A question that recurs while reading this book is, to what end complexity? It feels quite clear that Ada Palmer loves this world, loves to play with the ideas, and to embody the world, with all the rules that she has set up, with absolute authenticity. And yes, there is the question of legibility.
On its surface, Too Like the Lightning is a kind of realpolitik cum critical theory opera set in the far future, one where Palmer extrapolates current political and science trends into one possible outcome–and then adds a little bit of magic. This future is nationstate-less, organised instead by ideological preference, it is also one where religion is replaced with a kind of philosophical therapy. This world is also grammatically genderfluid, which renders conversations confusing at times, perhaps unnecessarily so.
The heady examination of Big Ideas through world-building and the setting up of hypothetical billiard balls is something science fiction has long been enamored with, from the early days of Asimov and Herbert to Stephenson’s Diamond Age and Leckie’s Ancillary series. Too Like the Lightning approaches these preoccupations with an academic lens, bringing in the debates of the Enlightenment and other 18th and 19th century and then adapts them to the far future with the aforementioned au courant themes. Sometimes to great effect, others with bewildering inconsistency as the book progresses.
The plot involves the internal machinations of one of the bash’s–major “houses”–against the others as well as that of a magical child who is able to bring things to life. Among the principal players, besides the child, are Mycroft Canner, a servant with a dubious and, it is suggested, nefarious past, and Carlyle, a philosopher counselor who comes to mind the child. Gradually, plots and intrigue develop as the great houses move against and with each other, and the underlying themes, presumably set up for the rest of the quartet are revealed. All the while, a company of other characters, caregivers, villains, detectives, and others wander in and out, not always with clear reason, perhaps because names, pronouns, and characters occasionally interchange without warning.
The degree to which the above sounds like fun will depend on how much one is willing to give in to the complexity soup that Palmer generates–and how much one is willing to suspend one’s disbelief. The ideas introduced, a world based on ideology, the gender-less-ness (by the way, only novel for those in the West, as Chinese have long dealt with genderless pronouns without any greater progressivism than their Western counterparts.).
There is a sense, while reading this, that Palmer is have a lot of fun, but at the expense of the reader. The writing can sometimes feel a bit willfully capricious, and at least for a good chunk of the book, will frustrated all but the most dedicated reader. Abstruseness can sometimes be an artistic style, see Samuel Delaney or even Gene Wolfe, but when language and style come at the cost of clarity of thought, there may be a problem–or hide problems, as the case may be.
File under: Your mileage will definitely vary
432p
If On a Winter's Night, a Traveler... 