Too Like the Lightning - Ada Palmer

Over the past few months, I've had the great joy of participating in Allies of WISE (Women In Science and Engineering), a pilot program here at Stanford that brings together people of all genders for group discussions about social issues. Our discussions often take random tangents, such as discussing diversity and inclusion in sci-fi. During the course of one such tangent, a fellow group member recommended Too Like the Lightning, written by a UChicago professor with whom she had taken a class. Cut to a couple of weeks later, and I've binge-read all of Ada Palmer's Terra Ignota books and fidget in my seat eagerly awaiting the fourth one in the series...

However, I must say, it took me quite some time to get into this book; it is hard to get started, then hard to put down. Palmer throws the reader headfirst into a world where gendered language is taboo, nations no longer exist, and autonomous flying cars are omnipresent. It is wildly different from our current day-to-day, and yet immensely relatable.

The story is narrated by Mycroft Canner, an ex-murderer whose punishment was to become a Servicer, someone at the beck and call of the rest of society to atone for their crimes. Mycroft is an exceptional person, and interacts nearly exclusively with other exceptional people, from the leaders of the world to a magical boy whom he must keep secret. In this regard, it's perhaps like an Andy Weir or Harry Potter story -- there are very few "ordinary" people in the spotlight. However, the way that the exceptional characters are woven together, with conflicting flaws and flair, lends itself to much richer interpersonal stories than I have found in most sci-fi.

Before leaning further into why this is such a delightful story, and you must definitely read it, let me state my main complaint. The book is exceedingly diverse, with a wide variety of races, sexualities, genders, and abilities. Unfortunately, the racial diversity is written in a way I found quite uncomfortable to read. Black characters are "African," and brown characters are basically all of "Indian" origin, completely going against the idea that one's skin color is not necessarily determined by where one was born. It would've been better to just describe the characters' skin colors in the style of LeGuin instead of associating them with specific parts of the planet.

Furthermore, the series is nearly entirely centered around Europe and Japan. This would be fine on its own, if not for the only mention of Africa and much of the Americas being as "reservations" where people cling to religion, nations, gender, and other traditions. This feeling is painfully compounded by fact that a significant part of the plot revolves around how we have flying cars that make it reasonable to commute between continents for work -- the story clings to nations in a world where nations do not matter. Ultimately, the racial sensitivity of the series is lacking and awkward, and I don't feel it can simply be brushed away as an aspect of the narrator's 18th-century style.

Now that that is out of the way, let me gush a bit about how spectacular this series is.

The absolute best part of this book is its intricacy. If you've read Altered Carbon or The Broken Earth series, you'll know what I mean. Nothing, no single detail, is unimportant. From the odd 18th-century narration style to the hobbies of the side characters, nothing is unused or frivolous to the tale. Of course, you may wait a book or three for a callback, but I promise you it will be there. It lends the entire series a feel of exceedingly meticulous arrangement.

A secondary delight of this book is the fact that Ada Palmer is an historian. This gives the narrative a timbre quite different from sci-fi written by scientists or engineers; the core details and meaty substance of the story are founded in myths, legends, and historical characters, instead of in technological marvels. For sure there are those marvels, but the focus is more heavily on the people than their tools. Much as we might learn about Julius Caesar instead of the method of forging Brutus' knife, Palmer tells the vivid stories of the characters while just providing enough detail about the future they occupy. Mixed in with this are extensive and careful use of languages, specifically Latin, Greek, Japanese, Spanish, and German, which give the story an extra depth without feeling like Palmer is just flexing.

Finally, the way that this series dismantles gender is truly wonderful. Mycroft, the narrator, uses gendered pronouns relentlessly and deliberately, in direct opposition to a world that has moved beyond gender. Thus, Palmer's use of Mycroft as a black sheep gives her a tool to play with gender roles versus biological sex. Characters are "he" or "she" (and often the narration swaps between the two) depending on how they carry themselves, and the anatomical details are basically uncorrelated with the characters' identities. Given that the entire series is written like this, a reader eventually become accustomed to it, enabling one to start to crumble one's own stereotypes and assumptions about gender. Palmer also specifically centers aspects of the plot around the utility versus dangers of gendered language and gender roles, making compelling cases for both sides of the debate. I didn't find any resolution to how best to move forward from where we are today -- but the series absolutely has given me a broader perspective and much more ease with picking apart my own assumptions.

Overall, I very strongly recommend reading the Terra Ignota series. Ignore the awkward handling of race and skin color, and instead relish the detail, the history, and the intricacy.