Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series, begun last year with Too Like the Lightning and continued now in Seven Surrenders, explores a future society where gender is assigned by behavior--not biological sex. Humans claim allegiance to one of seven ideological Hives, and no one alive has seen, let alone been a part of, war.
The first installment in the series took great pains to build the future society through the eyes of Mycroft Canner, a reformed serial killer who serves as a genius-level social and cultural attaché to global leaders for the duration of his sentence. Many mysteries posed in Lightning are resolved here, and to good effect.
But conflict is on the horizon, set in motion by a family intent on giving humanity release from political pressures that have been building in these years of peace. Though Canner has assassinated several of its members, he and his betters soon learn how wrong they've been in their work to forestall the devastating global war that looms ahead. The fate of Canner's miraculous young charge from the first novel also ties into the larger picture in a wholly unexpected way.
Palmer, a professor of history at the University of Chicago, fills every plot twist, paragraph and soliloquy with deep knowledge of classical and modern history. With deft skill, she also uses Seven Surrenders to set up the following volume with disastrous (yet fascinating) possibilities, giving readers much to look forward to. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor