Review: Too Like the Lightning

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I received a free e-galley of this book via NetGalley.

How many books do you get in your life that make you sit in a stunned daze then cry softly because they are such a beautiful, moving piece of art that's now over, and to which you will constantly compare every book you read until you come across another book that moves you so strongly?

Well, add one more to my pile.

This is a book I've been waiting for since the cover reveal months ago. I put its release date in my calendar, I was so intrigued by the gorgeous cover art and the wonderfully strange synopsis. I was lucky enough to get an ARC from NetGalley but I'm probably going to go out and buy it anyway, because this is something I want to own and lend and proselytize, I need to spread the word of this Good Book.

So what makes this so good? So many things. The worldbuilding is phenomenal. This is Earth 400 years from now, recognizable but foreign in the same way that Earth 400 years ago is to us. Our history - both the history we are familiar with now and the history we're writing for people 400 years from now - is woven into the fabric of the world. Some threads are predictable, and some aren't. We finally get flying cars and it changes the world in a surprising, sensible, fundamental way: no two locations on Earth are more than a few hours from each other. It's a change that seems obvious - yes, that's exactly how that would happen! - now that it's pointed out (a feeling I got about so many things in this story). The effects of these changes are much more subtle, and it was a joy discovering the fascinating ripple effects that turn up in unexpected places (the flying cars change the shape of the family unit and government) and interact so cleverly with each other.

The voice of the story, Mycroft Canner, is like a song stuck in my head. He is a criminal, but also a genius and a charmer, and his frequent eloquent, rambling asides are as confusing as they are illuminating. He is the culmination of the unreliable narrator. He is writing or maybe telling this story for posterity and he tries to explain to the reader the way things are in his time, but he is a poor example of a creature of his time. He introduces us to a fantastically large, diverse cast of power players in the economic, political, and artistic spheres.

The plot. Oh man, the plot. I don't want to get into what happens (I know I'll regret this in December when I'm prepping to read book two) because, well, a lot happens. Let me just say that every action of this story has impact, every moment has meaning, and while it starts out fairly slow (thank god, because the layers of culture and character and world needed to understand the plot can nearly drown you), it picks up quickly. It's as if I was in a giant house and just when I had explored the main building, new doors opened up. But not even like that - more like new rooms slammed from the sky, fully formed and fully compatible with what I knew but completely new and different.

Even with all of those great elements, I think what made me love this book was that it wasn't perfect. About a third of the way through I almost gave up. The world is chaotic - just familiar enough to lure you into assumptions but different enough to overturn them all, leaving you knowing less than you knew before. The international power dynamics of the world didn't add up. Gender was supposed to be fairly unmarked but so many characters supposedly luxuriated in extravagant gender performance. Many small things (for example, a tree that grows dozens of kinds of fruit in a home kitchen) feel too wonderful to ever exist, and I felt somehow wronged by their inclusion, even though I loved them. But this is an optimistic world, so those marvels can be marvelous. I pushed through, and I'm glad I did. I underestimated how deep the planning of the story runs, and everything paid off in the end.

This is magical, powerful, strange, and smart. Read it if you like well-written, well-plotted, engrossing SF.

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