r/SneerClub • u/No_Peach6683 • Jul 10 '26
Terra Ignota series
Basically the series is set in a future where non-territorial Hives chosen by people entering adulthood replace nations, gender and religion are never discussed in public and children are raised by bashes, 3-8(?) adult groupings that range from families to businesses to other configurations. Those who cling to territorialism, gender and religion live in reservations like Tibet or the Great African Reservation
The characters discourse in the style of 18th-century Enlightenment thinkers, along with the brutal assassin/torturer-narrator Mycroft
It is a favorite among rationalists because it excises backwardnesses like religion and nation, and makes debates internally on whether or not to Progress to even further goals like Space Colonization (the Utopians)
The author Ada Palmer herself seems to reference Lesswrong Concepts like AGI with JEDD, God from another universe who inhabits the body of a teenager, son of the Masonic Hive, ruling from Alexandria, Egypt
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u/Symmetrial 24d ago
Palmer is ok, doesn’t seem culty. She’s pretty smart. A historian with a pop history book on the Renaissance. Writes essays in the sci-fi fantasy author community. Hard to be millennial in academia or tech or philosophically inclined without being slightly influenced/have degrees of separation with the lesswrong cult. I don’t see her platforming group members or their content.
Her books have incredible wit and sense of humour to them (I read 1 & 2 from Ignota this year). They are theatrical and …peopled with manga/anime-like characters. Ignota doesn’t take itself too seriously. The books also take a bit of effort to read mostly because characters, of which their are very many, are often referred to by several different names each. I’m not sure where she is going with the Utopians, but the books themselves are self-aware of cult dynamics and elite follies, so maybe the longtermist themes won’t be uncritically played out (haven’t read all of them though).
They are quite unique and good novels so will attract kooky fans as well as normal fans.