Too Like the Lightning (1 of 2)

Audiobook

English language

Published by GraphicAudio.

ISBN:
978-1-68508-206-2
Copied ISBN!
4 stars (73 reviews)

"The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labeling all public writing and speech... And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destabilize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life..."--Book jacket.

14 editions

Only half the story

2 stars

This book only covers the first part of a two-part story. At the end of it, none of the big mysteries have been solved and several of the characters are in trouble. I wish I had known that before starting it. I probably would not have finished the book. But I kept on reading despite my misgivings (more on that in a second) because I wanted to know who was behind the criminal case at the heart of the story.

The two things that put me off this book (and its sequels) are the gory descriptions of several murders and the way this book in the form of the narrator deals with gender. Very stereotypical views and a ton of misgendering. Not sure what the point of that was.

I'll end with a positive aspect: the worldbuilding is done very well.

Too Like the Lightning

5 stars

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 …

I need to reread

4 stars

This is a gorgeous setting, with a vast cast of characters, extremely ambitious. I enjoyed it but I was often confused. I want to reread, though, and then tackle the other books in the series. I had the good fortune to be on a couple of panels with the author--moderating one panel on utopias--at Kansas City's Worldcon in 2016, when the book was being launched. As an academic and writer, she is so much smarter and sharper than I've ever been.

Critique Tera Ignota

4 stars

Content warning Dévoilement d'intrigue

Review of 'Too like the lightning' on 'GoodReads'

4 stars

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 …

Review of 'Too Like the Lightning' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

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 …

Review of 'Too Like the Lightning' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

There's some really solid writing here, but it's just not for me. It seemed like every time the action was ramping up; the narrator would have a side conversation with some theoretical reader. These side conversations tended to be apologies for some imagined transgression(s) and didn't add anything to the story for me.

Review of 'Too Like the Lightning' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

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 …

Review of 'Too Like the Lightning' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

I read this book, then took a few weeks away to finish reading the rest of the Hugo nominees in the shorter fiction categories, then came back to read this again. While I enjoyed the book the first time, I was quite overwhelmed trying to learn the world and who all the players were. On this second reading I was able to concentrate more on the story and a lot of details I missed the first time through. I raised my review to 5 stars after this second read for several reasons, but primarily because I was staring in awe at the massive and vivid world that Palmer has created.

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Subjects

  • Utopias
  • Prisoners
  • Twenty-fifth century
  • Fiction
  • Third millennium
  • Fiction, science fiction, general

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