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Commonwealth Empire #2
The Inhuman Peace
It is the year 2034 A.D. Imagine that the British Empire never fell. Communism never happened. Britain conquered all that stood in her way, destroying the rebellions of the Americas and the British Raj.
Now the Angels Interitus orbit the earth, ready to wipe out entire cities at a moment's notice with their tungsten bombs, and the dreadnoughts known as the Tin Soldiers march on all who would stand in Her Majesty's path.
In the middle of these grand and great political games, a little island called Ceylon floats peacefully in the waters of the Indian Ocean. Those who invaded it saw only the ruins of empire, and spent their lives planting tea and building holiday bungalows here. But Ceylon is far from peaceful. Many things have happened.
And many things are about to change.
Now the Angels Interitus orbit the earth, ready to wipe out entire cities at a moment's notice with their tungsten bombs, and the dreadnoughts known as the Tin Soldiers march on all who would stand in Her Majesty's path.
In the middle of these grand and great political games, a little island called Ceylon floats peacefully in the waters of the Indian Ocean. Those who invaded it saw only the ruins of empire, and spent their lives planting tea and building holiday bungalows here. But Ceylon is far from peaceful. Many things have happened.
And many things are about to change.
376 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 10, 2021
3 people are currently reading
27 people want to read
About the author
Yudhanjaya Wijeratne
29 books239 followersYudhanjaya Wijeratne is a Nebula-nominated science fiction author and data scientist from Colombo, Sri Lanka. By day he is a senior researcher with the Data, Algorithms and Policy team at LIRNEasia, working at the intersection of technology and government policy.
He is the co-founder of Watchdog, a fact-checking organization that sprung up in the wake of the April 2019 bombings in Sri Lanka. He built and operates @osunpoet, an experimental Instagram poet using OpenAI technology to test a human+AI collaboration in art - a thesis currently being explored in an entirely separate trilogy of novels.
Yudhanjaya blogs at Yudhanjaya.com, and has written for Slate, Foreign Policy and more besides.
He is the co-founder of Watchdog, a fact-checking organization that sprung up in the wake of the April 2019 bombings in Sri Lanka. He built and operates @osunpoet, an experimental Instagram poet using OpenAI technology to test a human+AI collaboration in art - a thesis currently being explored in an entirely separate trilogy of novels.
Yudhanjaya blogs at Yudhanjaya.com, and has written for Slate, Foreign Policy and more besides.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 7, 2022
I have a layperson’s fascination with both — alternative history narratives; and tech and AI. Given that The Inhuman Peace has both at its core, it was something I was eagerly looking forward to. Especially since the prequel, The Inhuman Race, had left so many doors tantalizingly cracked, but not fully open.
Set in Ceylon, in a world still yoked to colonialism and capitalism, The Inhuman Race centered around The Silent Girl, a unique intelligence that stood out amongst the many that fought “war games,” designed to entertain viewers across the world. There is a fifteen year gap, in between the central event of The Inhuman Race, and the turning point that it closes on. The Inhuman Peace explores that gap, drawing a line from Point A to Point B. By no means, however, is that a straight line.
For a book that’s titled The Inhuman Peace, there isn’t much peace in the book. Even as it proceeds at a quick, relentless pace, the conflicts become knottier and the body count keeps rising.
This could easily have become too complex, but Yudhanjaya reins it in perfectly. Even as the plot kept changing the game on me, I didn’t find it difficult to keep track of the multiple characters and sub plots.
The bits I loved the most in the book were the tiny moments of tenderness and vulnerability. Yudhanjaya writes even the shadiest characters with empathy, so even as they committed incredible acts of violence casually, I could understand their motivations, even if I disagreed or felt put off by them.
The Commonwealth trilogy is valuable for the way it challenges the colonial gaze. Even today, when we speak of technological advances, the conversation is usually US (or UK, or China) centric. That is where we imagine innovation happening. That is where we imagine the doors to the future will open. Yudhanjaya shifts that point of view, by placing Ceylon at the eye of the storm. I hope that this fictional re-centering will encourage a real life decolonization in how readers think.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Inhuman Peace. It kept me on my toes as a reader, and I always enjoy that in a book. I found characters I could root for, and others that I am achingly ambivalent about (in a good way). And the ending — oh! that ending. The possibilities!
I’m already looking forward to The Inhuman War. It can’t come soon enough. Meanwhile, go read The Inhuman Race and The Inhuman Peace.
For more: https://thereadingdesk.wordpress.com/...
Set in Ceylon, in a world still yoked to colonialism and capitalism, The Inhuman Race centered around The Silent Girl, a unique intelligence that stood out amongst the many that fought “war games,” designed to entertain viewers across the world. There is a fifteen year gap, in between the central event of The Inhuman Race, and the turning point that it closes on. The Inhuman Peace explores that gap, drawing a line from Point A to Point B. By no means, however, is that a straight line.
For a book that’s titled The Inhuman Peace, there isn’t much peace in the book. Even as it proceeds at a quick, relentless pace, the conflicts become knottier and the body count keeps rising.
This could easily have become too complex, but Yudhanjaya reins it in perfectly. Even as the plot kept changing the game on me, I didn’t find it difficult to keep track of the multiple characters and sub plots.
The bits I loved the most in the book were the tiny moments of tenderness and vulnerability. Yudhanjaya writes even the shadiest characters with empathy, so even as they committed incredible acts of violence casually, I could understand their motivations, even if I disagreed or felt put off by them.
The Commonwealth trilogy is valuable for the way it challenges the colonial gaze. Even today, when we speak of technological advances, the conversation is usually US (or UK, or China) centric. That is where we imagine innovation happening. That is where we imagine the doors to the future will open. Yudhanjaya shifts that point of view, by placing Ceylon at the eye of the storm. I hope that this fictional re-centering will encourage a real life decolonization in how readers think.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Inhuman Peace. It kept me on my toes as a reader, and I always enjoy that in a book. I found characters I could root for, and others that I am achingly ambivalent about (in a good way). And the ending — oh! that ending. The possibilities!
I’m already looking forward to The Inhuman War. It can’t come soon enough. Meanwhile, go read The Inhuman Race and The Inhuman Peace.
For more: https://thereadingdesk.wordpress.com/...
July 6, 2023
Read the detailed review on my blog here
What is the point of this novel?
While it introduces a bunch more characters, world building, lore, and politics- it’s essentially a rewrite of the first book. It's a far improved version of the first book admittedly but I wanted to read what happens next not the same stuff but ‘whoa look at all this important stuff that happened in the background that wasn’t worth mentioning before’? It didn’t even recontextualize the first book or add any plot twists that completely change your perception or the story. It’s just more stuff with the same ending.
There was a noticeable about of retconning and changes from the first book.
It was super confusing at times. I kept getting lost where and when things were happening. The constant pov shifting was confusing as well. It was kind if chaotic and hard to follow. There were lots of pov characters, lots of characters in general, and lots of plot lines. Frankly it was messy.
The author had cool ideas but he didn’t do much with them. Feels a bit like wasted potential. Sometimes the ideas were introduced in a kind of shallow way and never developed further.
The characters were all kind of one dimensional. Maybe because there were so many I didn’t really end up caring about any if them. Aesthetically the world is grim and gloomy and gritty. The writing was more practical than pretty which suits the story I guess.
Despite a world and characters that were conceptually interesting, in practice it wasn’t especially captivating. I had to forced myself to finish the book. The story had so much stuff going on I couldn’t really follow the main through line if the story. It threw me off kilter, and I didn’t like how I never understood what was really happening and the point of it all in the grand scheme of things since it doesn’t really change what happened in book one. It’s not as if we follow what happed in somewhere else during the same time! It’s mostly the same characters, in the same place, at the same time.
The story seems to lack focus with a constantly changing plot and too many things happening at once. I don’t know if the author was successful in juggling all the plots and characters to deliver a cohesive novel. Wijeratne is a good writer with lots of interesting ideas but he (and his editor) need to do a few more rounds of editing on his novels before publishing.
tl;dr having interesting stuff happen does not an interesting book make.
A kind of messy novel which had a lot of interesting ideas but couldn’t stick the landing. If the idea of a fight for independence, the fight for personhood and a robot hunger games sounds interesting skip book 1 and go straight to book 2. Trust me you’re not missing much. The author has improved leaps and bounds since the previous novel but given my feelings on Inhumane Race it’s not saying much.
Even after reflecting on the novel after finishing and writing a review I’m still wondering, what was the point of this book?
What is the point of this novel?
While it introduces a bunch more characters, world building, lore, and politics- it’s essentially a rewrite of the first book. It's a far improved version of the first book admittedly but I wanted to read what happens next not the same stuff but ‘whoa look at all this important stuff that happened in the background that wasn’t worth mentioning before’? It didn’t even recontextualize the first book or add any plot twists that completely change your perception or the story. It’s just more stuff with the same ending.
There was a noticeable about of retconning and changes from the first book.
It was super confusing at times. I kept getting lost where and when things were happening. The constant pov shifting was confusing as well. It was kind if chaotic and hard to follow. There were lots of pov characters, lots of characters in general, and lots of plot lines. Frankly it was messy.
The author had cool ideas but he didn’t do much with them. Feels a bit like wasted potential. Sometimes the ideas were introduced in a kind of shallow way and never developed further.
The characters were all kind of one dimensional. Maybe because there were so many I didn’t really end up caring about any if them. Aesthetically the world is grim and gloomy and gritty. The writing was more practical than pretty which suits the story I guess.
Despite a world and characters that were conceptually interesting, in practice it wasn’t especially captivating. I had to forced myself to finish the book. The story had so much stuff going on I couldn’t really follow the main through line if the story. It threw me off kilter, and I didn’t like how I never understood what was really happening and the point of it all in the grand scheme of things since it doesn’t really change what happened in book one. It’s not as if we follow what happed in somewhere else during the same time! It’s mostly the same characters, in the same place, at the same time.
The story seems to lack focus with a constantly changing plot and too many things happening at once. I don’t know if the author was successful in juggling all the plots and characters to deliver a cohesive novel. Wijeratne is a good writer with lots of interesting ideas but he (and his editor) need to do a few more rounds of editing on his novels before publishing.
tl;dr having interesting stuff happen does not an interesting book make.
A kind of messy novel which had a lot of interesting ideas but couldn’t stick the landing. If the idea of a fight for independence, the fight for personhood and a robot hunger games sounds interesting skip book 1 and go straight to book 2. Trust me you’re not missing much. The author has improved leaps and bounds since the previous novel but given my feelings on Inhumane Race it’s not saying much.
Even after reflecting on the novel after finishing and writing a review I’m still wondering, what was the point of this book?
April 15, 2025
My second book by Wijeratne after reading the Salvage Crew. Really good book, the writing is at a literary level, enjoyed it a lot! Imaginative alternate history with the British Empire still being the superpower in the 20th and 21st century, China still the main rival, sprinkled with some interesting alliances of Russia and Japan, while the Ottoman Empire also still exists. Made me think about human augmentation, AI, personhood and colonialism. Subtracted one star because of the time jumps in the story, gave me at times a disjointed feeling. Happy to have discovered this fresh voice in SF, I’ll be reading the other books of this author.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews