Slight return

[dolorosa_12]

I'm aware I owe responses to a lot of people's comments, but realistically it's not going to happen until the weekend at this point.



However, I do have time to write a quick response to today's snowflake_challenge prompt:

In your own space, create something.

I've been enjoying the flood of creations streaming across my circle over the past day — lovely icons, fragments from fic WIPs, and in general such a burst of creativity that it makes me smile.

Work this week has hit me like a freight train, and I always find that's not particularly conducive to writing, particularly fiction, so I'm choosing to interpret this challenge slightly differently. I've spoken at various points throughout the challenge of my enjoyment of longform blogging and a wish to see more of it, so I thought I'd do my own part to make that happen.

The result is a review of Ada Palmer's book Perhaps the Stars, and the Terra Ignota series in general. As always, when it comes to reviews on my reviews blog, I'm happy for comments either here on Dreamwidth, or on the reviews blog itself.

Comments

[mific]

Ooh, interesting. I'm going to try the Terra Ignota series.

[dolorosa_12]

It's a fantastic series, so I hope you enjoy it!

[lirazel]

I haven't read the series, but you've made me excited to! :D

[dolorosa_12]

I hope you like it!

[lirazel]

I suspect that I will. I read the first couple of chapters and was like, "This is like nothing I've ever read before. I need to read it when I have time to give it my complete attention."

[dolorosa_12]

It is A Lot, I have to admit, so I agree with your decision to tackle it when you've got the right amount of time and brainspace to do so. I also recommend against reading all the books back to back, but likewise against leaving too much time between them that you forget all the myriad details necessary to make sense of the next book in the series. (I had to reread the first three before I felt ready to tackle the fourth.)

[lirazel]

Thank you for the advice!

[vriddy]

Oooh, exciting!! I have Perhaps the Stars borrowed from the library and on my bedside table right now, just need to dig in and immerse myself back into that world. I already bookmarked the post where you had your quick emotional reaction to finishing the book because I didn't want the spoilers but I want to see what you thought once I'm done too :D Nice job on writing a long review as well!

[dolorosa_12]

Oh wow, I hope you enjoy it when you get the chance to read it. Please also do feel free to come back and comment on the original 'quick emotional reaction' post, as well as the review post, once you've read the book — I'm always happy to get comments on older posts.

[vriddy]

I certainly will!! I'm not very good at long thoughtful reviews and comments but I'm sure I will be flailing around :) The world described in the first book was so fascinating and I think about it often.

I'm about 30 pages in and for now it's about trying to remember who's everyone and where we were at 😂 I'll be back in a couple of weeks!!

[chestnut_pod]

This has been on my list for a while, but I keep putting it off due to Certain Concerns, in particular around religion and land relations. Your review has not necessarily allayed those concerns, but it has made me feel secure that the series itself is not inflexible or didactic about it; rather, that it sounds like a great chance to challenge my own stances on those and other issues.

[dolorosa_12]

I think it makes sense to have those concerns (the other main one that people seem to have prior to reading the series is its handling of gender). What I would say, going in, is that within the world of the series, most people think that their way of doing religion, gender, and land relations is the best, the most enlightened, the most utopian, and the only way to avoid the wars, inequalities, and injustices of the past — but Palmer herself, and the characters within the series as it progresses, become aware of the flaws in their own thinking, and indeed of the arrogance of their unexamined assumptions around these issues. I also feel very strongly that Palmer herself shows signs in the series' concluding chapters of actually recognising that she, the author, got things wrong (due to not thinking things through completely, due to incomplete information, and so on) and that she has rethought some of the series' initial assumptions. I have no exact proof that this is what's happened, but that's what I feel is going on, reading between the lines. I don't know how much that reassures you.

(My feeling regarding religion in the series is that most characters — and indeed the author in the early books — defaulted to proselytising religions when thinking about religion, and all handling of religion both within text and without flows from that incorrect default. As to the land relations, I find it hard to think objectively about this because as an immigrant with three nationalities — one of which was imposed on me by an accident of birth and which I basically can't get rid of, even though I want to, one of which I chose had its most attractive aspects taken away by my new fellow citizens literally on the same day I received the citizenship — who had to do a lot of expensive paperwork to continue living in the place where I want to live, the idea of an identity which is based on a conscious choice to align to others who share one's values seems like such a paradise that I would endure anything to exist in such a world!)

I feel that the Terra Ignota books are going to be something that you argue with, but find intellectually interesting to argue with, if you see what I mean. I'm not sure your concerns will be allayed, and I never encourage people to persist with books (or other works of media) they find distasteful, given it's meant to be reading for pleasure, but I think there will be enough there for you to know after the first book if it's worth continuing.

[chestnut_pod]

Thank you for such a thoughtful and measured response. I definitely agree with you regarding your prediction of intellectual engagement and disagreement — and I also feel assured that it will be a fruitful kind of both those things!

[hamsterwoman]

I greatly enjoyed your Terra Ignota review, and am going to need to remember to bookmark it to point people who might be interested to it, because my own write-ups of this series, while copious, are really not very useful to people who haven't read the books, between spoilers and general incomprehensibility.

[dolorosa_12]

It's such a hard series to write about in a way that conveys all that it is — and I think that's one reason why I've been putting off writing a review until this point. I'm glad you feel that my review will work as a useful primer to those unfamiliar with the books.

[senmut]

Sorry life is so busy!

[dolorosa_12]

It's always like this during term time at the university where I work. Thankfully terms are fairly short, so I know that it will be really intense and exhausting for a few weeks, and then calm down during the holidays.