Genres: Queer Protagonists, Sci Fi
Representation: Kurdish MCs, bisexual Black-Hispanic MC, sapphic Black-Filipino MC, magor Chinese sapphic character, pre-F/F
PoV: Third-person, present-tense; multiple PoVs
Published on: 23rd January 2024
ISBN: 1250233003
Goodreads
Award-winning author Seth Dickinson explodes into a new genre with this new standalone novel, a science fiction debut.
“Anna, I came to Earth tracking a very old story, a story that goes back to the dawn of time. it’s very unlikely that you’ll die right now. It wouldn’t be narratively complete.”
Anna Sinjari—refugee, survivor of genocide, disaffected office worker—has a close encounter that reveals universe-threatening stakes. While humanity reels from disaster, she must join a small team of civilians, soldiers, and scientists to investigate a mysterious broadcast and unknowable horror. If they can manage to face their own demons, they just might save the world.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Highlights
~souls + science
~add narrative to the list of universal forces
~an evil space empire
~I ship the snake-alien and the war-orphan
~how hard would you fight for your world?
I CANNOT EVEN.
WHAT.
WHAT.
WHAT.
I really had no idea what to expect of Exordia – I adore Dickinson’s Masquerade series, so obviously I was interested to see what he’d do with sci fi.
But THIS!!! There’s not knowing what to expect – and then there’s getting hit with THIS, this LSD-cocaine combo with medusa-aliens and sapphic science geniuses and honest-to-gods paladins (that’s a pun, and you’ll get it when you read the book), all racing to save the world and the galaxy and the souls of an entire species. (Maybe the souls of more than one species.) Exordia is a high-octane religious experience, a blockbuster of an action-movie that is achingly profound, with alien weaponry that shreds souls and the secrets of the universe hidden in pink noise, a tenderly merciless dissection of humanity and morality that still manages to make you giggle-snort at the most inappropriate moments. Dickinson plays the threads of the reader’s nerve-endings like a modern bard on the strings of an electric harp, and the result is a rock-n-roll-meets-death-metal concert of a story, complete with pyrotechnics and enough heart to have you screaming your throat raw.
What will she say to the alien? She has not planned that far. “Take us so your leader”? No, the alien’s supposed to use that one. “We come in peace” has the same problem, and would, anyway, be a lie. Anna has no peace to offer. “Invade us, I beg you.” At least this would resolve the problem of her Argentina-sized debt.
You sure as hell won’t know who the fuck to cheer for, but you can’t help loving every character at least a little bit. (Except Iruvage, that fucker.) And they might all be queer??? Dickinson is definitely doing something with queerness that I’m not smart enough to articulate – check out the review I linked for a better breakdown on that. (And honestly, a better breakdown of the whole book, really!)
And yeah, parts of Exordia go heavy on the physics, but if I, who slept through my entire last year of physics classes when I was 16, can make it, so can you!
Oh, and this is another excellent review that says it all so much better than I can, please read it too! Whether you need more convincing or not.
Push comes to shove, I feel like the only thing I can say is – just dive in, head first. Make sure you have water bottles ready to keep yourself hydrated, because once you pick this up, you will be GLUED to the pages. Things like eating and sleeping will become so much less important than what happens next. This is the sort of book you inhale and it has left me with such a book-hangover, I don’t know how I can possibly read anything else again after this. What can compare???
My first six-star read of the year, easy. And it comes out this Tuesday!
BRACE FOR IMPACT, IT’S GOING TO BE MOST EXCELLENT!
Triggers??? View Spoiler »
Dickinson is an instant-buy author for me. I love everything he touches. I’m excited!
I’m seriously starting to think he can do no wrong!