turned-Greylaw, a Utopian, and a Gordian, for the record, plus one beloved-but-absent Humanist) has been very kindly allowing me to excitedly keysmash at them as I work my way through TI, and should be commended for their enthusiasm and commitment to avoiding spoilers, as well as generally making it an even better experience overall. One of the things we were talking about (that started out as an IRL conversation with

hamsterwoman but then morphed into a full Bestchat discussion) was how TI fanfic must be so hard to write, because you can't just toss out Ada Palmer-quality prose any old day. We concluded that the most successful TI fanfic would be that which didn't even try to recreate AP's virtuoso writing, e.g. something deeply and flagrantly stupid. I started tossing around ideas, and came up with this:

Saladin: “Y’know, I bet if I dismembered Jehovah & hid all the pieces on separate continents, even a resurrection potion wouldn’t work.”
Dominic: “Try that and I’ll mail you one square inch of Mycroft every week for a year.”
Saladin: “Good talk! Same time next week?”
Dominic: “Wouldn’t miss it!” :D

Which morphed into:

Dominic: "Anyway, it’s been fun, but I have to go. Someone in the reformed Parliament is trying to oust Spain. Mon Maître says they’re a Buddhist; I’m gonna go make them eat meat."
Saladin: "Eh, you’re right, I should probably go too. A couple of the Mitsubishi Directors are cooking up a credible assassination plot, and Madame wants me to take care of them. Do you know what a St. John’s Cross is?"
Dominic: "Do I!" :D
Carlyle and Kosala: O.o
Carlyle: "Shouldn’t someone, um, do something about them?"
Ganymede: "My nephew is right! Dominic, Saladin, take it outside."
Carlyle: "…please stop calling me that."
Felix Faust: "Yes, Your Highness, you’re in polite company. Use his correct title. I’m terribly sorry, Marquis de Royan."
Carlyle: "aaaaaaaaaaa."

Seven Surrenders really upped the ante of Too Like the Lightning, and some of the murkier plot threads have started to come home to roost. But the best is yet to come!