Too Like the Lightning

Hardcover, 432 pages

English language

Published Oct. 9, 2016 by Tor Books.

ISBN:
978-0-7653-7800-2
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
918994531

View on OpenLibrary

3 stars (4 reviews)

"The world into which Mycroft and Carlyle have been born is as strange to our 21st-century eyes as ours would be to a native of the 1500s. It is a hard-won utopia built on technologically-generated abundance, and also on complex and mandatory systems of labeling all public writing and speech... And in this world, Mycroft and Carlyle have stumbled on the wild card that may destabilize the system: the boy Bridger, who can effortlessly make his wishes come true. Who can, it would seem, bring inanimate objects to life..."--Book jacket.

12 editions

Only half the story

2 stars

This book only covers the first part of a two-part story. At the end of it, none of the big mysteries have been solved and several of the characters are in trouble. I wish I had known that before starting it. I probably would not have finished the book. But I kept on reading despite my misgivings (more on that in a second) because I wanted to know who was behind the criminal case at the heart of the story.

The two things that put me off this book (and its sequels) are the gory descriptions of several murders and the way this book in the form of the narrator deals with gender. Very stereotypical views and a ton of misgendering. Not sure what the point of that was.

I'll end with a positive aspect: the worldbuilding is done very well.

reviewed Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer (Terra Ignota -- Book 1)

Review of 'Too Like the Lightning' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

Well I tried. Didn't finish. I did want to stick with this given the general buzz around it but I just couldn't. I suspect there may be an inventive and compelling story in there but the author's decision to write in an imitation of a Victorian author's 'voice' was just too off putting.
This is definitely going to be a subjective thing as many people say they love it but it just wasn't for me.

avatar for ghosttie

rated it

4 stars
avatar for CTD

rated it

5 stars

Subjects

  • Utopias
  • Prisoners
  • Twenty-fifth century
  • Fiction
  • Third millennium