Ada Palmer
Palmer at the 75th Worldcon in Helsinki, Finland, in August 2017
Palmer at the 75th Worldcon in Helsinki, Finland, in August 2017
BornAda Palmer
(1981-06-09) June 9, 1981
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • historian
  • professor
  • composer
Education
Period2016–present
GenreHistorical fiction, speculative fiction, science fiction, dystopian fiction
Notable worksToo Like the Lightning
Website
adapalmer.com

Ada Palmer (born June 9, 1981)[1] is an American historian and writer and winner of the 2017 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her first novel, Too Like the Lightning, was published in May 2016.[2] The work has been well received by critics and was a finalist for the Hugo Award for Best Novel.[3]

Early life and education

The daughter of computer engineer Douglas Palmer and artist Laura Higgins Palmer, Ada was born in Washington, D.C. but grew up in Annapolis, Maryland, where she attended The Key School.[1] Following her undergraduate education beginning at age 15 for two years at Bard College at Simon's Rock and then transferring to Bryn Mawr College, she obtained a doctorate at Harvard University.[4][5][6]

Academic career

Following a stint at Texas A&M University, Palmer began teaching at the University of Chicago.[4]

As a scholar, Palmer researches and teaches about the Renaissance period. She teaches a class on the Italian Renaissance wherein students enact the 1492 papal election, complete with secret meetings, betrayals, and a final vote conducted in full costume.[7] In an interview, Palmer discussed her experience with the class, suggesting that students have a lot of favorable biases about this period despite its darker underside.[8]

Palmer co-authored The Recovery of Ancient Philosophy in the Renaissance: A Brief Guide with James Hankins in 2008. Her own first book, Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance, was published in 2014. Palmer holds that the Lucretius poem De rerum natura, rediscovered in the Renaissance, could be the first document offering a profane worldview; that is, the possibility to describe how the universe works without any divine influence. This theory has implications for the development of political science as well as other secular worldviews. Palmer and Hankins also argue that Lucretius' ideas directly influenced Niccolò Machiavelli and utilitarianism, because of the ways in which his theories helped them create an ethics working per se, without any external, godly influence.[9]

Bibliography

Fiction

Palmer's first novel, Too Like the Lightning, the first of the Terra Ignota series, was published in 2016, and was a finalist for the 2017 Hugo Awards.[3] It has been described as a rational adjacent book,[10] a work influenced both by science-fiction and historical genres,[11] a fact the author has confirmed.[12] The novel won the 2017 Compton Crook Award for the best first novel in the genre published during the previous year.[13]

Terra Ignota series has four novels:

  1. Too Like the Lightning (2016)
  2. Seven Surrenders (2017)
  3. The Will to Battle (2017)
  4. Perhaps the Stars (2021) [14]

Non-fiction

  • Hankins, James; Palmer, Ada (2008). The recovery of ancient philosophy in the Renaissance: a brief guide. Firenze: L. S. Olschki. ISBN 978-8822257697.
  • Palmer, Ada (2014). Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance. Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard university press. ISBN 978-0674725577.

Articles

References

  1. 1 2 "Ada Palmer: Beyond the Exponential Age". Locus Magazine. Locus. May 14, 2018. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
  2. ↑ "Historian Ada Palmer's debut sci-fi novel receives acclaim, award nominations". Division of the Social Sciences. University of Chicago. Archived from the original on August 12, 2017. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  3. 1 2 Trendacosta, Katharine (April 4, 2017). "Here Are the 2017 Hugo Awards Finalists". io9. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  4. 1 2 Jason, Heller (May 10, 2016). "Science, Fiction And Philosophy Collide In Astonishing 'Lightning'". NPR. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  5. ↑ "Ada Palmer: Beyond the Exponential Age". Locus Online. May 14, 2018. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  6. ↑ Barber, Gregory. "Ada Palmer and the Weird Hand of Progress". Wired. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  7. ↑ Palazzolo, Stephanie. "Uncommon Interview: Hugo Award Nominee Ada Palmer". The Chicago Maroon. Archived from the original on June 30, 2017. Retrieved July 18, 2017.
  8. ↑ "Progress", You Are Not So Smart, #96.
  9. ↑ Farell, Henry. "The rediscovery of this writer in the Renaissance opened the way to the modern world (and, more important, the invention of political science)". The Washington Post. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  10. ↑ Eneasz Brodski (December 8, 2016). "Interview – Ada Palmer (Too Like The Lightning)". The Methods of Rationality Podcast. Retrieved May 2, 2017.
  11. ↑ Farell, Henry (May 10, 2016). "What's so brilliant about Ada Palmer's Too Like the Lightning". Crooked Timber. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  12. ↑ Palmer, Ada (May 11, 2016). "The Big Idea: Ada Palmer". Whatever. John Scalzi. Retrieved May 4, 2017.
  13. ↑ "The Thirty-Five Compton Crook Award Winning Novels from inception in 1983 through 2017". Baltimore Science Fiction Society. Archived from the original on August 1, 2017. Retrieved July 18, 2017.
  14. ↑ Palmer, Ada (November 2, 2021). Perhaps the Stars (Terra Ignota, 4). Tor Publishing. ISBN 978-0765378064.
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