eBook, 366 pages
English language
Published March 7, 2017 by Tor Books.
"It is a world in which near-instantaneous travel from continent to continent is free to all. In which automation now provides for everybody's basic needs. In which nobody living can remember an actual war. In which it is illegal for three or more people to gather for the practice of religion--but ecumenical "sensayers" minister in private, one-on-one. In which gendered language is archaic, and to dress as strongly male or female is, if not exactly illegal, deeply taboo. In which nationality is a fading memory, and most people identify instead with their choice of the seven global Hives, distinguished from one another by their different approaches to the big questions of life. And it is a world in which, unknown to most, the entire social order is teetering on the edge of collapse. Because even in utopia, humans will conspire. And also because something new has arisen: Bridger, the child …
"It is a world in which near-instantaneous travel from continent to continent is free to all. In which automation now provides for everybody's basic needs. In which nobody living can remember an actual war. In which it is illegal for three or more people to gather for the practice of religion--but ecumenical "sensayers" minister in private, one-on-one. In which gendered language is archaic, and to dress as strongly male or female is, if not exactly illegal, deeply taboo. In which nationality is a fading memory, and most people identify instead with their choice of the seven global Hives, distinguished from one another by their different approaches to the big questions of life. And it is a world in which, unknown to most, the entire social order is teetering on the edge of collapse. Because even in utopia, humans will conspire. And also because something new has arisen: Bridger, the child who can bring inanimate objects to conscious life"--
Fantastic book! Such an amazing creation form Ada Palmer. Makes me wanna live in this Utopia.
TLTL was interesting in that it sort of explores the concept that "God" (or at the very least something capable of creating miracles) suddenly walks amongst us in a future, theoretically tamed world, where people are all part of various houses and affiliations that work together to keep the world operating on an even keel. THIS book, however, takes the most boring and irrelevant bits of that (IMHO) and runs for an entire freaking novel with them. It was supremely frustrating to come off of reading TLTL and have all the fascinating ideas and such that I had floating around in my head dumped into the ice water of a 350+ page exploration of how the entire system could be turned on its head by one woman playing sexual politics. Very disappointing!
Would you destroy the world to create a better one? This book was great, with all of it's twists and turns, even though the wonderful world-building of the Utopia in the first book gets undone, and by the end of it, my sincere hope is that the third book will actually build something better.
Ambitious pair of novels, only a few loose elements, wild mystery chase through a glorious dense sea of 18C enlightenment ideals and underbelly and the classics, roman and sci-fi, in a consistently future-oriented questioning of belief and human/social capacity. This one will probably grow on me for a while.
I don't like these books, but I find them interesting and unusual enough to want to finish them anyway. Here's a compromise rating, I guess.
If Too Like The Lightning frustrated you, steel yourself and read this anyway. The payoff on your investment will be huge. TLTL was often a slog, but this is not that - complex, yes, but also moves at an amazing pace, with the most satisfying ending of a second book in a trilogy(?) that I can remember. Well worth the read.
(I do recommend rereading TLTL before reading this - there are a lot of details in the first book that get tied in to the second book, so having it fresh in your head will enrich the reading experience.)
