Cory Doctorow has singled out Jo Walton’s new novel, Everybody’s Perfect, as a major new entry in her catalog, arguing on Pluralistic that the book extends Walton’s recent creative conversation with historian and novelist Ada Palmer.
The novel, Doctorow writes, is linked most closely to Palmer’s Inventing the Renaissance, a history that examines both the Renaissance and the later uses made of its story. Doctorow points in particular to the latter part of Palmer’s book, which revisits the same historical events through 15 figures, including Michelangelo and Lucretia Borgia. He says Walton uses a comparable structure: chapters move through different point-of-view characters as they interpret one chain of events in a shared city.
A Venice built from attention
That city is the Serenissima, described by Doctorow as a mist-covered, alternate Venice positioned where multiple worlds meet. In Walton’s setup, belief has infrastructure-level consequences. If enough residents accept something as real, it can become real. Islands, buildings and gods can be called into existence by collective conviction. The reverse also applies: things ignored by the city may dissolve back into mist.
Doctorow’s account makes the mechanism plain enough to be useful. A tied-up gondola needs watching because theft is only one risk; neglect itself can erase the boat. Residents greet one another with the phrase “I see you,” because being socially perceived is bound up with continuing to exist. It is metaphysics with municipal maintenance problems, which is probably the correct level of nuisance for magic.
Walton’s Serenissima contains eight versions of humanity from eight worlds, according to Doctorow. The Venetians come from our world and have guarded the city’s secret for centuries, using access to it for money and military advantage. Other peoples include beings with dog, cat and bird heads, people whose faces include domino-mask features, and still stranger groups. A possible ninth people is rumored, though Doctorow says their existence and attributes remain uncertain inside the story.
A prophecy drives eight accounts
The plot begins with a vision that the Serenissima will receive a doge. Doctorow describes the prophesied figure as a poor, low-status resident who is blind, partly paralyzed and weakened by plague. This person is expected to “marry the sea” and end conflict among the city’s factions. The eight accounts that follow move through representatives of the city’s peoples as they respond to that prediction.
Doctorow places Everybody’s Perfect in a line with several earlier Walton books. He cites the Small Change trilogy, alternate-history mysteries set in a Britain that made peace with Nazi Germany; Among Others, a fantasy-inflected memoir about growing up through genre reading; My Real Children, about a life split across alternate histories; the Philosopher Kings trilogy, which stages an attempt to build Plato’s Republic with Apollo, Athena and Socrates involved; and Lent, Walton’s fantasy treatment of Savonarola.
Those comparisons are Doctorow’s critical frame, not neutral metadata. His judgment is that Walton’s new book combines the ambiguous magic of Among Others, the philosophical speculation of the Philosopher Kings novels, and the emotional stakes of My Real Children, while also responding to Palmer’s account of how the Renaissance has been repeatedly remade by its admirers and critics.
Everybody’s Perfect is listed by Macmillan, and the cover shown with Doctorow’s essay carries Tor Books branding. Doctorow’s verdict is emphatic: he calls it complicated, captivating and wise. Readers who want the non-marketing version of the pitch now have the useful part: phantom Venice, belief as civic physics, eight peoples, one doge prophecy, and a novel built to argue with history rather than decorate it.
This story draws on original reporting from Pluralistic.
