Michael Crichton meets Marvel’s Venom in award-winning author Seth Dickinson’s science fiction debut
"Viciously funny, vivid to the point of horror, and entirely profound."—Arkady Martine
"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.
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor.com.
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Exordia is a comprehensive taxonomy of violence at every level, from the subcellular to the intergalactic, as well as every possible scrap of pain, pleasure, and connection that might result from it. It's an apocalyptic chanson de geste, with a dizzyingly fractured Round Table who experience damnation not just spiritually but literally, formally, communally and visibly, as well as a comprehensive study of natural history, moral lessons, spiritual and cultural translation, and the hierarchy of all possible passions. There's a deeply original spiritual order in this universe that sharpens the significance of every moment, and I found myself wrung out and exhilarated as I came unwillingly to the end of it.
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Daniel M. Lavery, author of The Merry Spinster