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mburnamfink 's review for:
Too Like the Lightning
by Ada Palmer
Warning, here be spoilers...
I'd heard that Too Like the Lightning was one of the modern classics of scifi, a book I had to read. A friend asking "hey, can anyone talk about this book?" inspired me to push it to the top of my list. It is definitely one of the most provocative books I've read, dense with allusions to history, philosophy, and archaic literary styles. I'm not sure entirely sure that beneath all the rocco layering and shocking moments, the book is actually great, but it is entirely its own thing.
Too Like the Lightning is structured around four mysteries. The first is a child by the name of Bridger who has the power to produce miracles. He can breath life into toys, convert dirt into feasts, and create curative potions. Bridger is protected till he can come of age by the criminal Mycroft Canner, serving a lifetime sentence of slavery for his crimes, and a few human allies. The mystery of Bridger, his power, and what he might serve frames the book, but is dropped.
The second mystery is that of setting, of this world of the 25th century and how it evolved from ours. Palmer drops the names chapters before the info dumps, but the basics are pretty clear. At some point a war between the creaking American superpower and Islam threatened the existence of the world. Just as nation-states threatened the nuclear apocalypse, powerful individuals announced their banishment, based on a border-shattering technology of hypersonic VTOL cars that made the entire world no bigger than 60 minutes. All existing polities were subsumed by the seven great Hives, megacorporations founded along ideological lines like mutual aid, art, government, land stewardship, technology, etc. The hives all have stereotypical modes of dress, and unique languages they use to communicate with each other. Most people live in 'bashes, homes of six to twelve adults with a common affinity. Material want is banished. Most people work 20 hours a week, and enjoy a fulfilling life of freely chosen associations and aesthetic experiences. Gender roles have been eliminated, and Palmer toys with stereotypes, placing pronouns and sex organs for effect rather than realism.
The third mystery is a literal who-done-it? A key piece of journalism has been stolen and placed in the Saneer-Weeksbooth 'bash, who both run the hypersonic cars that are the lifeblood of the world, and who are also secretly sheltering Bridger. The crime and the motive behind it threaten to undo everything, to collapse the fragile web of politics that sustains the world. This begins as the weakest mystery. Why should we the reader care about a seven-ten list, or why it might topple the Hives. This bit of trivia serves as an entry-point into two key facts about the world. First, it is on the brink of collapse as certain factions near majority positions before facing a maelstrom of backlash. And second, the leaders of the Hives are literally in bed with each other, part of a supremely odd incestuous family centered around an 18th-century themed brothel in Paris that violates every norm of their society, and focused on the uncanny, possibly supernatural powers of a young man named J.E.D.D. MASON, heir to the Empire that is the most politically potent faction.
The forth mystery is that of Mycroft Canner himself. We begin knowing he is a criminal, that he did something terrible, but as the book progresses its revealed that his crime was seventeen artistic murders of an entire bash of geniuses, deadly tortures that mocked ideology and anything decent. Canner is also a polymath genius himself, possessing hidden backdoors into computer systems, and seems to be the personal secret keeper and factotum of all the major powers. We learn little about Canner, or why he is the focal point.
Ada Palmer is by day a professor of history, focusing on Humanism as an ideology from the Renaissance on, and that scholarly bearing comes through. Expect to learn about Voltaire, and Diderot, and above all the Marquis de Sade, who blended shocking violent pornography with even more shocking atheistic anti-clerical screeds (yes, I've read de Sade. No, you should not read de Sade. He's actually pretty dull). So there's a lot of dense stuff her about 'the key of reason unlocking doors you'd rather have closed' and the philosophical justification of morality. The book both picks up steam and goes off the rails at 3/4ths of the way through, when the secret brothel/world headquarters is revealed. There might be a point that Palmer is making about how power corrupts, but it's another thing to ask me to suspend disbelief to say that this world's elite are all having crazy illegal Eyes Wide Shut style orgies mixed with archaic religious experiences as part of a program to do... I don't know, replace themselves with a perfectly divine philosopher king?
I have to read the next book, because of course, but for what it's worth, I think The Quantum Thief does posthuman mystery better. Palmer lampshades the flaws in her characters and plots (there's a whole digression on 'who is the protagonist?'), but doing that doesn't excuse how in love with its own setting this book is. At least its something new.
UPDATE: Dec 2021
I read the first two Terra Ignota books together, and knowing the core details of the setting instead of having to puzzle out the mystery box just make this better.
I'd heard that Too Like the Lightning was one of the modern classics of scifi, a book I had to read. A friend asking "hey, can anyone talk about this book?" inspired me to push it to the top of my list. It is definitely one of the most provocative books I've read, dense with allusions to history, philosophy, and archaic literary styles. I'm not sure entirely sure that beneath all the rocco layering and shocking moments, the book is actually great, but it is entirely its own thing.
Too Like the Lightning is structured around four mysteries. The first is a child by the name of Bridger who has the power to produce miracles. He can breath life into toys, convert dirt into feasts, and create curative potions. Bridger is protected till he can come of age by the criminal Mycroft Canner, serving a lifetime sentence of slavery for his crimes, and a few human allies. The mystery of Bridger, his power, and what he might serve frames the book, but is dropped.
The second mystery is that of setting, of this world of the 25th century and how it evolved from ours. Palmer drops the names chapters before the info dumps, but the basics are pretty clear. At some point a war between the creaking American superpower and Islam threatened the existence of the world. Just as nation-states threatened the nuclear apocalypse, powerful individuals announced their banishment, based on a border-shattering technology of hypersonic VTOL cars that made the entire world no bigger than 60 minutes. All existing polities were subsumed by the seven great Hives, megacorporations founded along ideological lines like mutual aid, art, government, land stewardship, technology, etc. The hives all have stereotypical modes of dress, and unique languages they use to communicate with each other. Most people live in 'bashes, homes of six to twelve adults with a common affinity. Material want is banished. Most people work 20 hours a week, and enjoy a fulfilling life of freely chosen associations and aesthetic experiences. Gender roles have been eliminated, and Palmer toys with stereotypes, placing pronouns and sex organs for effect rather than realism.
The third mystery is a literal who-done-it? A key piece of journalism has been stolen and placed in the Saneer-Weeksbooth 'bash, who both run the hypersonic cars that are the lifeblood of the world, and who are also secretly sheltering Bridger. The crime and the motive behind it threaten to undo everything, to collapse the fragile web of politics that sustains the world. This begins as the weakest mystery. Why should we the reader care about a seven-ten list, or why it might topple the Hives. This bit of trivia serves as an entry-point into two key facts about the world. First, it is on the brink of collapse as certain factions near majority positions before facing a maelstrom of backlash. And second, the leaders of the Hives are literally in bed with each other, part of a supremely odd incestuous family centered around an 18th-century themed brothel in Paris that violates every norm of their society, and focused on the uncanny, possibly supernatural powers of a young man named J.E.D.D. MASON, heir to the Empire that is the most politically potent faction.
The forth mystery is that of Mycroft Canner himself. We begin knowing he is a criminal, that he did something terrible, but as the book progresses its revealed that his crime was seventeen artistic murders of an entire bash of geniuses, deadly tortures that mocked ideology and anything decent. Canner is also a polymath genius himself, possessing hidden backdoors into computer systems, and seems to be the personal secret keeper and factotum of all the major powers. We learn little about Canner, or why he is the focal point.
Ada Palmer is by day a professor of history, focusing on Humanism as an ideology from the Renaissance on, and that scholarly bearing comes through. Expect to learn about Voltaire, and Diderot, and above all the Marquis de Sade, who blended shocking violent pornography with even more shocking atheistic anti-clerical screeds (yes, I've read de Sade. No, you should not read de Sade. He's actually pretty dull). So there's a lot of dense stuff her about 'the key of reason unlocking doors you'd rather have closed' and the philosophical justification of morality. The book both picks up steam and goes off the rails at 3/4ths of the way through, when the secret brothel/world headquarters is revealed. There might be a point that Palmer is making about how power corrupts, but it's another thing to ask me to suspend disbelief to say that this world's elite are all having crazy illegal Eyes Wide Shut style orgies mixed with archaic religious experiences as part of a program to do... I don't know, replace themselves with a perfectly divine philosopher king?
I have to read the next book, because of course, but for what it's worth, I think The Quantum Thief does posthuman mystery better. Palmer lampshades the flaws in her characters and plots (there's a whole digression on 'who is the protagonist?'), but doing that doesn't excuse how in love with its own setting this book is. At least its something new.
UPDATE: Dec 2021
I read the first two Terra Ignota books together, and knowing the core details of the setting instead of having to puzzle out the mystery box just make this better.