Too Like the Lightning

Pros: absolutely brilliant, intricate world-building, fascinating interconnected politics, reads on many levels, thought-provoking, challenges ideas of gender and sexuality, later revelations force you to reevaluate earlier scenes

Cons: opening is VERY confusing, some uncomfortable scenes, frustrating at times

Too Like the Lightning is the first book of the Terra Ignota duology. The second half, Seven Surrenders, comes out in December. The two books together are a historical account of 7 days that lead to an event that changes the world, as written by Mycroft Canner, an eye witness to many of the events, as well as instrumental to a lot of vitally important background activities. The year of interest is 2454. Though the current world doesn't use gendered pronouns and raises all as equals, Mycroft uses antiquated words for this account. Religions shows up too, though the Church Wars have made all proselytising, churches, and cults illegal. Mycroft is a Servicer, available to anyone who needs a servant, though most often seen helping those in high offices, to atone for the crimes he committed 13 years prior. He starts his great work by explaining the meeting between the sensayer Carlysle and Bridger, a 13 year old boy, who for his own safety Mycroft has kept hidden. A boy who can perform miracles.

The book starts with a title page explaining the permissions obtained so that the book could be published, as well as the various content ratings the book received. While these names and institutions don't mean much to the reader at the beginning, they set the tone for a book with fully immersive world-building. I spent the first half of the book trying to piece together the meanings of positions and terms, placing characters into their political groups, and feeling quite lost by the sheer mass of things that are left unexplained. While Mycroft does give occasional asides for the reader, these are asides for readers of his present, for whom the events being relayed are past, and for whom the terms that I questioned aren't unfamiliar.

The brilliance of the book starts in the second half when the occasional philosophical asides start to be reflected in the plot through the actions of the characters. It's here that you start to understand that the book isn't a straight narrative, that you're meant to examine the different layers of text and subtext in order to piece together what's actually going on. For example, Mycroft doesn't always gender people properly. It's frustrating as a reader, but there is a reason for this, which comes up later in the book. Similarly, some scenes are disturbing to read, not because they're graphic, but because they pair eroticism and terror, something most people don't equate. This again is done for a reason that the book eventually reveals. So many later revelations make you reevaluate what you understood from the first half of the book. Sometimes more than once.

The world-building is exquisite. It's completely alien to our current political situation, and yet is something one could imagine coming to pass given the circumstances the characters face. The politics are fascinating, with level upon level of competition and alliance.

There are a lot of characters to remember, but I didn't have any trouble keeping them all straight. I do recommend, however, bookmarking the seven-ten list when it's revealed, as you'll be referring to it several times as more people are introduced and the political situations become clearer. In fact, I haven't bookmarked and highlighted so much text since university. This is the kind of book I would have loved to have a professor explain the intricacies of, and then write an essay on.

I almost put this book down on several occasions. It can be that frustrating and confusing at times. But the pay-off when you start understanding what's going on, with all its layers and complexity, is definitely worth the effort. I cannot wait for the next book to come out.

Every year, I get super behind on reviewing books because I read something that I just can't capture in words. Too Like The Lightning was that book this year. Not that I don't have things to say about it: I went a month where it was the only thing I could talk about. But I don't have anything intelligent to say in under 20,000 characters.

I might stick to what Jon told me to convince me to read it: Too Like The Lightning is the first book in a long time to truly thrill me. It's a view of the future told by someone who really gets that the future is the future – as far from us in mores and habits as the Victorians on the other side – not just Now but with flying cars. Palmer really feels out how things will change, and then layers on top of her fascinating setting, compelling, flawed and unreliable characters. And then, like an Escher drawing of stairs twists, and twists, and twists all somehow staying in the same place.

It is NOT for everyone. I wish I had been warned about just how over the line the content gets sometimes, but (except for one chapter at the beginning of the sequel) it's almost all purposeful to get the reader to question what our boundaries and morals are and why and what's a product of our moment in time.

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com

The best way to describe Too Like The Lightning is very confusing. Ada Palmer is a historian which explains the strange way this book has been written. It's almost as if the main character is telling you what happened. In fact that is exactly what it is like. At some points the character is talking to the reader like they are the one who wrote this book not Ada Palmer. This does mean it's almost written in a style that you could imagine came from the 24th century. It's not flowery but you have to take time and really pay attention. In fact I only read two chapters of this at a time. It's the sort of book that you need to go away and think about. Not because it is especially deep. It's just that sort of book.

Too Like The Lightning is the sort of book you really need to read yourself. My experience reading it was more similar to reading something from the 18th century rather than science fiction. Which I suppose makes sense really because I'm sure Ada Palmer took inspiration from 18th century writers. I know I've only given this 3 stars but personally I feel it's the sort of book I have to go back and read again just because it's so dense. I'm going to need to do that soon however because the next book comes out in March.

This is was a weird one. I did not like the first third of this book. It is very obtusely written. The things I want to know about the world are drip-fed to you under the guise that you are reading this in the future of this world and the narrator is telling you things you probably already know. Also, I understand that this is the first book in a series (isn't everything these days) but the ending left quite a few plot holes just open-ended. Things are vaguely alluded to and then the narrator tells you to check out part 2 of his story.

For the good, I learned to like the world created. It was interesting structurally and technologically. I just wish the author/narrator explained the pieces in a bit more detail. Most if not all of the characters are eventually reprehensible, save a few. Those few have very little “screen” time. It makes it hard to root for anyone which makes it hard to sit through scenes with terrible people all the time. Leaving only the world to latch on to which I wish had more description.

I don't think 3/5 is bad. I think its just fine.

Too Like the Lightning chronicles several days on Earth in the distant future, where flying cars zip through the sky, country borders have been dissolved, and war is non-existent.

This is a unique and challenging book that left me feeling quite conflicted. I will never complain about straightforward novels that spoon-feed information and exposition, but this was so far towards the opposite end of that spectrum that it made my head spin. Careful reading, backtracking, and re-reading were necessary to understand what exactly was going on. Author Ada Palmer makes you work for each revelation and concept contained in her deeply fleshed-out future world. And while the ideas presented and communicated feel prescient and thought-provoking, the work I put in far exceeded the enjoyment I took away.

There are shimmers of brilliance throughout, but it frequently crumbles under the weight of its own inaccessibility. The thoroughness required in reading actually left me so enmeshed within the world that, upon coming to the final page, I was disappointed that there was no definitive resolution. The story will continue in a sequel coming this February, but I may not be along for the ride.

A stunning novel with incredible world-building. The book positively pulses with ideas and plots. I originally thought the writing style - 18th century philosophical - would irritate me, but to my surprise I found it interesting, particularly where the narrator converses with the reader.
I did have some initial frustration with the fluid use of if gender descriptors, particularly when the narrator changes his mind about whether a particular person is a gender neutral ‘they', in one Chapter, but then refers to them later as both ‘she', and then ‘he'. I decided to just ignore this and enjoy the story. :)

I have a feeling I am going to regret the 3 stars, a bit like I regret them for my first Joe Abercrombie but the feelings are the same: excellent writing, an obvious set up for ongoing trilogy, introduction of plenty of characters, but a lack of a narrative arc in book one lets it down. Suggested to me from a fellow Neal Stephenson the difference, I think lies in that m Stephenson is a writer that likes to learn a lot about his subject, whereas Palmer is very learned about her subject that likes to write. Palmer's choice of a single person POV does not help in the flow as the number of characters, with interchangeable names, never get defined beyond what Mycroft describes them as. You will also need a wiki fan page to sort out not just the characters but the various groups described. Having said that, i am pretty optimistic that things will gel in book two. As someone that went to kindergarten with a Doria Pamphilj, I will be back for a second helping.

This is an amazing and elaborate future history. The world building is amazing, but I really do not love the “I'm writing this story for you, dear reader” structure. And I especially dislike when words are force into my, the dear reader's, mouth.

But the mystery is interesting. It'll be a while before I pick up the next book.

Though [the book's] digressions might seem wasteful to the reader, they are, in fact, the core of the novel itself. By the book???s midway point the reader may realise that this novel does not have a lot of plot, nor does it feature any considerable character development, but then again, he or she must also have begun to realise that this book is not about characters or plot, even if it does have a bit of the latter and quite a few of the former. This novel is about ideas, many of which can be viewed as either reflections or possible responses to very real issues currently going on in the real world. From questions of gender roles and gender presentation to the very concept of nationhood itself, Too Like the Lightning holds itself up to the reader as a mirror of his or her world, and asks: how can things be different?

Full review here: http://wp.me/p21txV-A3