The Will to Battle (Terra Ignota Series #3)

by Ada Palmer Narrated by T. Ryder Smith

Overview

The third book of Terra Ignota, a political SF epic of extraordinary audacity In a future of near-instantaneous global travel and abundant provision for the needs of all, a future in which no one living can remember an actual war-war has finally come. This is book 3 of the 4-volume SF epic Terra Ignota.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

11/06/2017
The third installment in Palmer’s Terra Ignota political science fiction epic builds upon the complexities introduced in Too Like the Lightning and Seven Surrenders. Criminal mastermind Mycroft Canner recounts the slow decline of a 25th-century utopia where class, language, and family are rendered obsolete, and war is virtually unknown. The fate of this seemingly progressive world hangs upon old alliances and friendships. As Mycroft plays with allegiance to several different masters, readers are further plunged into the intrigue. Palmer’s writing is decidedly difficult; upon a second and third reading, however, one appreciates the wry humor and the ingenious depth of her worldbuilding. The interplay between reader and narrator is especially enjoyable, calling into question reliability and truth. Growing accustomed to this future world and Mycroft’s description of it takes time, but the payoff is rewarding. (Dec.)

From the Publisher

Praise for Book 3 of Terra Ignota, The Will to Battle

"It is increasingly clear that we are in the hands of a new master of the genre....There's a resonance and richness to the Terra Ignota series that is like almost nothing else being written today." —RT Book Reviews, 5 stars

"Innovative, mesmerizing and full of fun. Ada Palmer lets her imagination weave a truly great political science story in an imagined world – full of lessons from real-world history." —Washington Book Review

"One appreciates the wry humor and the ingenious depth of her worldbuilding. The interplay between reader and narrator is especially enjoyable." —Publishers Weekly

"Any reader who has ever thrilled to the intricate machinations of the Dune books, or the Instrumentality tales of Cordwainer Smith, or the sensual, tactile, lived-in futures of Delany or M. John Harrison... will enjoy the mental and emotional workout offered by Palmer’s challenging Terra Ignota cycle." —Locus

"This series is one the best things that has happened to science fiction in the 21st Century and I can’t hardly wait to see where Ada Palmer is going to take us with Perhaps the Stars." —SffWorld


Praise for Book 2 of Terra Ignota, Seven Surrenders

“A breathless and devious intellectual page-turner, Seven Surrenders veers expertly between love, murder, mayhem, parenthood, theology, and high politics. I haven't had this much fun with a book in a long time.” —Max Gladstone

"Wonderful 18th-century style narrative voice....a richly and highly sophisticated novel that calls for repeated re-readings." —SFRevu

"The eloquence of Palmer's reflections on social issues cannot be denied." —Library Journal, starred review

"Palmer crafts one of the most compelling narrative voices around in describing this impossible, fascinating and plausibly contradictory world." —RT Book Reviews, 4-1/2 stars

“Devastatingly accomplished…An arch and playful narrative that combines the conscious irreverence of the best of 18th-century philosophy with the high-octane heat of an epic science fiction thriller.” —Liz Bourke

“Palmer proves that the boundaries of science fiction can be pushed and the history and the future can be married together.” —Publishers Weekly

Praise for Book 1 of Terra Ignota, Too Like the Lightning

“Bold, furiously inventive, and mesmerizing…It’s the best science fiction novel I've read in a long while.” —Robert Charles Wilson

“More intricate, more plausible, more significant than any debut I can recall…If you read a debut novel this year, make it Too Like the Lightning.” —Cory Doctorow

“Astonishingly dense, accomplished and well-realized, with a future that feels real in both its strangeness and its familiarity.”—RT Book Reviews (Top Pick)

"The Terra Ignota books are is the kind of science fiction that makes me excited all over again about what science fiction can do.” —Jo Walton

“Excellent.” —Craig Newmark

Library Journal

12/01/2017
Once utopian inspirations for the world, the nations known as the Hives are beginning to crumble as their dark secret is revealed: rulers kept the peace for centuries through secret murders, mathematically planned, to make sure the powerful factions remained in check and the universe in balance. But when there has not been a war in more than 300 years, how will such a conflict even start? Mycroft Canner, having already recorded the historical events that led to this moment, must find a way to document the looming crisis as nations choose sides, shore up their defenses, and deal with leaders who will try to shape the war to come. Perceptive insights into the minds of the novel's many characters propel the story from start to finish. VERDICT Palmer's penultimate series title (after Seven Surrenders) raises provocative questions about the nature of peace and corrupting influences that will appeal to readers who appreciate political sf.—KC

Kirkus Reviews

2017-11-14
A stagnant, complacent Earth faces war in the 25th century in the third of an ongoing science-fantasy series (Seven Surrenders, 2017, etc.).The world, now ruled by Hives affiliated with philosophical viewpoints instead of geographic nations, has had 300 years of peace, now coming to an end. Anger rises over various revelations that peace was maintained by corruption, secret assassinations, and government manipulation. The data suggest that war is coming, but no one seems sure precisely what the sides will be and what they will fight about. All the issues eventually coalesce around J.E.D.D. Mason, the young man who plays a major role in all the Hive governments and who has proclaimed himself a god from another universe, incarnated in human form as a Conversation with this universe's Creator. There is something curiously compelling about Palmer's narrative, but its success depends on whether the reader believes in this world of technological marvels that is purportedly our own but which also features two gods and a resurrected Achilles created from a toy soldier. It's clear that the Hive system isn't working, but should the only alternative be an autocracy directed by a supposedly kind and benevolent alien god whose two closest companions are a cannibalistic murderer and a sadistic serial kidnapper? The cannibalistic murderer is our narrator, the brilliant, brutal, and extremely broken Mycroft Canner, who in this volume is showing signs of extreme mental deterioration. What initially appears to be a literary device—Mycroft's intense conversations with an imagined audience which includes a future reader of the book; the philosopher Hobbes; and Apollo Mojave, one of his murder victims—actually signals a growing madness that apparently no one is bothering to treat except in the most minimal way. Appreciating the book depends on whether one is willing to spend extended time in Mycroft's pompous, servile, and erratic company. Some might also find Mycroft's beliefs about gender in what is purportedly but not convincingly a gender-neutral society somewhat offensive.Still intriguing and worth pursuing, but the strain may be beginning to show.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940170472789
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	12/19/2017
Series:	Terra Ignota Series , #3
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	986,751

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

We the Alphabet

Written July 6, 2454 At Alexandria

Hubris it is, reader, to call one's self the most anything in history: the most powerful, the most mistreated, the most alone. Experience, and the Greek blood within my veins, teach me to fear hubris above all sins, yet, as I introduce myself again here, I cannot help but describe myself as the most undeservedly blessed man who ever lived. I, who once moved act by act through the catalogue of sins, I, cannibal, torturer, traitor, parricide, who at seventeen gave myself over to deserved execution, I, Mycroft Canner find myself at thirty-one alive, healthy, with far more liberty than I deserve, making full use of my skills in the service of not one, but several worthy masters, and even permitted to sleep at night in the arms of he whose embrace will always be the one place in this universe where I most belong, while he too lies in his proper place, on the floor outside his mistress's bedchamber.

War has not yet come, but the waters have withdrawn to form the tidal wave, leaving the beaches and their secrets bare. Hobbes tells us that war consists not in Battle only, but in that tract of time wherein the Will to Battle is so manifest that, scenting bloodlust in his fellows and himself, Man can no longer trust civilization's pledge to keep the peace. If so, we are at war. We have been these four months, since Ockham's arrest and Sniper's bullet revealed too much truth for trust to stay. But we do not know how to turn the Will to Battle into Battle. We have enjoyed three hundred years of peace, World Peace, real peace, whatever the detractors say. This generation has never met a man who met a man who marched onto a battlefield. Governments have no armies anymore, no arms. A man may kill another with a gun, a sword, a sharpened stone, but the human race no longer remembers how to turn a child of eighteen into a soldier, organize riot into battle lines, or dehumanize an enemy enough to make the killing bearable.

We will learn fast. Man is still a violent beast; I proved that thirteen years ago when the swathe of atrocities I scarred across the public consciousness stirred the world to scream in one voice for my blood. We will make war, but no one wants to light the first match when we do not know how fast the fuel may burn. Three hundred years ago humanity had weapons enough to exterminate ourselves a hundred times over. Now the technology that birthed those weapons is so outdated that children who split the atom for a science fair are labeled antiquarians. We have no newer weapons, but no one doubts that, with a month's cunning, the technologies that cook our food and slow our aging will birth horrors beyond imagining. If we survive, the wreckage of posterity will want to know how. It is for curious posterity, then, that I am now commanded to keep this chronicle.

I have done this work before. A week ago my masters presented to the world my little history of those Days of Transformation, now four months past, which left us on war's threshold. They tell me that the history has done what they had hoped: shared much of the truth, without pushing us farther toward the brink. My great merit as an historian is that I am known to be insane. No court or council can trust my testimony, and each reader may pick and choose what to believe, dismissing anything too unsettling as lunacy. I gave the public what it wanted of the truth, no more, leaving the pundits and propagandists free to shape opinion into faction, and faction into sides and enemies.

This chronicle is different. My first history was written to be shared and used, now, by my masters. This chronicle cannot be shared, not while these secrets are still War Secrets. The powers that bid me record their doings week by week will not even let each other read the transcript. I alone enjoy this strange trust from the many leaders of what will soon be warring states. I hear the inner whispers of palace and boudoir, whispers which will shape armies, yet which history will never hear unless someone records them. It is this human underbelly of the war my masters bid me chronicle, not for the public, nor even for themselves, but so a record will survive, and with it some apology, as Plato's apology preserves lost Socrates. We will lose them all in this, I fear: the wise and iron Emperor, patriot Sniper, subtle Madame. We have already lost the best. There lies my chief regret, reader. Since you cannot trust a madman's word, I cannot persuade you of the one fact which is true comfort to me, even as I grieve. He was real: Bridger. There was a boy who walked this Earth who was a miracle. I held him in my arms. The Divine Light within his touch brought toys to life, made feasts of mud pies, raised the dead, and through him the God Who Conceived This Universe, Who usually sits back invisible, revealed Himself. I wish you could believe me. There is Providence, reader, an inscrutable but intelligent Will which marched us with purpose from the primeval oceans to these battle lines. That is how I know you will be alive to read this. He Who put such effort into mankind will not let us end here. No, I lie. I do not know with certainty that He still needs us. Those fatalists, who have long preached that all things, from the insect's flutter to these words you read, are fated, determined, written up yonder in the Great Scroll, never considered that that Scroll might have an Addressee. There are two Gods, reader, at least, He Who Conceived This Universe, and He Who Visits from Another, just as Infinite and just as Real. We humans are the letters of a message our Creator wrote to make first contact with His Divine Peer. Now that the letter has been received, it may be crumpled and discarded, or set aside as keepsake in a coffin-stale drawer. We the alphabet may pray only that Their new friendship will continue to rely on words. If so, we will survive.

CHAPTER 2

Human Dignity

Written July 7–8, 2454 Events of April 8 Almoloya de Juáres

"I, Vivien Ancelet, hereby undertake upon my human dignity that I will execute with faith and vigor the office of President of the Humanist Hive."

Imagine hearing these words, not in the flesh, not in Buenos Aires, where you strain on tiptoe to glimpse the podium over the ocean of excited heads, nor even on live video, the new president's bold image electric in your lenses. Instead you see him on a crass screen, barely a hand's span square and pixelated by technology's incompetence, replayed from a recording, so you do not share this moment with your billion brethren, but receive it only as tardy proof that the world outside these prison walls sails on without you.

"I swear to obey and preserve the Constitution and the Laws of the Humanist Hive," the oath continues, "to sustain the Hive's integrity and independence, and to promote all that will advance it and oppose all that may harm it. I will foster the Pursuit of Excellence of all Humanists, safeguard their rights and freedoms, and safeguard too the Olympic Games, the Olympic Spirit, and all who carry it. To these ends I will employ all the means ..." — the new president's voice wavers here, since he — like you, reader — has only recently discovered that "all the means" of the Humanist Hive has so long meant O.S. —" ... all the means which the current Constitution of the Humanists places at my disposal, and when the disposition of the vote changes that Constitution, I will serve its new form with equal vigor. I will faithfully discharge these duties without bias or regard to any previous or current personal affiliation with any other Hive, strat, team, or other institution. I further swear to support the principles and reforms of Thomas Carlyle, and to maintain the Carlyle Compromise and all other treaties that continue to serve and safeguard Humanist welfare. I swear to preserve in secret the knowledge granted by my office which must be kept ... kept secret." He almost didn't stumble. "Should I at any time break this oath of office, or in any way betray the Members' trust, I shall submit myself to punishment by the laws of the Hive. This is my solemn oath.

"I wish to add," Vivien Ancelet's voice sounds suddenly more human here, a man's words, not a recitation, "separate from this formal oath of office, my own personal pledge to my now-fellow Humanists that my past offices, and the allegiances associated with them, will not interfere with my exercise of this one. I am no longer Hiveless. I am no longer Censor. I am no longer an officer of Romanova. I am sincere in my pledge to uphold Humanist interests, even above those of the Carlyle Compromise and the Universal Free Alliance if need be. I am also no longer the Anonymous. My commentary will, from this point on, always be biased in favor and service of the Hive that I have joined. I am a Humanist, and speak as one — although not yet in Spanish," he added with a sheepish tone, "for which I apologize, but it is better, I think, for the whole world to hear and understand this, not just our Members. There is a new Censor now, and a new Anonymous, and both are worthy of those offices. I trust them completely to fulfill their duties as well as I or anyone could. I hope you will trust them too, as much as you trusted me, before I was called to give up those offices for this one."

The screen went dark. Tears welled in me, but practice did not let them fall. If one man in this world had deserved to see the oath live, to have been present when his allegiance shifted to a new commander in chief, that man was Ockham Saneer. Instead we watched it here, nineteen hours after the inauguration, and Ockham could not even stand to hear the words, since fetters and prison custom bound him to his chair. He did not even have his boots, just the jail uniform, slack navy and orange mockingly festive, like a child's shapeless attempt to wrap a birthday gift. Ockham did not weep at his own state, but I saw him flinch, one taut twitch of his cheek, grief's only token upon that bronze-strong Indian face, which always reminds me which people, alone among antiquity's war-ready thousands, halted Alexander.

"Complete voter turnout take four hours, seventeen minutes." These words at least were live, spoken in warm (if imperfect) Spanish by President Ancelet, who sat across from Ockham in the sterile interrogation room.

Ockham smiled at the speed with which his billion fellow Members had done their democratic duty.

"¿Want to see the interimo vice president to swear cérémonia of Sawyer Dongala?" Ancelet offered, his well-meaning infant Spanish dappled with stray French and English. "After me, the biggest vote numbers are for Sniper, expresident Ganymede, you, your éspoux Lesley, J.E.D.D. Mason, and Sawyer Dongala, so Dongala agrees to be vice president while we hold whether any these other is eligible in the circonstances. A second urgency vote confirmed Dongala."

Ockham's throat cracked, stiff from the ten cautious days since his arrest, during which he had spoken nothing but guarded monosyllables and "toilet." "I ac — khh — acknowledge that you have been lawfully elected President of the Humanist Hive, and that you now hold all the authority to question and command to which that office entitles you."

The warmth in the new president's smile sharpened at once to action. "¿Who ordered Sniper to attack contre J.E.D.D. Mason?" he asked, with the sharp speed of a man who had never doubted that Ockham's silence, which had not broken for all the threats and enticements the law could offer, would break for him. "¿Who else to know?"

"English is alright with me if it's easier for you, Member President," Ockham invited gently, switching over. "No one else knew, to my knowledge. Oji-jiro acted alone." He tripped over Sniper's rarely voiced first name. "The bash' was entirely out of contact with President Ganymede at that point, and even Lesley and I knew nothing of Ojiro's plans."

Ancelet nodded his thanks for Ockham's linguistic courtesy. "Then Sniper did act alone." His shoulders eased. "Tell me about O.S."

"On or off the record, Member President?"

"Off, for now. We'll need a public statement soon, but first I myself need to understand."

That answer pleased Ockham, if I read him right. "Why is Mycroft here?" he asked.

Ancelet followed Ockham's gaze to where I sat on a metal bench in the corner, hugging my knees and trying to ignore the prison wraiths which clawed at my limbs and shoulders. I cannot tell you whether these wraiths are the ghosts of past prisoners, or simply spirits of the jealous walls, which recognize in me another criminal who should be theirs to claim. I try to tell myself there are no prison wraiths. This was not even a real prison, just a jail, a fleeting holding place for those awaiting trial, which should never have held anyone long enough to birth a bitter ghost. Still, here, as in every prison whose threshold I have crossed since my crimes, I saw the wraiths, heard them, felt their tendrils, real as the cloth across my skin.

"I'm not allowed anywhere without a bodyguard anymore," the new president answered. "I thought you'd prefer someone we both know and trust."

Ockham frowned at me. "Is that the only reason?"

"No. You may or may not be aware, but I've relied on Mycroft a long time, not just as Censor but in my ... secret office. Mycroft is my assistant, advisor, apprentice. My successor."

"The new Anonymous? I did not know." There was no surprise in Ockham's gaze, just digestion, fact catalogued without comment. "Thanks to voter preference, the office of Anonymous may have frequent association with our Vice Presidency, but it is not a Humanist office, nor is Mycroft a Humanist. How do you justify granting the new Anonymous access to the secrets of O.S. given your declaration that you have severed all allegiance to your former offices?"

Ancelet frowned. "It's my understanding that Mycroft has known of your work and kept your secrets for many years now. It's not new information for them."

"Mycroft has had no details," Ockham answered, "merely the vague knowledge that we were homicides. In the past we secured Mycroft's silence through two threats: the threat of exposing to the public the fact that Mycroft is a Servicer, and the threat of denying them access to Thisbe. Mycroft and Thisbe are lovers," he added. "But at this point the public knows the former and I assume Thisbe is either in custody or missing, so the latter threat is also meaningless."

"In fact, Member Ockham," I added in quiet Spanish, my voice stirring the prison wraiths to hiss, "Thisbe and I were never actually lovers. But you can trust me with this. That Authority Which, for me, supersedes all has ordered me to tell no one, not even Them, anything I learn here without permission from both yourself and President Ancelet. You may not know What Authority I mean, but I think you do know that you and I both hold equally absolute the command of those authorities we answer to."

"J.E.D.D. Mason?" Ockham guessed at once.

I could tell from his face that mine betrayed me. My allegiance was not yet public knowledge then, and I had expected Thisbe to keep this revelation private, one more secret to make her spellbook dangerous. Apparently not.

"Mycroft is assembling a history of the past week," Ancelet interceded, "at J.E.D.D. Mason's order. The book is supposed to explain events as neutrally as possible, and to include as much truth as Mycroft can piece together. No one but Mycroft will have access to the interviews and research materials, and everyone involved, including you, will have equal and complete veto power over every single line. I personally will not green-light its publication until you have told me that you are satisfied."

"A history." Ockham stretched back in his seat as the idea sank in. "Why?"

"J.E.D.D. Mason likes the truth," Ancelet and I answered in unplanned unison.

Ancelet laughed, his dreadlocks falling back across his shoulders like willow whips in breeze. I was glad to see he could still laugh. "That really is the idea behind it," he explained. "J.E.D.D. Mason wants the human race to have the truth. Most everyone else, including me, wants some controlled version of the truth out there, since you know there will be many pointed lies, most pointed against us. We must fight them with something. If you prefer, Ockham, I will send Mycroft away and summon a Humanist bodyguard, but you or I or both will wind up repeating all this information to Mycroft later on, and, since I'm new to having Humanist guards, there are none yet that I trust as much as I trust Mycroft"— he paused —"or you."

"Prospero." The name sounded dead on Ockham's lips.

"What?"

"Prospero. My name, my middle name, is Prospero. I am no longer O.S., so I should not be addressed as Ockham."

It hurt hearing him say it, as it would hurt hearing a deposed king say he no longer merits "Majesty."

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Will To Battle"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Ada Palmer.
Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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