With 15 pages to go in this novel I really had no idea how it would end. And not because it didn’t have a clear end, I just honestly had no idea what it was. Exordia by Seth Dickinson, was an amazing read. 

This is not the first book by Dickinson that I’ve reviewed here, you may remember I praised The Traitor Cormorant Baru in 2020, in which I also mentioned that I had no idea what was going to happen, which I consider to be one of the highest forms of praise I can give a book, to be honest. Originality is one thing, but keeping me guessing is something next order.

This story centers Anna Sinjari, a Kurdish war orphan, now a completely dysfunctional adult, as an alien arrives in her life. The alien, Ssrin, and Anna, and a cast of characters that span the globe, will engage in a battle that will stretch the boundaries of how much cruelty and pain you can imagine, much less call “entertainment.” CW: VERY, EXCESSIVE violence, including, but not limited to genocide and other heinous shit humans do and loads of just really gross stuff. And yet, it was entertaining. It was an extraordinary book that I can tell you absolutely nothing about. It took me 5 minutes to write the last two sentences and I edited them…a lot. An adjectival clause is missing that, while wholly relevant, had to go. Not because I don’t want to tell you what happened…because I really want to. So please, just go read it, so we can talk about it!

I will tell you that the book is wholly relevant for Okazu. Chaya Panaguiton a mathematician and a lesbian, survives the whole book. I can tell you nothing else. In part because to write this, Dickinson creates new words and concepts and delves way more deeply into mathematics and a number of sciences than I have an even passing familiarity with. Mind-bogglingly, Dickinson notes that this book was written as something “light” in between two of the Coromant Baru books. If this sis what he considers light (this is me fugueing for about 5 minutes thinking about that, given /everything that happens/) then one can hardly imagine what he considers heavy.

I’m too well aware that this review isn’t making this book sound good, but it is. It will stretch your brain and make new crinkles in it. It is also funny. Laugh out loud “hahah” funny in the most inappropriate of times as humans are wont to be. (Edited: another sentence that would have given anything away, even if vagueposting.)

As with the Cormorant Baru series, you initially stay for the characters, then when the shit goes down you need to stay to see who steps out of the smoke when…if…it clears. 

For top-notch writing, a “non-stop action” story that really doesn’t not stop from a brilliant mind…and somehow the lesbian survives, I’m adding Dickinson to my list of writers who put their characters through it, but love the lesbians along with Fukami Makoto. So far, that’s the list. Maybe also Tamsyn Muir. 

Ratings: 

Overall – 10

Many thanks to Editor Ed for this book! I loved it and hope that some of you will too.