Too Like the Lightning

Hardcover, 432 pages

English language

Published Oct. 9, 2016 by Tor Books.

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

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4 stars (2 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.

13 editions

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

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

5 stars

I'm annoyed by this book.

It starts with a simple scene: priest Carlyle Foster goes for a visit in Saneer-Weeksbooth household and runs into Bridger. There are a couple of things in this meeting that are peculiar.

First of all, it's year 2454 and everyone is connected and tracked through a device called... Well, tracker. Except for Bridger. He has one, but it doesn't track anything. Even though he's inside Saneer-Weeksbooth house, only Thisbe Saneer and servant Mycroft know about him. Officially, Bridger doesn't exist.

The second thing? It seems Bridger is a god. If he can imagine something, he can create it. Oh, and in 2400s religion is a taboo, so Carlyle Foster isn't a priest but a sensayer - sort of a theological therapist.

Despite meeting a god in the first page of the book, Bridger isn't really the focus of the story. The plot follows a theft …

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rated it

2 stars

Subjects

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