Too Like the Lightning

In 2454, nations no longer exist. Technology has brought a near-utopia, and people belong to Hives, voluntary groups chosen by shared values rather than by birthplace. Mycroft Canner, a brilliant criminal living on parole, serves people across the world and sets down this memoir himself. He admits up front that he cannot be trusted as a narrator.

Mycroft writes in the manner of Enlightenment philosophers. He speaks straight to the reader and argues with them over how he tells the story, so the telling is as much a contest as an account.

The peace he describes is fragile. A stolen document hidden in the Saneer-Weeksbooth household pulls rival global powers into the family's affairs. Carlyle Foster is a sensayer, a practitioner of spiritual guidance in a society where public religion is banned, and he is drawn into the secret as well.

Mycroft is also protecting Bridger, a thirteen-year-old boy whose gift makes toys and other representations real. If that power reached the wrong people, the war the world has forgotten could return.

This is the first book of the Terra Ignota series, and it won the 2017 Compton Crook Award and was a Hugo Award finalist for Best Novel. The prose is dense and deliberate, and it suits readers who like philosophical, politically complex science fiction.