Exordia
Ratings8
Average rating3.6
Michael Crichton meets Marvel’s Venom in award-winning author Seth Dickinson’s science fiction debut
"Agonizing and mesmerizing, a devastating and extraordinary achievement."—The New York Times
“Magnificent. . . . A science fiction action juggernaut.”—Tamsyn Muir
“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. Enter Ssrin, a many-headed serpent alien who is on the run from her own past. Ssrin and Anna are inexorably, dangerously drawn to each other, and their contact reveals universe-threatening stakes.
While humanity reels from disaster, Anna 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.
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So... It feels kind of like my brain has been hit by a truck. What did I just read? More than anything I love that I had absolutely no idea where this would take me.
The opening act of Exordia is extraordinary. It's witty, engaging, and sets up a super intriguing first contact alien scenario. What follows that cracking start is a dense, technobabble bonanza that prioritizes impenetrable science abstractions over story and character.
It's frustrating because I'm fairly certain Seth Dickinson is brilliant. But he's so brilliant that most of what he was writing about went well over my head. Or maybe I've just outed myself as an unlearned, poorly-read student of science fiction literature – but that's for me to grapple with.
I wish I had put this down and chalked it up as one of the many books that are “just not for me,” but the promise of that opening section left me hopeful that the story would eventually sink its teeth back into me. I lost the plot and never got it back as Dickinson dove deeper and deeper down a cosmological rabbit hole that I just could not follow (literally, figuratively, metaphysically).
There will be a bloc of readers who love Exordia, and I wish I could count myself among their numbers. But consider me among the lesser mortals who could not connect with the frequency at which Dickinson is operating here.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
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