In theory I shouldn't have liked this as much as I did, as it combines two features that I normally find offputting: a fictional account of a real person (Nikola Tesla, the inventor of AC electric power) and elements of fantasy. Despite this, I really enjoyed it, perhaps because I knew nothing of Tesla's life beforehand and the fantasy passages were presented as subjective, in keeping with the opinion attributed to Tesla that "every time you dismiss aspects of this world as somehow supernatural, you are dismissing the wonder due this world".
The novel is a celebration of imagination, curiosity and possibility in a world where people are "so mesmerized by technology that they are no longer even curious enough to try to discover where the electricity they love comes from". The young woman Louisa was a very engaging character, and the story made me want to find out more about Tesla and also Mark Twain / Sam Clemens. A phrase from the book has stayed with me: "strands of coincidence that are like a piece of lace holding the world together exactly as it is in this second here".
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