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angelgrrl 's review for:
Too Like the Lightning
by Ada Palmer
[More like 2.5, but the ending dragged so much that I can’t give it a 3.]
I think my feelings about this book are very similar to what I felt about “Perdido Street Station” – there were some neat ideas in it, but it drowned too much in the odd affectations of its narrator.
I still haven’t figured out what the author was trying to do with or say about gender. I understood that it wasn’t used anymore in Mycroft’s current time... except sometimes they slipped and *did* use gender in conversation to the bafflement of the other person listening to them. But why apply genders for the benefit of a future society? (My only guess here is that the catastrophe that Mycroft is chronicling here ends with a reversion.) And why not be consistent with how they’re applied? If gender roles are archaic, why deliberately label a biologically female character in one place as “male” so the reader will correctly attribute the characteristics you want to them (power, even standing with other males), but then in a different section a biologically male character is described as “female” so that you will understand that they are... powerful in their own way? If you have to spend the entire next paragraph explaining why you picked the gender you did, I feel like you’re doing something wrong. The ”Imperial Radch” books did a much better job of exploring this concept.
The 18th century obsession? I... didn’t get it.
The importance of the SevenTen list, despite it being a core part of the book, was also something I didn’t ever really understand.
And the sexposition, to borrow the “Game of Thrones” term... XD
I felt like there was very little romance or sexual tension in much of the book, and then suddenly two or more characters would start going at it pretty much out of nowhere. The narrator makes a big point of making sure the retelling is very 18th century-style (and telling you that it’s very 18th century-style), so they’re having some important conversation but every once in a while you have to be reminded that yes, they are definitely still having sex. It was almost like Mycroft was trying to convey that their society was not prudish... but their brothel is off the grid and hidden and taboo?
So many things didn’t fit together and felt like contradictions to me, but instead of feeling like it was an “unreliable narrator” situation, I just spent a lot of the book being confused.
I think my feelings about this book are very similar to what I felt about “Perdido Street Station” – there were some neat ideas in it, but it drowned too much in the odd affectations of its narrator.
I still haven’t figured out what the author was trying to do with or say about gender. I understood that it wasn’t used anymore in Mycroft’s current time... except sometimes they slipped and *did* use gender in conversation to the bafflement of the other person listening to them. But why apply genders for the benefit of a future society? (My only guess here is that the catastrophe that Mycroft is chronicling here ends with a reversion.) And why not be consistent with how they’re applied? If gender roles are archaic, why deliberately label a biologically female character in one place as “male” so the reader will correctly attribute the characteristics you want to them (power, even standing with other males), but then in a different section a biologically male character is described as “female” so that you will understand that they are... powerful in their own way? If you have to spend the entire next paragraph explaining why you picked the gender you did, I feel like you’re doing something wrong. The ”Imperial Radch” books did a much better job of exploring this concept.
The 18th century obsession? I... didn’t get it.
The importance of the SevenTen list, despite it being a core part of the book, was also something I didn’t ever really understand.
And the sexposition, to borrow the “Game of Thrones” term... XD
I felt like there was very little romance or sexual tension in much of the book, and then suddenly two or more characters would start going at it pretty much out of nowhere. The narrator makes a big point of making sure the retelling is very 18th century-style (and telling you that it’s very 18th century-style), so they’re having some important conversation but every once in a while you have to be reminded that yes, they are definitely still having sex. It was almost like Mycroft was trying to convey that their society was not prudish... but their brothel is off the grid and hidden and taboo?
So many things didn’t fit together and felt like contradictions to me, but instead of feeling like it was an “unreliable narrator” situation, I just spent a lot of the book being confused.