OK, this one has been a long time coming. It was one of the first ebooks I collected, just sitting there in my queue. I have friends who speak very highly of Dr. Palmer’s work. Heck, I’ve met and spoken with her several times and found her to be nice. I’ve even met her parents! (Lovely people.)
Lightning is NOT an easy book to read. I emailed my friend after I was done and said that I felt too stupid to read it. It was obviously a labor of love for Palmer to put so much of what she cared about within history and thought and extrapolate that into the future.
There are some authors that I like, but I tend to gloss over some of their details. David Weber and the majority of his space battle descriptions come to mind, but ignoring that the math and strategy of velocity and breaking speed at the right time is a lot like what I did for descriptions of philosophy in this book. The great thing is that Palmer’s in on it! Some of her internal dialogue is with the reader and she comes out at some points and says–it’s OK to skip this!
With that reservation in mind, she’s built an interesting future and I am curious about how it will come together. I’ve got the next book on order so we’ll take it one volume at a time.