Review: Too Like the Lightning

Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a 2-star review.

I read this book as it was one of the 2017 Hugo best novel nominees.

I made it about a third of the way before a Dorothy Parker response was needed.

The book takes place in the future. Humanity has apparently cast off religion and overt sexuality. There are counselors that offer advice, but due to the current human convention, cannot discuss anything that smacks of religion.

In another development, people no longer align themselves with a national identity. Instead, there are 7 "Hives" that manage global affairs. One can live in one place, exhibit cultural traditions from a second place, and belong to a "Hive" that exists in no place in particular. On the one hand, this is an interesting concept that is modeled somewhat within our modern human conventions. How else does one explain religious groups such as the Mormons or Quakers?

People apparently change from hive to hive as their personal convention permits. The poorly defined government structure seeks to balance those population groups. One crisis in the book results from an action that will severely undermine the "popularity" of one of the Hives. Accordingly, the author appears to be relegating human decision making to the same level as deciding which movie star/media personality we support.

This infantilizing continues when a group of adults is chanting for one of the adults in charge of the government to buy them all some ice cream. Adults would dig into their own pocket and buy their own dairy confections rather than abase themselves before a supposed authority figure.

The book features air cars that can whisk a person halfway around the world in a very short amount of time. Unfortunately, I believe that the mathematics of speed, the physics of energy, and the economics of productivity help move the book from the science fiction category to being more properly fantasy.

The coupling of nearly infinite individual movement with the dissolution of borders creates an intriguing circumstance to discuss the utility of national identities. Breaking the laws of physics and economics so thoroughly undermines that discussion.

The characters apparently hew towards an androgynous exhibition of sexuality. This is highlighted by a scene where one woman who chooses to embrace and exhibit her female sexuality/sensuality. When another character is reluctant to agree to a course of action suggested by her husband, she quietly uses her sexuality to inspire agreement.

Humanity has several million years worth of evolution that includes sexuality and sexually based responses. That's a bunch of long words for saying that boys naturally want to please pretty girls.

Those sexual responses are part of why we have been so successful as a species. Denying that part of our evolution is, in effect, denying our existence.

All that being said, the single greatest sin of this book is that it flips from characters that were interesting over to other characters that are less than interesting. At the send, the book comes off as a high-minded college text book with a message of "sit down so I can teach you something".

A little digging indicated that the author is a college professor. Ironically, I spent some time reading her blog and found those entries to be interesting. I would probably enjoy taking a serious college course with this author. I have no interest in her fantasy writing.

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