I read this because the always trustworthy Abigail Nussbaum had it down as one of her Hugo nominees. Also, it looked like my kind of thing. That it’s a behemoth of a novel didn’t worry me. When one of the books you’ve been reading just finished is Miss MacIntosh, My Darling*, one of the longest single volumes of fiction ever published in English, a pip over 200,000 words from Seth Dickinson is a breeze.

Or should be.

One of my problems with Exordia is that I never felt it justified the length. It’s a shame because just like M.R. Carey’s Infinity Gate, Exordia has an eye-catching opening, complemented by a cracking first sentence:

“What do you do when you meet an alien in Central Park?”

It’s a fair question. Not one I’ve ever considered, but fair nonetheless. For Anna Sinjari, a Kurdish refugee living in New York who has just been fired from her job, encountering an alien is not so much “par for the course” but something she takes in her stride. The alien, sporting eight snake-like heads, is named Ssrin. She is a fugitive of the Exordia, an all-powerful, ruthless empire that treats everyone and everything as inferior. She looks like a harmless businesswoman to the rest of New York City. But not our Anna. This is huge for Ssrin! If Anna can see Ssrin’s true self, they must be in a state of serendure, their destinies intertwined. If she can convince Anna of this, then there’s the possibility they can control an alien artifact (designated Blackbird), potentially the only thing in existence that can compete against the Exordia. And where is this alien artefact? Well, Kurdistan, of course.

The first 100 pages of Exordia are fantastic. The fractious relationship between Anna and Ssrin (neither are the cuddly type) is funny and creepy and sometimes disturbing. This is no cozy science fiction. Dickinson (who I believe has form)** takes this story into dark, violent, blood-soaked territory. Much of that occurs in Kurdistan, but even before then, bad shit happens in New York City.

The ideas are also great. I loved that the Exordia are supremacist arseholes because they know they’re going to hell (or their alien conception of it), so why should any other fucker have any fun (or freedom)? I love their technology’s organic, multi-dimensional nature and how it warps people and reality. I also loved Dickinson’s unfiltered commentary on the West’s treatment of the Kurds, the way they were used as pawns, falling victim to Iraqi soldiers and Western negligence. (Obama’s regime, his ordering of drone attacks and assassinations, gets a decent whacking). I even liked some of the messy relationships between characters I’ve yet to mention, such as Anna and her estranged mother, a soldier back in Kurdistan. The enmity between them is a result of Anna killing her father and brother, an act that saved their village but which her mother can never forgive. Like I say, this is a dark, really dark novel.

But, like Infinity Gate, the second half of Exordia is all-out bang-bang action.*** Yes, the stakes are high—the destruction of our planet—but Dickinson’s desire to describe military equipment in exacting details slows the narrative to a crawl. At least for me. If you have a Tom Clancy’s fetish, you’re gonna be in heaven.**** The prolonged action scenes are the main reason why Exordia is so long, a fact that’s all the more frustrating when, as the novel reaches its climactic conclusion, you realise—of, fuck, this isn’t a standalone but the first book in a series.*****

I get it; it’s rare to come across a high-concept space opera-like novel that isn’t 150,000 words long. I’m reading one right now.****** This is one of the reasons why I drifted away from core genre novels. Thanks to my man Stephen King, I could see they would get longer and longer, and I was more attracted to shorter, weirder books written by people (sometimes in translation) no one had heard of. So, I shouldn’t be surprised to return to the fold and discover that these books are still enormous.******* Still, I’m not going to stop moaning about it if I feel a novel doesn’t justify its length; an Exordia does not.********

*Review coming to a Substack near you (Yes, my Substack, not some randos!)

**This is my first Seth Dickinson novel. I’m aware he’s not averse to the brutal stuff.

***Also, the quirky sense of humour of the first third is taken out and bludgeoned, which is a shame.

****To be fair to Abigail, she referred to this novel feature when she spoke about Exordia. I just didn’t expect there to be so much of it.

*****Dickinson has confirmed that there will be a sequel.

******Well, technically, 140,000 words long.

*******Nor can I expect every writer to be like Adam Roberts and Lavie Tidhar, who like their fiction to be short and to the point.

********Ironies of ironies: this is a long review. It’s longer than a typical Locus review. Hypocrisy thine name is Mond.