Victor Mosquera
Ada Palmer’s “Too like the Lightning” is one of the best SF novels of the year.
It builds on history and philosophy, but creates a new world entirely its own. It poses questions, that makes you think. It does, what SF does best – introduces new ideas based on the basic SF question “What if…..”.
Mycroft Canner committed a horrible crime. Getting to know him as a kind and gentle person you wonder, what he could have done. You are finally told, and cannot believe it. Why did he do it?
For the answer to that you have to wait for book two (“Seven Surrenders”) that will be out in February 2017. Book one ends abruptly stating: “Here ends the first half of Mycroft Canner’s History”.
“Too like the Lightning” is Ada Palmer’s first SF book – and it is fascinating. It is not a fast read, there is too much information crammed into its pages for that. But oh, you are richly awarded for the time it takes to read it.
The book contains so much of what makes SF brilliant and special. It was much hyped by other authors before publication, but it lives up to every praise and even exceeds it. The only reason it may not take some of the major prices in the field is the fact, that it is only the first half of a story.
I cannot wait for February.