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Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1)

Questions About Too Like the Lightning (Terra Ignota, #1)

by Ada Palmer (Goodreads Author)

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Answered Questions (18)

Ummm, so does this book imply approval or disapproval of divergent gender identities and the validity (or lack thereof) of religion? Answers will determine whether or not I'll be interested in reading. Thanks!
Ada Palmer Great question! Separate answers on gender & religion, but parallel in some ways: in these books I'm attempting to depict a future that has developed …moreGreat question! Separate answers on gender & religion, but parallel in some ways: in these books I'm attempting to depict a future that has developed very well on some fronts, but badly on others, with some great successes (150 year lifespan! World peace!) and some great failures (Another world war, censorship...) Two of its greatest failures/tensions are on the fronts of gender & religion.

On the religious front, fear of organized religion, caused by religious violence, has led to severe censorship of religious discourse & the outlawing of any organized religion outside of "reservations" <= an intentionally very alarming term. All people are expected to have religious opinions, and have religious discourse with licensed "sensayers" in a one-on-one therapy setting, but to even discuss it in a group is both taboo and illegal. The book then looks at the effects this has on people, and looks especially at the problems created by stifling discourse, especially when something which appears to be a genuine miracle occurs but no one is allowed to talk about it, let alone deal with its global consequences.

I certainly intend the book to be respectful of and positive about religion, and to be commenting on a tension which has been growing in our society of late, between people who feel it's important to be public/out about religion, and people who feel uncomfortable when asked about their religion, as if it were a violation of privacy. I've had a mixture of reactions to the book, from some readers who say it feels like a paradise having religion be silenced and private like that, to others who say it feels like an oppressive dystopia with no place for them if they can't have religious gatherings or wear a religious symbol in public. That split is precisely what I was aiming for, since much of my goal is to look at a tension within our own society that isn't discussed much, and to demonstrate how people who want religion to be public and people who want it to be private can be in tension with each other even if they both happen to be believers, or even share the same faith.

As for gender, this is only begun in book 1 and really fleshed out in book 2, but this is intended to be a future that botched its gender development, where a our current efforts to secure more openness toward gender variation, our transgender rights efforts, our feminist efforts, a vast array of social efforts related to gender, all failed without people realizing that they failed. The narrator argues that the society he lives in is not a gender neutral society, but just pretends to be gender neutral; the only acceptable pronouns are they/them/theirs, and gendered expression is taboo, something which most people think is a great step toward equality without thinking about what it stifles. While people in this world believe that gender is a thing of the past, the narrator believes that gender is still a powerful force in how people think, creating tensions, inequalities, vulnerabilities, and suppressing self-expression. Because the society has declared that gender is gone, all dialog about the issue ended, so all efforts toward improving on it are now impossible. The conversation ended too soon, and now people who want to express gender can only do so in secret or transgressive ways. Over the course of the book, the reader is supposed to think about the narrator's opinions about gender in this society, and decide whether we believe his analysis.

The narrator applies gendered pronouns to the characters, but we know that the narrator is doing this himself, without the consent of those he is gendering, and we also know that he's doing it, not based on bodies/assigned gender, but based on his opinions of people's personalities and how they fit his own sense of gender. Sometimes he oscillates or professes uncertainty about which to use. Gender identities other than "male" and "female" come into play more in book 2, and we see some of our narrator's ineptitudes in dealing with them. This narrator seems to be comfortable with "he" and "she" being related to personality rather than anatomy, but struggles when people are in-between, demonstrating how he too is trapped in this future's failure to complete gender liberation.

The whole reading experience -- experiencing this gender-silenced world and the narrator's inept obsession with gender -- are supposed to show the possible negative consequences of us giving up the conversation too soon. From time to time you hear people say things like "Feminism is finished" or "Women have the vote, feminism is done, it's time to move on," which is, of course, deeply false, and indeed dangerous, since we have so much further to go. This book posits a future where society DID move on too soon, both from the feminism conversation and from the gender/transgender/intersex/divergent gender conversation, achieving the surface victory of gender neutral pronouns and declaring it to be a kind of liberation whereas it is actually a vast act of censorship masking the fact that the much deeper, larger liberation which we're fighting for now has, in this future, been thrown away. Looking at a world that failed on gender is uncomfortable, intentionally so, but I hope it will help people come away with the conviction that we must do better than this, offering a new way to prove how important it is to keep fighting.

Hope these answers help?(less)
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This book seems like a slow read with its antiquated writing style. Is it worth the whole read?
Mike A belated answer.

While the narrator says he's writing in an 18th century style, that's not how the book reads. If you imagine a knob where 0 is 21st c…moreA belated answer.

While the narrator says he's writing in an 18th century style, that's not how the book reads. If you imagine a knob where 0 is 21st century prose, and 10 is Jonathan Swift or Laurence Sterne, or whoever: for most of the book, the knob is set at around 2. Just enough to make the language a bit distant, but not enough to make it difficult. It's a good choice, and it works well.

However, during the asides to the reader, that knob gets turned to 11. These asides are mostly short. But you also need to think about what's happening. These "dear reader" moments are, first, not anything I remember in 18th century lit. We're talking 19th century: Tony Trollope, not Larry Sterne. (And Trollope's dear readers never argue back. Mycroft's do.) [Well, I re-read Sterne, and he does a "dear reader" that's a lot like these. Sterne pushes the envelope, before there even was an envelope. But again--that is absolutely part of a very complex game the author is playing.] And these moments are written by a fictional 24th century author who is self-consciously imitating that 18th century voice. And, if you really know how 18th century English language works, they're not always correct. The knob is turned to 11, not 10, and that's not an accident. Even given that Mycroft is a brilliant polyglot, he can't always be right about everything. But what games is he playing? What games is his language playing?

If the question is simply "will the antiquated language slow me down," I'd say probably not. But there is a much bigger question: what is that language doing, and why is it doing it? Nothing in this book is accidental; it's been a long time since I've read anything this carefully written. Thinking about the problem of language in this book: that might indeed slow you down. (less)
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It gives itself a rating of S3 for explicit sexual scenes / references to rape / sex with violence. Is there a rape scene? I am completely done with books with rape scenes.
Jo Walton The trigger warnings at the front are entirely serious and you should take them seriously.

If you are "done with rape scenes" because they're cliched a…moreThe trigger warnings at the front are entirely serious and you should take them seriously.

If you are "done with rape scenes" because they're cliched and exploitative, full of the male gaze and intended for titillation and the fridging of women, then no, there isn't a rape scene in that sense, and I suspect you might find what the books are doing with sex and gender interesting and thought provoking and in some ways irritating. (less)
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People keep asking me whether there are two books or four so I figure I should make that a Q&A here?
Ada Palmer Answer: There are two pairs of books that fit closely together. So the first two "Too Like the Lightning" and "Seven Surrenders" are a closely-fitting…moreAnswer: There are two pairs of books that fit closely together. So the first two "Too Like the Lightning" and "Seven Surrenders" are a closely-fitting pair, and are the two halves of Mycroft Canner's history of these "Days of Transformation." There are then two more books, which follow his history.(less)
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How well can this book stand alone?
tobes It doesn't. The technical second book of the series (Seven Surrenders) is actually more like part two of this one.…moreIt doesn't. The technical second book of the series (Seven Surrenders) is actually more like part two of this one.(less)
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