Ask the Author: Ada Palmer
Answered Questions (22)
Ada Palmer
Book 1 is 140,000 words. Books 2 and 3 are a bit shorter than that, and book 4 is twice that, at close to 280,000.
Ada Palmer
I tend to cycle around and use whatever name the other characters I'm thinking about or talking about at the time would use for Him. My favorites, and the closest thing to a true name, are the kinds of things Mycroft starts calling him in/after the chapter in "Perhaps the Stars" called "An Alphabet for Strangers."
Ada Palmer
The house part is two stories but htere are many stories of underground beneath that where the computers are, that's where Dominic is able to hide and other action happens. Think of it like the small control house on top of a big complex. The whole area, dozens of houses, are on top of the computer system, though only theirs connects to it. The guards mostly come from surrounding houses. The houses are in rows and touch, like town houses, but glass.
Ada Palmer
Definitely not alone. I even have voice actors picked out for some of them. JEDD Mason must be Seki Toshihiko!
Ada Palmer
It comes naturally to me as a historian, someone who spends my time reading documents from earlier eras, which give us information but it's not the information we want when we want it, it's the information the historical author thinks we would want or need, and we learn so much about them from what they think and how they're wrong! Terra Ignota imitates that.
Ada Palmer
Got you covered!
Ada Palmer
In my opinion, neither. I think we have more than enough evidence to conclude with confidence that, in addition to his kidney/incontinence problems, Rousseau suffered from mental illness -- specific manifestations of mental illness are sufficiently distinct to place and time that it isn't really appropriate to project a specific diagnosis on another century, but it's clear to me that the friendship was destroyed by elements of paranoia etc. related to Rousseau's medical situation. I don't think "blame" is appropriate in such a case, especially in a culture that didn't yet have understanding let alone treatment options for someone suffering in such a way. It was an example of how fortunate we are today to have a better understanding & capacity to help. (Meanwhile I count Diderot too in the "disability history" category since his letters speak of chronic severe digestive pain, especially after periods of intense work.)
Ada Palmer
I do think it's great, but I don't think it directly ties to Enlightenment ideas, which hadn't really gotten there yet, being still nestled in the age of empires nationalism of the 18th c. I think it connects more to 19th century ideas about civic participation as a form of actualizing human nature (they base it on Aristotle and Machiavelli) which I see as being what launches the panarchist notion that *participation* is an important humanizing step. In fact I had never run across panarchism as a term when I developed the Terra Ignota system -- it is indeed similar, but for me it was just the logical outcome of extrapolating forward from the system the EU is already trying. (The EU = also very 19th century in its ideals of ever-increasing union & evolution)
Ada Palmer
Increase it. Period.
If you want specifics, invest especially in education, community-building, and social support structures, all the things that keep people supported & contributing instead of exhausted & worn out. All our experiments show UBI & real health coverage make EVERYTHING grow, stimulating creation & innovation, letting people take the risk of starting a business w/o gambling that they'll spend the rest of their lives crushed if it fails. For more on this, and the question of the cognitive tax of poverty, see my episode on the Singularity Podcast https://youtu.be/-wPiH7vvpUI
If you want specifics, invest especially in education, community-building, and social support structures, all the things that keep people supported & contributing instead of exhausted & worn out. All our experiments show UBI & real health coverage make EVERYTHING grow, stimulating creation & innovation, letting people take the risk of starting a business w/o gambling that they'll spend the rest of their lives crushed if it fails. For more on this, and the question of the cognitive tax of poverty, see my episode on the Singularity Podcast https://youtu.be/-wPiH7vvpUI
Ada Palmer
It's generally considered to be on the cusp of the humanities and social sciences depending on what kind of history someone is doing. Someone doing a deep textual analysis of what a set of letters or an epic poem tells us about the culture that created it is using methods of humanities, someone doing statistical analysis of what we learn from baptismal records & comparing them with soil chemistry samples from the village graveyard is doing science; most historians draw on both palettes of analysis combining many kinds of sources hence the cusp being appropriate. For a great example of a huge range of methods used together, including literary analysis and high-tech experiments, see Michael McCormick's, "The Origins of the European Economy."
Ada Palmer
*Shudder* No. Madame is horrible. Vital to the story & its ideas, but a strong candidate for the character I love *least* in the series. Still proud of creating her, she's an amazing character, but hard to love, and impossible to identify with, for me at least.
Ada Palmer
Latest word looks like it should be late May or early June 2021. It's a LOOOOOONG book so it needs lots of TLC in the editing phase, but it'll be worth the wait I promise!
Ada Palmer
I don't think anything will prepare you as well as the Iliad. Ideally the Fagles translation. Ideally the audiobook thereof read by Derek Jacobi.
"The Stars My Destination" and familiarizing yourself with Gundam would also be assets.
"The Stars My Destination" and familiarizing yourself with Gundam would also be assets.
Ada Palmer
Yes in a sense; Mycroft is mostly following the 18th century practice of using "he" as the generic, which in essence presumes a male reader, but mainly because that was the norm in the style Mycroft is imitating. I like how it reminds the real reader of how not-neutral the use of "he" feels when we read that kind of text, and thus of the value of examining the problems that arose from the period when "he" was the standard default.
Ada Palmer
A French translation is underway!
Ada Palmer
Yes, that was part of the reason. I knew I wanted it to be in that region, and that I wanted the city to be about that size and with that kind of historic downtown and layout. I narrowed it down to a few cities then looked up their histories and cultural associations, and the Frankenstein association put Ingolstadt over the top.
Ada Palmer
No, it doesn't -- it's up to the reader's imagination. But we will learn a bit more about it as the series progresses.
Ada Palmer
The books shatter mine too, repeatedly. But that's a big part of their power.
Ada Palmer
Great question! We'll see more of this in book 3.
In this future, all sports offer "open" competitions in which anyone can participate, while most sports also have separate divisions based around anatomical difference, though not gender specifically. Think of weight classes in boxing, or how horse races are divided into classes by the height of the horse's shoulders. For each sport, the effects of weight, height, stride, shoulder width etc. are considered and competitions are divided into classes reflecting what advantages different body types offer. Thus racing, for example, might be classed by stride length, basketball and gymnastics by height, discus by shoulder width or arm length, while rifle might not be divided at all since body type doesn't affect rifle skill as much. In many sports, the physically smaller classes tend to have more female competitors since women are smaller on average, but it's far from 100%. In a few sports which are very strongly affected by fundamental skeletal differences, such as how men's and women's hip and knee joints work differently, or how different the center of gravity is for men from women, the division is in a practical sense mostly by sex, but the rules are written in terms of specific physical features rather than gender, and intersex people or people with unusual characteristics which place them anatomically in a category not typical for their sex compete alongside those with similar musculo-skeletal structures, rather than having sex organs be the categorical determiner. Some historic reenactment sports are still gender segregated in this future by tradition, but not modern professional sports. In addition to reducing gender segregation, one effect of this system is to give more opportunities for athletes who have extraordinary ability but don't have extreme anatomy to match it, such as physically large female gymnasts, or short runners.
Sniper is petite and competes in the smallest anatomical category for pentathlon, but is very skilled and prefers to compete in "open" pentathlons. Being petite gives Sniper a disadvantage in the running and swimming elements, and somewhat poor reach in fencing, disadvantages which Sniper makes up for by working extra hard on riding, fencing training, and pistol.
In this future, all sports offer "open" competitions in which anyone can participate, while most sports also have separate divisions based around anatomical difference, though not gender specifically. Think of weight classes in boxing, or how horse races are divided into classes by the height of the horse's shoulders. For each sport, the effects of weight, height, stride, shoulder width etc. are considered and competitions are divided into classes reflecting what advantages different body types offer. Thus racing, for example, might be classed by stride length, basketball and gymnastics by height, discus by shoulder width or arm length, while rifle might not be divided at all since body type doesn't affect rifle skill as much. In many sports, the physically smaller classes tend to have more female competitors since women are smaller on average, but it's far from 100%. In a few sports which are very strongly affected by fundamental skeletal differences, such as how men's and women's hip and knee joints work differently, or how different the center of gravity is for men from women, the division is in a practical sense mostly by sex, but the rules are written in terms of specific physical features rather than gender, and intersex people or people with unusual characteristics which place them anatomically in a category not typical for their sex compete alongside those with similar musculo-skeletal structures, rather than having sex organs be the categorical determiner. Some historic reenactment sports are still gender segregated in this future by tradition, but not modern professional sports. In addition to reducing gender segregation, one effect of this system is to give more opportunities for athletes who have extraordinary ability but don't have extreme anatomy to match it, such as physically large female gymnasts, or short runners.
Sniper is petite and competes in the smallest anatomical category for pentathlon, but is very skilled and prefers to compete in "open" pentathlons. Being petite gives Sniper a disadvantage in the running and swimming elements, and somewhat poor reach in fencing, disadvantages which Sniper makes up for by working extra hard on riding, fencing training, and pistol.
Ada Palmer
Good question! And good guess, but Mycroft tends to reach earlier in time, not later. The origin of "The Will to Battle" (and the epigram that starts Book 3) is:
“For Warre, consisteth not in Battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre; as it is in the nature of Weather.” Hobbes, Leviathan, I 13.
“For Warre, consisteth not in Battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre; as it is in the nature of Weather.” Hobbes, Leviathan, I 13.
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