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andrewlawston 's review for:
Too Like the Lightning
by Ada Palmer
Too Like The Lightning is a masterpiece of world-building. That much is surely indisputable. Its precarious utopia governed with an apparently light touch by seven Hives which vary between the remnants of our world's geo-political blocs, and more ideologically-minded groups, is rich in detail. Much of which appears trivial, but of course frequently becomes more important later on in this 500 page adventure.
The problem is, although events gradually build towards an exciting climax, we never quite get it in this book. It feels like 500 pages of setup with no real conclusions. The two plot elements: a small boy with the potential to change the world, and the theft of what appears to be an annual Movers & Shakers list, are just enough to send Mycroft Canner on his way as he responds to the various demands for his time, but the boy is forgotten for hundreds of pages at a time, and characters literally line up to describe the list's theft as trivial.
Much of this world's ideology is inspired by the philosophy of the French Enlightenment, which feels like a fresh concept for this kind of SF, and it gives this future history some intellectual rigour. Unfortunately, I've read Voltaire, Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and even a bit of the Marquis de Sade and this world didn't quite mesh for me as a futuristic realisation of Enlightenment thought. Not least because there are quite a few embarrassing errors in the French dialogue that peppers certain scenes.
I found this book dense, frustrating, and frequently hard-going. And yet I was compelled to see it through, and it's undeniably highly-crafted and painstakingly written. I will not be going on to read the rest of the quartet, but I'm glad I gave this one a spin. Literary-minded SF fans will enjoy this.
The problem is, although events gradually build towards an exciting climax, we never quite get it in this book. It feels like 500 pages of setup with no real conclusions. The two plot elements: a small boy with the potential to change the world, and the theft of what appears to be an annual Movers & Shakers list, are just enough to send Mycroft Canner on his way as he responds to the various demands for his time, but the boy is forgotten for hundreds of pages at a time, and characters literally line up to describe the list's theft as trivial.
Much of this world's ideology is inspired by the philosophy of the French Enlightenment, which feels like a fresh concept for this kind of SF, and it gives this future history some intellectual rigour. Unfortunately, I've read Voltaire, Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and even a bit of the Marquis de Sade and this world didn't quite mesh for me as a futuristic realisation of Enlightenment thought. Not least because there are quite a few embarrassing errors in the French dialogue that peppers certain scenes.
I found this book dense, frustrating, and frequently hard-going. And yet I was compelled to see it through, and it's undeniably highly-crafted and painstakingly written. I will not be going on to read the rest of the quartet, but I'm glad I gave this one a spin. Literary-minded SF fans will enjoy this.