Too Like the Lightning

3 months after finishing TLTL, I finally feel ready to write a review. This is a testament to how polarising I found this book. It has some wonderfully exciting ideas, but in other ways it's an absolute car crash. Let's start with the good stuff. TLTL is set hundreds of years in the future in a seemingly utopian world. Many things we take we robustly believe in today are remade into a exciting cocktail. Nation states, for example, no longer exist. Instead, people choose to join one of a handful of "hives" that define the laws and beliefs they follow. In this world, nationalism isn't nearly as strong - people choose their values and their method of governance, whether it is a monarchy, democracy, capitalist hierarchy and so on. I've already seen inklings of this behaviour in online communities (think of memes that only a small subreddit would understand), so it's fascinating to see what this idea could look like if taken to an extreme. TLTL remakes other aspects of our lives too: gender, religion, 'pure' humanity vs biohacking, violence, and political organisation. Ada does very well to make you think hard about the assumptions you have around life today. If you're into world-building sci-fi, there's plenty to keep you interested. This neatly takes me onto my criticisms. There's too much going on here. I feel like Ada Palmer had some wonderful ideas for a story and on philosophy, but for some reason she decided to get them all down in a single book. There's so many ideas, characters, names (people often have multiple names!), titles and concepts, I found it very hard to navigate the story and understand what was happening. I gave up reading at several points because I was no longer excited about spending an hour reading Latin. I did eventually came back though, but perhaps out of stubbornness and desire to not not finish a book that I'd spent so much time on. The real story of the book is a conflict between different forms of social structure theorised during the Enlightenment in the 1700s. It's a great plot, but Ada tells it by referencing and quoting philosophers from that time. And whilst these ideas are fun, I found this prose to be dense and impenetrable. Most of my understanding of the story actually came several months later, whilst listening to podcasts about the book (I can recommend this excellent one by AnarchySF). Your mileage may vary, but IMO TLTL is obtusely hard to follow. I also had some issues with her writing style, too. The characters speak in long, unrealistic passages, and use cumbersome and awkward language. The pacing of the story is off - there's excitement at the beginning and end, but the middle lags for too long. Most of the story is told through ideas of the world and of the characters, more tell than show. Finally, there's no real conclusion or pay-off to reading TLTL, you actually need to read the sequel to get the juice (I'm currently reading it - it's much better). Overall, it's hard to give this book a star rating, since it's the first part of two. TLTL had the potential to be a great book, but falls short for me.

** spoiler alert ** One of those books much smarter than me. Filled with complex worldbuilding and rife with ideas, then presented in a style so unique for such a book that at points it was almost infuriatingly dense, almost esoteric. But you gradually get used to it, and at that point you're sucked in. Having said all that, I feel like this book, or at least _the world created_, is incredibly problematic. Certainly a world builder can create a world that is free of problems, they can also create one full of it. How it addresses those problems and from whose perspective theyre from are what's important. But it's difficult currently to extract whether that perspective is our narrator and in-story author Mycroft Canner, or the real writer of Too Like the Lightning, Ada Palmer. Having said all that, the story has engrossed me. Perhaps Seven Surrenders will say more.

This book is kind of difficult to rate since it's not in my typical literary regimen. The genre is a blend of political intrigue, philosophical reflection, sci-fi, and fantasy. Usually books that focus on intrigue, subterfuge, and an incredibly deep well of plot twists are not my thing, but this book pulls it off in a way that maintains my interest and doesn't make me roll my eyes. Palmer gives you just enough to make you think and then leaves you two stew on it a bit, thinking of all the implications this new detail will have on the characters you've become invested in. Of course I'll now read the next book in the quartet.

SF with prose from the (radical) C18th, written IRL by a historian of that time. A big old bucket of ideas. I loved the many didactic discursions - e.g. de Sade's Christian name being a plot point, sections written in speculative future Latin - but I think most readers will not love them. I did choke a little at the constant coincidences, and at the enslaved protagonist meeting literally every elite in the world in the space of two days. Filled with what some have called out for, "competence porn" - i.e. the elites are manipulative, egotistical, and yet still acting in (what they think are) the best interests of the world. Will probably bump it up to a 5 on re-read. Get past the superficial quaintness, you'll be rewarded.

One of the most orginal and provocative future visions I've encountered in a long time. Very clever, and brimming with philisophical references. Its plethora of intrigues can be a bit much at times. That said, the constant scheming reminds me of Asimov's Foundation-stories, which I love.

Dropped this book about 25% in. Story was interesting, but the writing style drove me nuts.

If I could define Too Like the Lightning in a word, it would probably be "overwhelming". That perhaps seems at odds given my rating, but it is fully immersive, carefully thought out and planned, densely written, complex, layered, intelligent, powerful. There aren't a lot of books where I need to stop every few chapters and review my mental notes; this is one of them. It's certainly not for everyone, but nothing is, and what is (probably) lacks in pulp appeal it makes up for with lively discussion and intellectual engagement. The plot is surprisingly tight, but it takes awhile to emerge from the heaving morass of humanity as depicted. It is something of a setting junkie book, and the plot takes awhile to get going. I was also dubious about the pacing--there's always something jarring to me about a book which takes longer to read than it does to "happen", by which I mean events occur in a matter of days during the novel. Meanwhile it took me weeks to read it.

Intriguing, surprising, scary, and intelligent. I loved how this book told me nothing, letting the story -- even the narrator -- be revealed over time. By the end the world felt complete, but it started out sparse yet large. It provided little detail yet never felt thing, which shows great writing. I enjoyed it enough to give it 5 stars, but honestly, I can't of very many people I'd recommend it to, because it's such a peculiar book. I liked it a lot, but I'm not sure who else would.