Katie's Reviews > Exordia

Seth Dickinson you marvelous marvelous man. I went into Exordia having barely read the (extremely vague) summary, but putting full faith in one of my favorite authors to take me on a journey, and he damn well did. Exordia has already marked itself as a contender for ‘Top Books of 2024’ and the year has barely begun.

First off, this book is NOT a standalone. I thought so too. Now onto the review.

Exordia, broadly speaking, is the story of humanity’s last hope against an imminent hostile alien invasion. Through the eyes of characters from extremely different backgrounds and upbringings, we follow the events of a few tense days as military groups from around the world race against the clock to prevent an alien agent from acquiring a mysterious super weapon that would spell humanity’s demise, while ever-present and extremely real threat of nuclear bombardment looms in the background. If this sounds vague to you, that’s okay! The overarching plot is surprisingly simple, but the magic of this book is in the details.

What will make or break this book for most readers will be the writing. The opening chapters are about a girl and her eight-headed snake monster alien gf and the joys of finally having enough money to shop at Trader Joe’s. In an utter tonal-whiplash, the rest of the book is this incredibly dense, at times slow-paced, non-linear military sci-fi novel that goes deep into concepts from pure math and quantum physics to shape both alien technology and philosophies of morality. Dickinson uses technical terms and mathematical concepts to describe his world the way another author would use the sights and smells to describe a food market. The prose is unafraid to make the reader think and trusts that you can, slowly, put two and two together. If you liked The Three-Body Problem, you will love this book (and vice versa).

While I can’t speak to the full accuracy of physics and mathematical concepts used, as a roboticist I can say that the one time a quadrotor was used, Dickinson did slightly miss the mark (no one says ‘PID software’ lol). However, I will forgive that transgression on behalf of the beautifully placed Lie (pronounced ‘lee’, not ‘lai’) Group pun.

As expected from the author of Baru Cormorant, there is an incredible depth Dickinson has given these characters. There are certain books you read where the main cast has been constructed in a way that feels so extraordinarily human and Exordia is certainly one of them. The majority of this story is set in modern(ish)-day Kurdistan (Hannibal season 2 hasn’t aired yet, apparently), and given the story’s military nature, the backgrounds of the cast reflect this decision. Through these characters, Dickinson openly interrogates themes of colonialism, morality, genocide, and the US military-industrial complex and its actions in the Middle East during the Bush administration through the inner monologues and actions of these characters. I think anyone reading this will have their own ideas and moral framework challenged, in a way that’s thoughtful and nuanced. I loved the occasional usage of untranslated Chinese for the Chinese characters, as well as the well-placed Chinese slang. 10/10 usage of ‘tongzhi’.

What really made me fall in love with these characters is the underlying current of Queerness running through each of the POV cast that color their characters. Anna with Ssrin (said eight-headed snake monster alien gf), Aixue and Chaya’s growing connections, whatever Clayton’s borderline-homoerotic constant desperation for Erik’s approval despite their long and tempestuous history of betrayal against each other. Even Erik, who swears up and down his heterosexuality, has some slowly unraveling Extremely Unexamined dependencies wrapped in military comradery with Erik. (Can you tell who my favorites were?) Objectively, each one of these characters are terrible people (although some more than most), but have shaped a moral framework to justify their actions and future goals in a way that makes their interactions so messy and fascinating to read.

Despite its length (over 210k!), Dickinson manages to develop and keep such incredible tension throughout the entire story. There are times, especially during the beginning when no one knows what the hell is going on, that feels like a borderline horror story, with unknown horrors awaiting at every turn. I genuinely felt that at any moment, the entire cast could get wiped out, game over, GG. And yet, I found myself laughing an inappropriate amount, given the story unfolding. There is some incredible dark humor from the Jaded Military Types^TM, situational irony with certain characters’ own hypocrisies (how many times can Erik complain about someone being manipulative right after manipulating Clayton yet again?), and just hilarious tangents characters go on that make for great out-of-context screenshots to friends.

Exordia is certainly not a book for everyone, but for a reader who’s willing to think as they read, they’ll find themselves rewarded with an extremely clever story full of beautifully crafted worldbuilding, meticulous prose, incredibly well-explored characters that portray many facets of the Queer experience, and new contemplations on ethics and morality and math to ponder on for days after. Overall, I rate this book a 5/5.

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What a book to end 2023 with. Surely there's a sequel right??? Right????? It's rare to find a scifi where an author can both write in dense tech-jargon (but written oh so beautifully, with some hilarious black humor sprinkled in) and also incredible character work. The queer yearning and anger between these characters does what 100 tiktok romances could never. Definitely not a book for everyone, but man was this freaking phenomenal.