Scan barcode
A review by yak_attak
Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
4.0
This review might feel more negative than I intend, but coming back to this book there's just so much that's on the border of totally irritating that it's hard not to nitpick and complain, despite the book being, on the whole, quite good. On the surface, Too Like the Lightning presents as a mystery/thriller, a crime has been committed and the protagonist must go around, interview suspects, make connections, come up with theories, and uncover deep secrets. In reality, a number of things stand in the way of making this work - intentionally though, let's me clear.
First, the crime is completely opaque. Ada Palmer (to her credit) throws you in the deep end, and much of this strange future/past world is left for you to discover on the way yourself. This is fine. The problem is once things do get explained, the crime is so particular to the world it's hard to see exactly how it affects things. Fine though, it's world stuff. Second, the narrator himself is intricately wrapped up in the crime himself, and a tangled web of politics we have to discover. Again, this is really cool.
But. What this means is that the structure of the book is a mystery without a mystery, a crime without a plot, and an investigation in which no characters are actually interested in solving things. Instead, we get a revolving door of characters, new ones every chapter many of whom are hard to distinguish from each other - every character is exceptionally hot (this book is horny as hell), every character has a very particular philosophy that we dive into in detail. In the end we don't get many answers or much plot has happened. We go into book two, where the real action occurs.
Instead, this feels like Palmer's personal dollhouse to show off her knowledge and writing ability, mixing in enlightenment thinkers and science fiction tech. This is a delightful book to read, Mycroft's voice is so strong, present, and vivid, and so many of the future ideas are just fantastic, how they've evolved, how they interplay with each other, and the ideas of the past revived.
But that's the end - a world built, but to what end? There's so much good here, but it feels unsatisfying. Maybe this is just due to the break in the novels, and the two really should've lived as one. We end off and... I guess I gotta read another book now.
First, the crime is completely opaque. Ada Palmer (to her credit) throws you in the deep end, and much of this strange future/past world is left for you to discover on the way yourself. This is fine. The problem is once things do get explained, the crime is so particular to the world it's hard to see exactly how it affects things. Fine though, it's world stuff. Second, the narrator himself is intricately wrapped up in the crime himself, and a tangled web of politics we have to discover. Again, this is really cool.
But. What this means is that the structure of the book is a mystery without a mystery, a crime without a plot, and an investigation in which no characters are actually interested in solving things. Instead, we get a revolving door of characters, new ones every chapter many of whom are hard to distinguish from each other - every character is exceptionally hot (this book is horny as hell), every character has a very particular philosophy that we dive into in detail. In the end we don't get many answers or much plot has happened. We go into book two, where the real action occurs.
Instead, this feels like Palmer's personal dollhouse to show off her knowledge and writing ability, mixing in enlightenment thinkers and science fiction tech. This is a delightful book to read, Mycroft's voice is so strong, present, and vivid, and so many of the future ideas are just fantastic, how they've evolved, how they interplay with each other, and the ideas of the past revived.
But that's the end - a world built, but to what end? There's so much good here, but it feels unsatisfying. Maybe this is just due to the break in the novels, and the two really should've lived as one. We end off and... I guess I gotta read another book now.