The Will to Battle

Ada Palmer

  • Sci-Fi; Fantasy

  • December 2017

    • UK: Head of Zeus

    • US: Tor Books

Terra Ignota Book III

The year is 2454. Three centuries of peace and a hard-won golden age have come to an abrupt end.

The once steadfast leadership of the seven Hives is crumbling, soured by corruption and deception. Savagery and bloodlust, three-centuries suppressed, have been unleashed.

The terrible truth is that centuries of peace were bought with a trickle of secret murders. The killings were mathematically planned, meticulously organised to preserve the balance – to ensure no faction could dominate.

But now the secret is out, the balance has tipped, the Hives' utopian façade has slipped. Just days ago, humanity stood at the pinnacle of civilization. Now everyone – Hives and Hiveless, Utopians and sensayers, emperors and convicts, warriors and saints – is preparing for war.

Selected Praise

Bold, furiously inventive, and mesmerizing ... The best science fiction I’ve read in a long while.
— Robert Charles Wilson, author of Spin
The kind of science fiction that makes me excited all over again about what science fiction can do
— Jo Walton, author of Among Others
A breathless and devious, intellectual, page-turner.
— Max Gladstone, author of Three Parts Dead

Other books by Ada Palmer