After three centuries of a global near-utopia, a minor crime and a miracle child begin to unravel the social system and lead the world to technologically-advanced total war.
The question of "set-sets", people whose nervous systems have been rewired to interface with computers, has caused riots in the recent past.
[3] Nurturists are people who believe that set-set creation is cruel and should be banned, since they are cultivated as non-consenting children and are not able to change, grow, or interface normally with life.
Humanists believe in the power of individual achievement, and were formed by the merger of the sport-dedicated Olympic Hive and theater-dedicated World Stage.
Utopians wear coats and visors of Griffincloth, a digital material that is programmed to display an alternative view of the world behind it based on the interests of the wearer; for example, as though the surroundings were a space station.
All the Hives and Hiveless participate in the global Universal Free Alliance Senate, headquartered in the world capital of Romanova.
The Senate can send Orders to Alliance departments including the court, the Sensayers' Conclave, the Censor's Office, the Commissioner General and their police, the Housing Board, and the Archive.
These laws primarily prohibit actions that will result in significant loss of human life or destruction of natural resources, harm a minor, or deprive an individual of the ability to call for help via trackers.
The series is science-fiction, but is written as a history and memoir, with significant sections of philosophical, religious, and political treatise.
[3] The majority of the chapters are written in a neo-Enlightenment style, because an influential in-fiction subculture has revived 18th century European clothing, society, and language.
Palmer felt there is a particular "emotional experience" when one reads this kind of book, and so adopted the style herself, to further the revival of the eighteenth century in the futuristic world of the series.
The primary, and unreliable, narrator of the series is Mycroft Canner, a member of the Servicer program for convicted but paroled criminals.
The novels make frequent direct addresses to a reader, inspired by Jacques the Fatalist from Diderot, which provides the epigraph, and other pieces of eighteenth-century literature.
Also, in its chapter at the start of Seven Surrenders, Sniper advises the reader to not "trust the gendered pronouns Mycroft gives people, they all come from Madame".
Set in the year 2454, the novel is a fictional memoir written by self-confessed unreliable narrator Mycroft Canner, a brilliant, infamous, and paroled criminal who often serves the world's most powerful leaders.
The mystery of why and by whom serves as a focal point which draws many different characters, vying for global power and peace, into involvement with the family.
What began as an oddly obvious minor crime turns out to be a revenge plot thirty years in the making, which threatens to unravel the global system of government.
A sub-war between Brillist Gordian and Utopia for the future of humanity is exposed - should they focus on improving life on Earth or exploring space?
Mason eventually unites the world, ends the war, and builds a new global structure, more balanced and hopefully able to last many more centuries.
In order to avoid spoilers, this list's plot relevant details such as Hives or ranks are based on initial appearances of each character.
The worldbuilding process took five years,[3] and was first inspired when Palmer heard the line in Romeo and Juliet that gives the first book its name.
Palmer states that the original inspiration was for a structure involving the loss of something precious at the midpoint, and that the outline and worldbuilding grew out of that.
[10] NPR qualifies the book as "dense and complex" and the worldbuilding as a "thrilling feat", comparing with Gene Wolfe and Neal Stephenson worlds.
The critic describes Too Like the Lighting as "one of the most maddening, majestic, ambitious novels – in any genre – in recent years" but deplores the abrupt ending.
[12] Paul Kincaid in Strange Horizons was disappointed by the gender treatment in Too Like the Lightning, deploring the direct abandon by the narrator, preferring the style in Ancillary Justice.
[13] They consider the book concepts had the potential to be "one of the most significant works of contemporary science fiction" but fails to "[live] up to its aspirations".
[13] Stuart Conover of Horror Tree felt that "Perhaps the Stars is a fitting conclusion to the Terra Ignota series.
It ties up loose ends and provides a satisfying resolution to the story, while also leaving room for the reader to imagine what might happen next.