Too Like the Lightning
- 524
- Pages
- about 10 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Too Like the Lightning” is science fiction read chiefly for its world, a future without nations, religion or the nuclear family. On that twenty-fifth-century invention readers are close to unanimous, and the prose, steeped in eighteenth-century philosophy, has its admirers too. Some find the plot weak and meandering and the characters thin, and some put it down unfinished. It is the first of the four “Terra Ignota” novels, and nothing if not ambitious.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Too Like the Lightning is the first novel in a science fiction quartet called Terra Ignota, written by the American author Ada Palmer. It was published on May 10, 2016. Its sequels are Seven Surrenders (2017), The Will to Battle (2017), and Perhaps the Stars (2021). The novel won the 2017 Compton Crook Award. It was a finalist for the 2017 Hugo Award for Best Novel and the James Tiptree Jr Memorial Award. The title is taken from a Shakespearean quote from Romeo and Juliet in which Juliet expresses fear that her love for Romeo has developed too quickly and might disappear as fast.
Reading order · Terra Ignota
Full order & progress →- Too Like the LightningThis book
7.87.8 / 10 - Seven Surrenders
8.08.0 / 10 - The Will to Battle
8.08.0 / 10 - Perhaps the Stars
8.18.1 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.9 across 214 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 59% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Science fiction average of 7.8. That is how 7.8 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.1 | 16 | 8% |
| Hardcover | 8.0 | 198 | 93% |
Frequently asked
How long is Too Like the Lightning?
It has 524 pages — longer than 68% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Science fiction — with scores between 7.8 and 7.9, closest to this book.
