Too Like the Lightning is the first novel in a science fiction quartet called Terra Ignota, written by the American author Ada Palmer.
Set in the year 2454, the Earth of the Terra Ignota quartet has seen several centuries of near-total peace and prosperity.
Too Like the Lightning is a fictional memoir written by self-confessed unreliable narrator Mycroft Canner, a brilliant, infamous, and paroled criminal who often serves the world's most powerful leaders.
The mystery of why and by whom serves as a focal point which draws many different characters, vying for global power and peace, into involvement with the family.
Rather than geographic nations, people can voluntarily join Hives based on values or remain Hiveless, choosing only a minimum set of laws to adhere to.
There are seven Hives: the Humanists who value achievement; Cousins, philanthropy; Masons, logic; Gordians, intelligence; Europe, national identity; Mitsubishi, land and business; and Utopians, the future.
[1] Also, in its chapter at the start of Seven Surrenders, Sniper advises the reader to not "trust the gendered pronouns Mycroft gives people, they all come from Madame".
For instance, Carlyle is mostly referred to using she/her pronouns starting with Seven Surrenders, whereas in the first book Carlyle is referred to with he/him pronouns.Set in the year 2454, the novel is a fictional memoir written by self-confessed unreliable narrator Mycroft Canner, a brilliant, infamous, and paroled criminal who often serves the world's most powerful leaders.
The mystery of why and by whom serves as a focal point which draws many different characters, vying for global power and peace, into involvement with the family.
He enters their home suddenly and witnesses the death of a living toy soldier, brought to life by Bridger's miracle.
Martin Guildbreaker has also arrived at the bash' to investigate a crime: an unpublished newspaper article from the Black Sakura was stolen and planted in the bash'house as though to frame them for grand theft.
Mycroft and Censor Vivien Ancelet calculate the economic and cultural impact of the Black Sakura situation.
Switching narrators briefly, Martin Guildbreaker dictates an interview with Black Sakura reporter Tsuneo Sugiyama, where he begins to learn about the conspicuous suicides and car crashes which have been subtly affecting world politics.
Carlyle and Julia travel together and discuss how Andō and Danaë's bash'kids are suspiciously entering high offices throughout the Hives.
By examining the pattern of car crashes and Cato Weeksbooth's suicidal episodes, they realize the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' is carrying out targeted assassinations, ostensibly in order to maintain the world political status quo and prevent war.
NPR qualifies the book as "maddening, majestic, ambitious" and the worldbuilding as a "thrilling feat", but deplored the abrupt ending.
[7] Paul Kincaid in Strange Horizons was disappointed by the gender treatment in Too Like the Lightning, deploring the direct abandon by the narrator, preferring the style in Ancillary Justice.
[8] They consider the book concepts had the potential to be "one of the most significant works of contemporary science fiction" but fails to "[live] up to its aspirations".