The Will to Battle (Palmer)

So I read The Will to Battle, the third Terra Ignota book, on the way to and from IL on this last trip. I continue to be more and more impressed with these books as they go on -- I think they may be an acquired taste to a certain extent, and also it was hard to appreciate what Palmer is trying to do in the depth of, say, only one book (which is really itself only half a book). That being said, there was a part in the middle where I had the thought that I really wanted to read this and knew I would like it, but at the same time I also rather wished I had already read it and was looking back at all the things I'd found out. (I don't remember ever thinking this about a book before.) By the time I was at the end, I had forgotten all those thoughts -- there was certainly a lot of action at the end.

Interestingly, I don't think I liked many characters in this book, but I didn't even think about that until the end -- I think Mycroft has grown on me a lot (as I was told might happen!) which helped a lot, but more importantly this is the kind of book where the worldbuilding (which I did like a lot!) is basically the most important character.

Various random and spoilery thoughts:( Read more... )

More random thinking about Hives: Gordian continues to be the Hive I feel I have the most natural affinity for, by far (it was also the one I ended up with when I took the Hive quiz after reading book 2). Faust was my fave in this book (the bit where they tell Carlyle to look at 48 pictures of subjects eating bananas made me laugh out loud), and I think I'd get along better with them than with most people in this book (while other people I know, like my sister, would find them entirely irritating). Utopia continues to be the Hive I'm most intrigued by (and, like, I sort of wish I were the kind of person that could sacrifice complacency, but I'm definitely not) and I still want to know what their deal is! (I'll be reading the fourth book soon...) It also occurred to me that if I had to sort my actual real-life self, I would probably be in the Cousins Hive, not least (though not wholly) because my church is... in very many ways basically a big ol' Cousins Hive, and it's the biggest RL source of community and (voluntary non-work) responsibility that I have.

I've got the fourth book on hold from the library and probably will dive right into it as soon as it gets here!