Too Like the Lightning

Too Like the Lightning

First edition, cover artist Victor Mosquera
Author	Ada Palmer
Language	English
Series	Terra Ignota #1
Genre	Science fiction, speculative fiction
Publisher	Tor Books
Publication date	2016
Publication place	United States
Pages	432
ISBN	978-0765378002

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.

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. He has been commissioned by several other characters to write the "history" that the series is presented as.

Mycroft frequents the Saneer-Weeksbooth home, in which an important stolen document has been planted. 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. Meanwhile, Mycroft tries to protect and conceal a child named Bridger, who has the power to make the unreal real.

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.