Too Like the Lightning

I reread this book for the SFFBookClub this month.

Personally, I deeply enjoyed this book and series, but I think it is not for everybody. I highly recommend folks read the first two chapters online here to get a taste of the voice: www.tor.com/2016/04/12/excerpts-ada-palmer-too-like-the-lightning-chapters-1-and-2/. Mycroft the narrator is self-deprecating, frequently addresses the reader, and is most definitely a very unreliable (and heavily edited) narrator. You can read it in the link above, but never ever have I ever seen a book do so much world-building via content warnings.

This book (and series) is trying to do so much, and regardless of whether you feel like it worked or not, it's hard not to be in awe of the ambition and the sheer density of ideas threaded together here. In the first chapter we've got flying cars, a secret magic kid who can turn toys into real life, mention of a Church War and sensayers (religious therapists) in the wake of it, Mycroft letting the reader know that he's misgendering everybody for ~reasons~, legal punishment alternatives in a Servicer system, questions about free will, and alternative family structures called bashes. This is before we get into 18th century philosophy, ethics, religion, and Greek myth. FOOF

This book is really catnip for me even on a reread; I find Mycroft to be extremely engaging as a narrator, and I appreciate so much how all of these details are spooled out at just the right pace to keep me intrigued but not overwhelmed. It felt like each chapter was carefully crafted to introduce a new location, bring in some world details and history, focus on a slightly different set of world leaders, and push the mystery investigation of the 7-10 list theft forward. It never felt like too much, and I constantly hungered to find out more about the world.

I talked about this after reading Infomocracy for SFFBookClub, but I really appreciated how much flying cars in this story drove so many social changes. If people can be flown across the globe in a few hours, then borders lose meaning. And if borders lose meaning, then what does that mean for governments that are based on geography. Clearly, the hive system is not meant to be posited as some ideal government solution, but for me at least there's something idealistic and positive about the idea of people being able to (more) freely choose their own laws and government in ways that aren't constrained by the power of geography.

I enjoyed the rest of the series as well, but I feel like the first two books are by far the strongest for me as a reader. The final two books are no longer an edited history and so Mycroft becomes even more of an unreliable narrator (if such a thing is possible) and the fourth book goes off on some epic :drum: diversions. I enjoyed the final two books a lot (and the ending lands SO well) but in some ways it wanders much more philosophically and is not as tight of a story as the first two books for me.

Unsurprisingly, I have a bunch of gender thoughts on this book too, which I'm going to put separately, because there's a lot of them: books.theunseen.city/user/picklish/status/87074

18th century writing style is a good match for the plot. It's 25th century, there are seven different quasi-states, but they are ruled by disgusting lustful self-righteous hypocritical pricks akin to medieval absolute monarchs, which all happen to be members of their joint secret club.

The narrator is one well-connected person, employed by all the rulers, and even more abhorrent than them, and it's not just because of what's uncovered about narrator's past in the middle of the book; narrator, as a character, was revolting from the first pages. The book covers their quest to uncover certain mysteries in attempt to prevent a war caused by rulers' unimaginable unsuitability for their respective ruling positions. On that quest narrator interacts with some other characters, all of the elite; common people's lives are of no concern there.

Still, one can catch some glimpses of the actual society; and that's the society that botched it all. Gender issues are swept under the rug, so there are no more gender issues. Same goes for religious issues. It is suggested that democracy and egalitarianism evolved much further during these 4 centuries, but there is rampant cronyism and nepotism on the top, and there is a huge divide between elites and common folks.

Some reviews seem to believe this future is utopia, and praise the book for it alone. Some reviewers seem to like the book for how moral its characters are. I find it odd because it is horrifyingly realistic dystopia, and because all of the main and supporting characters, except for one 13-year old kid and maybe one or two more (which might well be because we don't know them well enough yet), are extremely repugnant. And that's why it rightfully earns its 4.5 stars, as a dystopia.

Too Like the Lightning is a good book, but hard to recommend.

Though the story takes place in the future, it’s written in a faux Enlightenment-era style. The pace is glacial, the narrator has regular dialogs with the reader (putting words in the reader’s mouth), and the characters speechify to each other about abstract concepts even during unrelated activity. This style obscures the details of the world and the action of the plot to the point that I almost set the book aside after a hundred pages.

I persevered, though, and the book rewarded me with a brilliant future world full of progressive ideas and lively characters.

It’s not traditional science fiction: this society is built on extremely advanced technology that is barely described, and the many questions I have about how it works are never acknowledged. It’s beside the point of this book, which is about a society that has moved beyond geographic division.

I’ve wondered if we (here in 2019) are watching the end of the nation-state as our tribal boundaries get demolished by mass media and the internet. In Too Like the Lightning, this is ancient history, nations are long gone, and people organize themselves by outlook and skillset. War and strife are averted by public servants using statistics and social engineering reminiscent of Foundation, and religion is taboo.

It’s not plausible, but it is fascinating. Like in the works of the Enlightment writers that the book’s characters revere, believability takes a back seat to rhetoric. There are only a few named characters in a world of billions and they are all practical philosophers, representing a worldview and sometimes advocating it. They’re not believable, and often not likable, but they are memorable and compelling.

So the book is difficult in style and content. It also contains some scenes of extreme violence and fetishistic sex which felt out of place to me (though I’m sure the author, like de Sade, would say that pushing those boundaries is part of the point). That’s why it’s hard to recommend.

But I plan to read the sequel. In the end I was captured by the fresh perspective on the future and a stinger of a cliffhanger. After this set-up, the next book might be either a disaster or a triumph, and that’s exciting.

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.

I didn't like this book very much. I do want to see what happens, but not so much that I'm rushing to go out and get another book. I think I may have enjoyed it more with a good summary ahead of time to keep track of the important things. I would compare it to the Book of the New Sun, which thankfully has more fully developed resources for the first time reader to orient himself.

It had a lot of interesting things going for it, but felt very bogged down. It ends as soon as it starts getting interesting, which is just inexcusable for a book that plods a long as is.

The frame was annoying and the archaic language was not well used. All the 18th century references should have been shunted to footnotes.

Revealing Mycroft's identity felt like it came out of nowhere.

I know it's part of the plot, but it strained disbelief that these few people essentially run the whole world. Bridger and Jedd Mason were basically magic.

I immediately lost interest in Mycrofts gender assignations and skimmed over any of those descriptions. The atavistic gender play at the end had an inkling of interest, but doesn't get explored in this book.