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Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer.
I can't believe it. This is a first time it's happened to me: two books in a row that I'm giving up on only a third of the way through. And, to be honest, this one has given me a whole lot more reason to give up than the first (I won't be trying anything else from this author).
It's clever, and far too apparent that the author spent years "world building" for this book. It should not be so obvious. The author's job is to make it seamless and easy for the reader - instead we have constant interruptions from the narrator "dear reader, did you notice what I just did? I called a woman 'him' and a man 'her'!" Readers are not so stupid that we need every non-subtlety pointed out with page long explanations!
Gender neutral language is not the problem, it's the choice of "they" as a replacement for "he" or "her" that results in singular/plural sense conflicts. "They don't want" - replacing "He doesn't want" - has you looking around for the other people involved. Picking one gender, or using "it", would would have made for smoother reading. ... And even "they" might have been forgivable if it had been consistent, but no, the author can't let you get that comfortable. The dialogue is in gender neutral language while the narrative is gender specific ... except when the narrator decides to call a woman "he" and a man "she", and to explain his reasoning to you over multiple pages. There's probably a message buried in all this, and in the many political essays in the story, but like world building, messages should not be so blatant.
The character of our narrator is another criticism I would make. Mycroft: slave to the rich and famous? Very good at everything, but not quite best only so he can go on for pages and pages about the beauty and richness and power and every other character? Bold and daring except when he's bashful and humble. Give me a break!
I struggled to get to a third of the way through, expecting the author would relax and start letting the reader relax into the story ... but apparently not. With no sign of improvement I resorted to Wikipedia's plot summary and discovered that this first book doesn't provide a conclusion, that the most interesting character becomes a non-event at the end of the second book, and that I have - overall - another three (long) books to go. I just can't make myself do it.
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