Those are hefty questions and "Exordia", as @ergative's great review* points out, provides no easy answers - which is a strength, because there are none.

There sure is a lot in this novel - and it's really fast-paced too, so it's a very wild ride through both physics and metaphysics. It surely was worth putting up with the horror elements for me!

Even though I'd say that the sheer number of nukes exploding might be overkill.

*http://www.nerds-feather.com/2023/12/review-exordia-by-seth-dickinson.html

(4/n, n=4)

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... decontamination, pressure suits, and a lot of body horror.

As well as very well-researched speculation about pink noise generation in the early universe and the fractal nature of it.

And there's the ethical musings that are, in a way, at the heart of it: what do we do in trolley problem scenarios? What do we do as little kids at gunpoint, as grown-ups coerced by aliens, as government agents, as the one speaking for humanity? Pull the lever? Refuse? Redesign?

(3/n)

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... redemption - Anna's story, and mirroring it, alien Ssrin's; a story about war crimes in Iraq, both Anna's small-scale ones and the far bigger ones of the American government, personified by the other protagonists, Erik and Clayton.

He also tells the story friendships dear and broken by crimes, and a tender love story between two female scientists.

But there's also the outbreak-style investigation of an alien artifact that infects people, complete with...

(2/n)

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I can't get over the acknowledgements: "This was supposed to be a fun book between installments of the Baru Cormorant series."

If that's Dickinson's idea of fun, one kind of wants to make him tea and ask if he's okay, just because the sheer number of nukes in this book is mind-boggling.

This book is a lot, even fun at times, but "a fun book" it's surely not.

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In addition, there's so much to compare it to, to work out differences and similarities.

"Level Five" and what it means that the threat is from aliens, not AIs.

"Terra Ignota" with its "destroy the world to save a better one" and wish list trolley problems.

"Machineries of Empire" and narrative as a force like gravity.

"Blindsight" and the neurological horror elements.

"Schild's Ladder" and the existence of regions with different physical laws.

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I finished it, but I don't feel I can review it yet, just write a couple of essays maybe. It's SO MUCH.

The physics and the cosmology! The religious themes! The ethics! The thoughts on narrative! The racial and ethnic dynamics! The political commentary!

It sure is a lot.

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The racial and gender dynamics kind of bug me. Erik, who's "super white", is the lawful good one, the one with uncompromising morals. Clayton, who's Black, is the one essentially doing the alien's bidding against his will.

And both Anna and Rosamaria, who are read as PoC, and who are women, are the down-to-earth voices of reason to their lofty philosophy.

The secondary characters are better, but the Erik-Clayton-Rosamaria triangle in particular doesn't sit well with me.

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"All the greatest khai art asks whether it is good to exist, when existence is followed by eternal suffering."

A very good question to ponder alongside "when it's all over with death" and "when you have a far better afterlife waiting".

But in the end, it doesn't seem to matter that much, does it. Making existence worthwhile always is an individual endeavor.

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