Perhaps the Stars

The final volume of Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota series finds the world in open war. The utopian peace maintained for centuries through the Hive system and its hidden crimes has shattered, and with all transportation networks destroyed, the tyranny of distance has fragmented a planet that once moved freely. Mycroft Canner's successor, Ninth Anonymous, must chronicle catastrophe while attempting to hold together whatever survives of civilization across a narrative that grapples seriously with what war costs and what peace requires.

T. Ryder Smith's narration of the Terra Ignota series has become one of the defining audiobook performances in literary science fiction. His command of the series' unusual narrative voice, which draws on Enlightenment-era address and philosophical digression, never flags across thirty-five-plus hours. Perhaps the Stars is the most demanding entry and the most rewarding, and Smith rises to match its ambition throughout.