Available:*
Library | Item Barcode | Shelf Number | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
Searching... North Tonawanda Public Library | 34120005997297 | FIC PALMER | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
From the winner of the 2017 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, Ada Palmer's 2017 Compton Crook Award-winning political science fiction, Too Like the Lightning, ventures into a human future of extraordinary originality
Mycroft Canner is a convict. For his crimes he is required, as is the custom of the 25th century, to wander the world being as useful as he can to all he meets. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer--a spiritual counselor in a world that has outlawed the public practice of religion, but which also knows that the inner lives of humans cannot be wished away.
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 labelling all public writing and speech. What seem to us normal gender distinctions are now distinctly taboo in most social situations. And most of the world's population is affiliated with globe-girdling clans of the like-minded, whose endless economic and cultural competition is carefully managed by central planners of inestimable subtlety. To us it seems like a mad combination of heaven and hell. To them, it seems like normal life.
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...
Author Notes
ADA PALMER is a professor in the history department of the University of Chicago, specializing in Renaissance history and the history of ideas. Her first nonfiction book, Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance, was published in 2014 by Harvard University Press. She is also a composer of folk and Renaissance-tinged a capella music, most of which she performs with the group Sassafrass. Her personal site is at adapalmer.com, and she writes about history for a popular audience at exurbe.com and about SF and fantasy-related matters at Tor.com.
The third book of her Terra Ignota series, The Will to Battle , will be released December 2017.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Palmer's fiction debut is the ambitious and colorful first installment of her Terra Ignota series, following the political intrigues of Mycroft Canner, a convict who, as punishment for his crimes, becomes the servant of all he meets. The setting is a richly depicted future where gender is concealed, people live in carefully coded sects, and theology is pick-and-choose. Mycroft is tasked with hiding a child whose existence could cause chaos; this is no easy feat, and he and those around him are soon plunged into the world of high politics. Palmer's prose is written with an Enlightenment sensibility, deliberately dense and ponderous. This stylistic decision can be engaging, especially in the tête-à-têtes between Mycroft and the reader, but the heaviness detracts from what might otherwise be an engrossing plot. Mycroft is a witty unreliable narrator whose own biases color the world brought before the reader; it lurches between hellish and utopian. Palmer proves that the boundaries of science fiction can be pushed and that history and the future can be married together. Agent: Amy Boggs, Donald Maass Literary. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Palmer's Terra Ignota series opener is thought-provoking, to put it simply. The year is 2454, and the world consists of philosophical hives, rather than nations. This utopia includes a group called set-sets who live in virtual reality since birth, laws against practicing religion in public, and a smell-tracks category at the Academy Awards. Even here, though, the ability to bring inanimate objects to life is not normal. Enter Bridger, a young boy who has just such powers. Mycroft Canner, our hero, is a convicted felon required to live a nomad's life of service. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer, a spiritual counselor who helps people discuss religion without breaking anti-proselytizing laws. Both men have stumbled upon Bridger and are determined to guide him and keep him safe. Although the primary plot centers around a stolen list ranking the most powerful people on the planet and its political ramifications, the overarching theme of the book is philosophy, from the debate about gendered pronouns to thoughts about the afterlife. Richly detailed and ambitious, Palmer's debut requires careful reading.--Compton-Dzak, Emily Copyright 2016 Booklist
Library Journal Review
The year 2454 introduces an atmosphere that is entirely unlike our own: one in which technology and economics rule, gender and social norms are taboo, and religion is outlawed but spirituality is accepted. Carlyle Foster's position as a sensayer allows him to counsel people in the ways that the world could be. However, arriving at his newest assignment, he encounters a child with living, bleeding, plastic toy soldiers, and a convict serving the family-Mycroft Canner. The existence of one young boy who can make his wishes come true could threaten this utopian system. As Mycroft narrates this story, he depicts a calm sense of reality, one that hides a deep, intense undercurrent that will spur a revolution among the realm's inhabitants. Verdict Palmer's debut novel examines the cohesive yet clashing connection between philosophical ideologies and advanced technology. Mycroft's experience as a convict refreshes stale sf elements and offers a unique perspective on the birth of a future rebellion.-KC © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.