Who has never thought about what would happen if we made first contact with aliens? Well. Me? I really haven’t ? *blinks slowly* Wait – before you decide I’m a lost cause and also, so boring: I’ve changed my mind!

If you’ve read A Memory Called Empire – and if you haven’t: why are you reading this review instead of doing just that already? Huh? – I have good news for you : A Desolation Called Peace is everything the first book was, but better. The stakes have been raised, peace is hanging by a thread, and oh, yes, absolutely, I loved every second of it.

Once again, I only had to read the first sentence for the magic to begin. I was instantly drawn into this world, fascinated – I really ought to stop saying that I never love science-fiction novels, because these books are right there, making a liar out of me. First of all, I need to get this out so please, do let me : I adore the writing so much. It’s so evocative and precise, every word chosen with care and purpose. Reading this novel felt like savoring a rare and fine meal, delightful, really. It’s not a book that you gulp down, you’ll need breaks – at least I did – but that’s okay (I’m writing that sentence in my note app at 72%, just so you know). Not all books are meant to be read in one sitting, not to this reader anyway.

But what A Desolation Called Peace does best is putting its characters in such situations that they’re stretched thin between conflicting authorities, forcing them to be more clever, more prudent – to have agency. It’s brilliant, really.

- Yaotlek– commander in chief – Nine Hibiscus needs to focus on the immediate threat – aliens dissolving ships will be that for you – but there’s no such thing as clarity of mind when other people dare to have their own agendas, you know?
- Mahit, back at Lsel station, realizes that politics followed her home, and tries to survive what seems to be an endless war with Texcallaan, with Lsel, with Three Seagrass, with herself. Her need to belong somewhere has never felt so potent – and so beyond reach.
- Eight Antidote, the eleven year old heir, spied child made spy, slowly learns to fight back. I didn’t expect to care for him so ferociously, yet by the end of the book, he was perhaps the character I treasured the most.
- Oh. You know this secondary character you can’t help but root for even though their scenes are way too short? Well, in A Desolation Called Peace, that’s Twenty Cicada for you. You’re welcome.

A Desolation Called Peace is constructed with alternative points of view and I fount it fitting. Don’t get me wrong, I loved being in Mahit’s mind in the first book, it gave me the occasion to truly connect with her and Iskandr, but the shift operated here allows the story to unfurl freely in a way that one POV wouldn’t have made possible. The POV changes occur in the middle of chapters, but it’s never confusing but rather, it helps maintain and even increase the tension.

This sequels expands a theme already very present in the first book, which is: How wide, after all, could the concept of "you" stretch? How does one survive an empire that devours, that calls itself world without looking back – what does it means to be, in and outside of such Empire?

But as I said earlier, A Desolation Called Peace is more. It expands its themes quite beautifully, with for example, but not limited to :
- first contact with creatures we’re not ready to call people yet (will we ever) ;
- war & its crimes, have you heard of them ;
- the infinite and excruciating whirls of loyalty – or is that treason?
- can you love someone without fully understanding them? (yes)
- what is language, anyway?
- let’s agree that algorithms are sneaky, terrifying concepts as a whole, okay? okay.

And last but not least, A Desolation Called Peace shares with A Memory Called Empire a strong last third, all the threads coming together wonderfully ; we the reader cannot ignore that so many contradictory agendas may lead us to countless unpredictable pathways, and it doesn’t disappoint (I dare your eyes not to widen at least once).

Bottom line : I adored A Desolation Called Peace very much, and after years never reading science-fiction, I need to catch up. Any recs?

CW : blood, gore, violence, death, PTSD

Note : Original graphic designs have been created for the purpose of this review. They can be found on my blog and on Goodreads.

I had such incredibly high expectations for A Desolation Called Peace and I am pleased to say the novel exceeded all of them. In the second entry of Arkady Martine’s Teixcalaan series, stakes are ratcheted even higher as new elements of the political landscape are introduced, old factions make dangerous plays, and the threat of an unknowable and unkillable alien race looms over it all.

Much of what I loved about A Memory Called Empire persists in Desolation. Protagonists Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass return in this second book, their relationship complicated by old prejudices and shifting loyalties. Though the dynamic definitely changes between the two of them and not always for the better, I was hooked every moment they were on page separately or together. Add in a formidable, honorable, strong presence in Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus and a pleasantly unexpected POV back on the Jewel of the World and you have a recipe for compelling characters interwoven with several simultaneous plotlines across the galaxy.

The political intrigue if anything becomes more complicated and more urgent in this second entry. It’s no secret I love esoteric alien races that are truly alien (in the sense of being non-humanoid and not having many common vectors with humanity), and I certainly got my wish with this novel. Threats abound from all sides, motives are at cross purposes, and Martine unfolds it all with excellent pacing and gripping prose. We get more and more layers of worldbuilding added into the already complex universe of the Teixcalaan series which was also a delight. Similarly to the first novel, A Desolation Called Peace ends having resolved the arc of the book but leaving the door open for the next entry in the series.

I really don’t have enough good things to say about this, and trying to detail more would quickly bring me into spoiler territory. Just know you’re in for a compelling, tightly-woven narrative from start to finish. If you loved A Memory Called Empire, or even if you liked it but wished there was more tension and action, you’ll love A Desolation Called Peace. I highly recommend this series and it has quickly made its way into my all time favourite list.

Thank you to Tor Books and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

Mahit Dzmare is back on Lisel Station with her now doubled imago Yskandr following the tumultuous events of A Memory Called Empire. Now that Teixcalaan is focused on fighting an alien force instead of invading the station, Mahit tries to reconnect with her home amidst the ever-present danger from the person who sabotaged her imago. Back in Teixcalaan, Three Seagrass has settled into her position under the new Emperor, mourning Petal and missing Mahit. When the Teixcalaanli fleet sent to investigate the aliens requests a translator, Three Seagrass commandeers Mahit to help her. Martine's worldbuilding artistry is on full display and brings the corridors of ships and empty space to life with clarity and imagination. However, A Desolation Called Peace lacks the energy of it's first book and the plot bogs down in repetitive descriptions of just how strange the aliens are (and how vomit-inducing their language is. Answer: very. It was not particularly enjoyable to read about). The relationship between Three Seagrass and Mahit gains no ground and is set back by oddly contrived arguments. Still worth reading if you loved the first one, and hopefully a third book will improve on what was excellent, like the education of Eight Antidote and his relationship to the new Emperor.

This is the continuing story of the Empire of Teixcalaan, and the Lsel Space station which is in their space. In the first book, we met the Lsel Ambassador Mahit Dzmare and her Teixcalaanli handler (more or less) Three Seagrass. In this sequel, we see the story from both of their point of view, but also that of Nine Hibiscus, who is the commander of the Teixcalaanli Fleet, and Eight Antidote, who is the ninety-percent clone of Six Direction, the (former) Emperor of all Teixcalaan.

A strange alien armada has arrived on the edge of Teixcalaanli space, and started attacking planets, and so Three Seagrass, a skilled diplomat, and Mahit Dzmare, who is a linguist in a way, have travelled to the fleet in order to attempt to communicate with them.

And there are many shenanigans.

This book was fantastically written, as was the book before it! The prose is quite lovely. Teixcalaan’s culture is very rooted in poetry and diction, and this is definitely noticeable in the writing. The bits of information that precede the chapters are sometimes poetry, sometimes notes from one character to another, and sometimes just advertisements on a subway wall, but they all show this wonderful style of writing that I have come to enjoy very much.

I will have to admit that I forgot a lot of what had happened in A Memory Called Empire, outside of the important points, and so I found myself every so slightly lost at the very beginning of this one, but it did absolutely come back to me before long. By the middle of the book, I was absolutely hooked! I really liked Mahit and Three Seagrass in book one, and the relationship between them that is friendly-but-maybe-more-than-friendly, and that continues into this one as well, and I loved it! Three Seagrass is snarkier than I remembered, and I was all the way here for it.

All told, if you liked A Memory Called Empire, you are almost certain to like A Desolation Called Peace as well. It had the same space-political-maneuvering that book one had, while adding this thrilling terrifying-alien-negotiation aspect that I really enjoyed a lot. I can’t wait to see where this goes from here!

A Desolation Called Peace was very slow and very very tense. The think I immediately liked was how this installment played heavily with the consequences of what happened in A Memory Called Empire: both in relation to all the political upheaval but also with how the characters were affected by what happened. Things did take a little while to start moving, though, so I found the first half dragged a bit too much for me.

The world-building continued to expand! It was really fun to see a little bit of Lsel Station and, with the introduction of a few new characters, see how the government there worked. Mahit, in that setting and due to everything that had happened to her, was struggling a bit and it was pretty intriguing to read about her trying to deal with everything.

I loved! the alien bits and the little interludes from their perspective. They were very disjointed, but made sense in a weird way? The first contact scenes were also wonderful to read about and I was very much entertaining by Mahit and Three Seagrass trying to establish communication with them. One mild spoiler that I have to mention because I loved it to bits and it was so funny to me: a character choosing to eat a fungus in the name of Science to hopefully broker peace was perfect.

Eight Antidote also deserves his own paragraph: I loved his perspective and how hard he worked very hard at understanding the people and situations around him and how he made decisions based on his impressions and beliefs. It was refreshing to have a character in that position who was… New to political and what it entailed.

And! I can’t end my review without mentioning the brief jump in romance in the book. I won’t mention character names, though I’m sure everyone can guess, but I quite enjoyed how that was developed and the tipping point between characters. The ending was also really sweet and did a great job at setting up plot threads for a next installment.

Arkady Martine's opening space opera novel set in the Teixcalaanli Empire, A Memory Called Empire, won the Hugo Award, and my review judged it to be a worthy crown holder. That novel saw an outpost's diplomat trainee thrust into high society and deal with a fused memory and treachery. Now Martine returns with "A Desolation Called Peace," and this time our hero must negotiate with unreadable aliens poaching Empire ships on Empire's fringe. The author is a superb world builder and the new setting comes vividly, and strangely, to life. As in the opening book, different characters lead the cleverlplot towards an accelerating finale. If I found the storyline of A Desolation Called Peace slightly less riveting than the first plot, I nonetheless read it in a white heat and thoroughly enjoyed it. A captivating two-volume space opera that feels as modern as it seems a nod to the classics.

Instagram review:

Are there any sequels you are looking forward to this year?

A Memory Called Empire was the first book I ever posted on instagram after making this account. So, I was delighted to be given the opportunity to review an e-arc of A Desolation Called Peace (thank you Tor and Netgalley!) and bring things around kind of full circle. It's out on March 2nd!

A Desolation Called Peace brings in some new POVs and new characters into the mix. In addition to Mahit Dzmare, Three Seagrass gets her own POV, as do the young heir to the throne Eight Antidote, and a new character, Nine Hibiscus. We also get some creepy interludes from the aliens with whom Mahit and Three Seagrass are tasked with making first contact, which I loved.

That stakes of this book are grander than the last, but build on what we expect from A Memory Called Empire, and echo Mahit's internal conflict and her sense of otherness. I really enjoyed seeing the different parallels and the impacts of imperialism.

A Desolation Called Peace brings up some of my favourite questions in sci-fi, how do we define humanity or sentience in the face of beings we can't understand?

While I could go on about more of the positives (which I will in my review on my blog soon), I wouldn't be me if I didn't talk about something I didn't enjoy 😂

I could have done without Three Seagrass' POV. To me, it highlighted her as a static character. She is unable to grasp the microagressions that Mahit faces in the Empire and from Three Seagrass herself. One of the central tenants of their relationship and it's conflict in this book was the way that Three Seagrass doesn't think of Mahit on the same level as she does a citizen of the Empire. Mahit is disillusioned with the Empire after her experiences and Three Seagrass's refusal to see her as an equal, rather than an interesting "barbarian", only exacerbates her feelings. Three Seagrass' POV made her less of a sympathetic character for me.

I definitely still recommend this book, and I liked it more than the first, my feelings about Three Seagrass' POV aside. I thought the plot and politics were tighter this time around. And aliens. I just love aliens!!

____

Blog/Goodreads review:

A Memory Called Empire was my first ever book review on my blog, and my first ever post on bookstagram. So, it was wonderful timing that nearly an exact year after reviewing A Memory Called Empire I was approved for an e-ARC of A Desolation Called Peace. Thanks to Tor and Netgalley for the chance to read this delightful book before it's release on March 2nd.

A Desolation Called Peace picks up about a month or so after the events of A Memory Called Empire. It also introduces new characters and POVs.

In the time since Mahit left Teixcalaan, the war with the mysterious alien force at the border of her station is in full force. Mahit's time in the empire has left her disillusioned and insecure. She continues to struggle with integrating with her imago. But, bigger things are on her mind when Three Seagrass smuggles her way on board Mahit's station.

Three Seagrass has been assigned as a diplomatic envoy to the Teixcalaanli fleet fighting the alien force and she has come to take Mahit with her. For maybe more than professional reasons.

In A Desolation Called Peace we have a number of new POVs. We have Mahit's familiar voice, now skewed with frustration. Three Seagrass now has her own POV, as does the young heir to the throne, Eight Antidote. We also get a new character and POV in the form of Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus who has been tasked with handling the alien invasion. By far my favourite small POV were the delightfully creepy interludes from the POV of the aliens.

I thought most of the new characters and POVs were a great addition; however, I could have done without Three Seagrass' POV. For me, it highlighted her as a static character. It just didn't feel like she changed. She was unable to grasp the microagressions that Mahit faces in the Empire and from Three Seagrass herself. One of the central tenants of their relationship and it's conflict in this book was the way that Three Seagrass doesn't think of Mahit on the same level as she does a citizen of the Empire. Mahit's experience in the empire has left her disillusioned. Three Seagrass's refusal to see her as an equal, rather than an interesting "barbarian", only exacerbates her feelings. Three Seagrass' POV made her less of a sympathetic character for me.

The stakes of this book are grander than in A Memory Called Empire, but they also echo Mahit's internal conflict and her sense of otherness. I enjoyed the fact that the overall themes of the novel fit together with Mahit's personal stakes - it made the novel feel more fulfilling than the last. I really enjoyed seeing the different parallels in the story. And, we got to see more about the impacts of imperialism.

A Desolation Called Peace brings up some of my favourite questions in sci-fi. How do we define humanity or sentience in the face of beings we can't understand?

I loved the aliens. I might be biased because I love seeing non-humanoid aliens in science-fiction. But, the aliens were a fantastic addition to the book.

Despite my misgiving about Three Seagrass's POV, I still highly recommend this book. I loved it more than the first! The plot and politics felt tighter this time around and the story was less meandering

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

A Desolation Called Peace is an exemplary sequel to A Memory Called Empire. The first was already a complex, yet compulsively readable space opera, and this second installment continues in that vein. Already culturally rich, we get a deeper scope of the universe in which the series is set, while simultaneously becoming deeper acquainted with the main players from the previous book even as we encounter new ones.

Mahit and Three Seagrass are a few of those major recurring characters, and I loved getting to explore their relationship further with this one, including providing a lot of relatable cultural nuance. The other characters and their connections to one another were also really interested, and kept me constantly engaged.

It is very politically saturated, and Martine provides parallels between her galactic civilization and real life empires, reckoning both with the positives and negative impacts of the empire.

This is a wonderful sequel to an already-fabulous first book. While these books might be a bit dense for some, if you like a sci-fi book book that is heavy on world building, especially the politics, while also not shirking the character development or plot, I think you’ll enjoy this series.

A Desolation Called Peace is the highly anticipated sequel to last year's Hugo Award winner for Best Novel, A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. I was one of the few who didn't love A Memory Called Empire (my review is here), but I still found what it was trying to do really interesting: a story about Empire, and language and how impossible it is for an outsider studying its culture or even being nearby from not being consumed by that culture, even as the Empire itself was at the verge of a crisis due to the interaction of the Empire's own leaders and the intricacies of that culture. The problem for me was not its ambitions, but how fast the plot moved, which made it hard for me to truly believe in the power and allure of this Empire as it was presented, and so I was hoping the sequel would improve on this area.

And A Desolation Called Peace does indeed improve into a novel that I really loved, taking its already present themes of Empire and adding further themes of culture, of isolation, of identity and even more for a spin in a novel that's somehow both slower and yet just as thrilling at the same time. The book expands the point of view to a series of other characters, such that the plot essentially is split in three, even as all three deal with the same "crisis" - the confrontation between the Teixcalaanli Empire and a powerful Alien force. And yet the combination of these three viewpoints doesn't muddle the story at all, instead it contributes to a really fascinating story from beginning to end.

-------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
Out near Lsel Station, the legions of Teixcalaan are facing their greatest threat ever: an alien force with unknown and terrifying technology, which issues transmissions that sound like vomit-inducing screeching harmonies, and without language that can be understood, they seem immune to the Empire's influence. But it is up to Nine Hibiscus, newly appointed Yaotlek (commander) of the six legions sent to face the threat, to figure out a way to defeat the enemy, one which won't result in all their deaths...even as forces within her own command threaten to take matters into their own hands. And so Nine Hibiscus calls for help from the Information Ministry, a request that finds its way to new Undersecretary Three Seagrass.

For Three Seagrass, the request is a relief from the boredom of the Ministry of Information....and perhaps the excuse she needed. For Three Seagrass can think of no one better to help her act as an Envoy to the Aliens than the woman who she fell in love with, the woman whose fall into Teixcalaan helped her stop a civil war, the woman who ran back to her "barbarian" station: Mahit Dzmare.

But since leaving Three Seagrass back in the City, Mahit has found her own problems back on Lsel Station, where powerful councilors who once tried to subtly destroy her still have their own plans for her and her imago-line. And for Mahit, who has consumed herself in Teixcalaan as much as any outsider can, and thus is an outsider even on her own station, the chance to go once again among the people whose culture has compelled her is a simple double edged sword, plunging her towards a place of no return. Assuming of course that Mahit, Three Seagrass and Nine Hibiscus can find a way to resolve the conflict with the aliens without getting themselves killed in the process.

And in The City, Eight Antidote, now sole heir to the greatest Empire there is at eleven years old, wanders Palace-Earth, trying to figure out what he thinks about the strange happenings in the Empire. Taught lessons by a powerful ambitious Undersecretary in the Ministry of War and asked strange questions by the new Emperor, Eight Antidote finds himself enraptured by the conflict out by Lsel Station, and by the presence of Mahit Dzmare, and what it all means.....
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A Desolation Called Peace, unlike its predecessor, expands the story to feature four point of view characters, instead of just following Mahit Dzmare. So we also get Nine Hibiscus, a commander of Teixcalaanli legions who cares for her people and doesn't just immediately leap to destruction as her first choice of action when perhaps a less deadly alternative might suffice, and is loved by her immediate people as a result. We get Three Seagrass, who we only saw from the outside before, who struggles with both her need to do something, her need for Mahit, and her need to understand why Mahit had to leave her in the first place. We still get Mahit of course, who struggles with being even more Teixcalaan-altered in her way of thinking despite it never being possible for her to be Teixcalaanli and finds herself faced with station leaders who have hatreds and dislikes of the Empire that she now represents. And perhaps most interestingly to me, you have Eight Antidote, who at eleven years old is still highly intelligent and thoughtful as he pinballs between powerful authority figures and tries to decide for himself what he really wants the Empire to be.

Each of these characters brings forth their own interesting themes and developments to the story. So with Mahit, you have a continuation of the themes of A Memory Called Empire - how one immersed in the foreign culture of Empire cannot possibly separate themselves from it, and how she cannot say no when it beckons her once more - an inability for consent that makes it impossible for her to give Three Seagrass the love she really wants. But you also see with her how that immersion is seen by the leaders of Lsel Station, who fear it to the point of trying varying but equally dangerous and desperate attempts at enforcing isolation to prevent it from spreading, an isolation that isn't necessarily better than a merging of one's culture with their powerful neighbor. And Mahit's imago conversations with Yskandr only enhance the exploration of these themes.

With Three Seagrass of course, you get the reverse, the person who falls in love with people not of their culture and has to learn to understand how that point of view becomes a problem for an equal relationship with a person like Mahit, who may be beloved but also can't help but feel other in her presence. And then you have Nine Hibiscus, whose need for a solution with the least amount of casualties to her people puts her on the bad side of others in the Empire who would rather make a showing of overwhelming force. And from Nine Hibiscus' point of view we meet her adjutant, Twenty Cicada - also known as swarm - who is a loyal Teixcalaanli, and yet at the same time shows proudly his own side culture and does seemingly what he wants, showing how subcultures can still exist within the Empire. And then there's Eight Antidote, who is my favorite character of all, the young boy entrusted by the Emperor to see what is happening behind the scenes of the Empire - from the power hungry and believers in might over all else to those who simply believe in the use of might to send a powerful message - and to make his own decisions about what he wants the Empire to be, a potentially better Empire that doesn't follow the same methods of its past.

In all of this, I haven't even talked about the plot, because there's so much to talk about with the themes in the story and the fascinating characters, but the plot works a lot better for me here, as we see the alien threat that is seemingly just as scary as the Empire, in that while the Empire is easy to understand and easy to fall in love with, the aliens are unintelligible and clearly inhuman. And there's some themes there as well, and again the slower pacing of them trying to figure out what's going on all the while the legions slowly lose more and more individual ships, really helps carry those out. Still the resolution of the alien threat is probably still the weakest part of the plot - although that isn't saying too much - as the resolution of what the aliens are is perhaps the least original part of everything here. But again, the plot works for me so much better than the first book because its slower pace and complementary themes never really overwhelm the characters and other themes and does retain enough mystery and interest to keep you drawn in.

So yeah, I could easily see A Desolation Called Peace being up for another Hugo Award in 2022. It's the rare example of an expansion of point of views that only adds to the interesting themes and characters, and I am real glad I gave it a shot after being disappointed with the first book.

A Desolation Called Peace is Arkady Martine’s direct sequel to her A Memory Called Empire, which was one of my favorite works in 2019. While not quite as strong, the standard being set so high simply means Desolation is an “excellent” rather than “great” reading, and thus one that is easy to recommend.

As noted, this is a direct sequel, so you’ll definitely need to have read the first book before stepping into this one. The main characters — some familiar, some new — include:

• Mahit Dzmare: resident of Lsel Station and former (well, technically current but it’s complicated) ambassador to Teixcalaan, a militaristic and cultural imperialistic force
• Yskandr: an “imago” of the last ambassador to Teixcalaan implanted in Mahit and thus another personality within her (again, “complicated”. Also why you need to read book one)
• Three Seagrass: a Teixcalaan Information officer and former liaison (and lover) of Mahit
• Eight Antidote: the imperial heir, an 11-year-old clone of the prior Emperor
• Nine Hibiscus: the leader of the fleet sent out to deal with the mysterious alien enemy introduced in book one
• Twenty Cicada: Nine Hibiscus’ second-in-command
• Sixteen Moonrise: a Fleet Captain under Nine Hibiscus’ command, though how seriously Moonrise takes that ranking is questionable

The story picks up with Mahit having returned home to Lsel Station for a brief time of trying to deal with how and why her Yskandr imago was sabotaged (see book one) and what will happen to her now. Meanwhile, Nine Hibiscus has finally engaged with the invisible enemy (no longer invisible). When she requests a diplomat from the Empire for an attempt at First Contact negotiation before jumping into a horrific war of attrition, Three Seagrass nominates herself for that role and takes off for deep space, stopping at Lsel Station to pick up Mahit, figuring a “barbarian” (as the Teixcalaan think of all non- Teixcalaan) might be helpful in understanding aliens.

While Three Seagrass and Mahit try to decipher intercepted communications from the aliens then set up their first meeting, Nine Hibiscus and Eight Antidote need to have to deal with various factions within the fleet and the Empire respectively (and Lsel Station to a lesser extent) that may have differing agendas than peace or a quick ending to the war. As events unfold, the story shifts point of view amongst the major characters as well as the aliens who speak (no spoiler here as this is the opening chapter) in a plural “we” as a hive mind.

The novel succeeds on a simple plot level. The aliens are concisely yet plausibly and vividly presented as living, thinking, and unnerving creatures. Their physical description, their ability to seemingly appear out of nowhere, their weaponry, and the results of their attacks are all disturbing and thus create the necessary creepiness and tension, a tension further sharpened by the nearness of the opposed fleets to one another, facing off while the clock ticks on possible negotiation. Meanwhile, the political machinations enhance both the suspense and the sense of urgency, as do some other plot points, though I won’t go into details so as to avoid spoilers. There’s also a nice twist that reminded me of a class old novel turned into a classic old movie, though I’ll just note that again without details as to which and why. That said, while there is a lot of tension, and some military engagement, this is more a cultural conflict/contact than a space opera war of lasers ping-pinging etc. So if that’s your thing, maybe this plot will succeed less for you; personally I loved it.

Beyond the plot reasons, I loved that it was more cultural conflict because that concept is at the heart of this duology: the way the Empire doesn’t simply conquer via its military but swamps others with its pervasive, relentless, invasive cultural tentacles (hmm, sound familiar?), the way the question of “who counts as human” (or more broadly, who can be considered a person) runs throughout the Empire on a macro level, and throughout the relationship between Mahit and Three Seagrass on a micro level. Here is one of their more bitter exchanges:

[Three Seagrass] “You think I said that because you can’t hear anything but one of us saying you aren’t Teixcalaanlitzlim whenever we speak to you.”

“Don’t you? . . . You remind me I’m a barbarian all the time . . . And not just you, Three Seagrass, the soldiers in the corridor too, but at least they have the honesty not to pretend that I’m anything but what Teixcalaan thinks I am. You? You want to give me uniforms and make me useful and have a clever almost-human barbarian to show off . . .

“I’m sorry about the uniforms . . . but you aren’t being —”

“Explicable? Understandable? Civilized?”

“Fuck. .. If you didn’t want to come with me here you didn’t have to . . . “

“When you figure out why I did have to come with you, we can talk again.”

It’s impossible to read these moments and not relate them to everyday existence for those forced to swim in the sea of a majority culture. This fraught tension though is made all the richer for how Martine portrays (realistically) how seductive such cultural power is even for those it threatens to swamp, like falling in love with the waves that are trying to drown you. And then it gets under the skin and into the brain so it becomes almost second nature: “Mahit laughed, a raw sound . . . She couldn’t do it all. She thought in Teixcalaanli, in imperial-style metaphor and overdetermination. She’d had this whole conversation in their language.”

But no matter the type of submission— willing, unwilling, unconscious—, real assimilation or pretense to get along, it is never enough. In the oppressor’s eye or in those oppressed, who cannot help but see themselves through that same eye, resulting in the sheer exhausting constancy of such a life, the “double consciousness” that taints all, as when Mahit cannot join in a celebratory moment when Three Seagrass compliments her: “Am I human, then?” Mahit thought, bitter-sharp, and shoved the question away, unwanted. Couldn’t she enjoy this? Couldn’t she feel the same victory that Three Seagrass was feeling?”

It would have been simple to have just portrayed Mahit as an oppressed other, or as one who resists the imperialistic, colonizing power to protect her own “side,” but Martine is interested in deeper, more nuanced exploration. And so rather than stand her ground at home, we see Mahit as exile in her own homeland, her whipsawed emotions almost unbearable at times: “exile happened I the heart and the mind long before it happened to the body that moved in space, across borders.”

Other themes are just as richly depicted, though this review is getting too long to go into them in any detail: the burden of responsibility, the easy rationalization of atrocity, the limits of language. Relationships are key and wonderfully mined, Mahit and Three Seagrass, yes, but also Nine Hibiscus and Twenty Cicada (my favorite relationship and favorite characters in the novel), Eight Antidote and the current Emperor. And relationship, as a broader concept, is key as well, and is nicely set up and played out through a series of plot echoes that enhance the concept (a method that itself becomes a major plot point). The writing, as with the first book, is consistently strong, less actual poetry than in book one but only slightly less poetic despite that, resulting in my writing “nice” multiple times in my notes just as commentary on the language itself.

My complaints, such as they are, were small. In my review of book one I noted the relationship felt unnecessary. Here it didn’t feel so much unnecessary as implausibly intrusive at times, with characters focused on their relationship or their recent sexual acts at moments I just didn’t buy, meaning they felt more like the hand of the author than the thoughts of the characters. But those moments, while jarring me out of the story, were brief and relatively few. The other problematic area was more substantive, in that the sections dealing with Lsel Station felt undeveloped, rushed, and even forced at times (or maybe not fully earned might be a better description). But again, those were minor moments both in terms of page space and plot impact, so not much of an issue.

A Desolation of Peace ends in a way that resolves many issues, and really feels that it ends this particular story. But where the characters of book one and two fall leaves lots of room for further development, while the newer characters either present the same opportunity or offer up the possibility of back stories. The same holds true with this richly developed universe, where I’d be happy to read more either forward or backward in time. Here’s hoping Martine isn’t finished playing in this particular sandbox. Highly recommended.

TL;DR

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine is a welcome return to Teixcalaanli and Stationer space. Old friends reunite for a first contact scenario while new friends spy and play the game of politics. Also, kittens in space. Because kittens belong everywhere. Highly recommended for SFF fans.

Review: A Desolation Called Peace

Sequels are wonderful things. When a reader finds a world they love, they want to return again and again. And if we’re lucky, again and again and again. I remember feeling this way after finishing A Memory Called Empire. When it won the Hugo in 2020, I knew a lot of people agreed with me. By the time it had won the Hugo, the sequel A Desolation Called Peace was already in work. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it, and luckily for me, Tor approved me for an eARC. I dug hungrily into Arkady Martine’s newest adventure in her world looking for more Teixcalaanli and Stationer goodness. A Desolation Called Peace doesn’t disappoint. It’s a wonderful return home to a formal yet comfortable universe.

At the start of A Desolation Called Peace, Mahit Dzmare is back on Lsel Station, embroiled in local politics; Three Seagrass is bored in her new job; and Nineteen Adze is the new Empress, long may she reign. The insurrection failed, but the alien threat beyond Lsel Station still exists. Quickly, the reader is taken to the Teixcalaanli fleet as it makes contact with the ‘enemy.’ This enemy may be technologically superior to the Empire, and they’re picking off scouts and attack vessels. The funeral hymns resound throughout the fleet. Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus gets the crazy idea of trying to talk to the aliens, despite the fact that the alien sounds make all who listen queasy. Who better to talk to aliens than the Information Ministry’s own Three Seagrass with her favorite barbarian Mahit Dzmare? Meanwhile, back in Teixcalaan, the game of politics has picked up a new player in the former emperor’s clone, Eight Antidote. His role is to find out if Nine Hibiscus and the fleet were sent out to win the war against the alien threat or simply to die.

In the fleet, we meet a host of new and interesting characters. Nine Hibiscus received a promotion after the failed insurrection, and quickly the captains under her command test her leadership. Her biggest test comes from Sixteen Moonrise, a possible spy for the Ministry of War. For a captain of a ship, Sixteen Moonrise spends a lot of her time in the book onboard the Fleet Command ship, Weight for the Wheel. Nine Hibiscus, though, has Twenty Cicada, an adjutant with an unorthodox religion. Twenty Cicada supports his yaotlek and keeps her ship in tip-top form. In other words, Martine has created a range of new characters at the frontlines of Teixcalaan’s war for us to enjoy. I really liked these characters, and we get enough that each of them feel whole with logical motives.

In the Ministry of War back at the capitol, Eight Antidote gets an education from Eleven Laurel, head of the military spy agency, and the Minister of War herself, Three Azimuth. I didn’t connect with this part of the storyline as much as the Fleet portion. Eight Antidote is an interesting character; through him, the reader gets to experience Palace-Earth and stay current on homefront politics. While Three Azimuth gets quality character work, I didn’t get enough about Eleven Laurel to get a grasp on him. He remained thin to me.

Can Mahit Go Home Again?

One of the things that I really liked about A Memory Called Empire was seeing the ‘outsider’ Mahit adjust to Teixcalaan and the Teixcalaanli, mostly fail, to adjust to her. As a small town boy who moved to Detroit at the end of college, I understood Mahit’s plight. It’s wonderful to be there, but it’s quickly made apparent that you’re different. A Desolation Called Peace continues investigating this with Mahit aboard Lsel Station. By returning, she’s put herself in a no person’s land in that she’s politically useless to her benefactors while Heritage considers her imago line an active threat. How can she feel at home when she’s not even seen as a person but a political tool? Heritage, meanwhile, wonders if the imago lined has been infected by Teixcalaan culture and could possibly dilute the purity of Stationer life.
In many ways, Mahit is between homes in this book. Her love of Teixcalaan makes her a threat to Stationer culture, but her Stationer origins make her a barbarian to the culture she loves. How does one find a home in this situation? Does Mahit find a home? This is a question that I can’t wait to discuss with people as they read the book.

Weight for the Wheel

One of my favorite aspects of this book is the poetic imagery throughout it. But the name of Nine Hibiscus’s ship tops all that. I don’t know why, but every time I read Weight for the Wheel, I wanted to write poetry. There’s so much depth to that image. I know; it’s a minor part of the book. But I loved it. So, Dr. Martine, well done. In the event that I ever become evil genius level rich and am able to build a spaceship, Martine has earned its naming rights.

Pacing

Like A Memory Called Empire, A Desolation Called Peace felt very controlled. Every aspect was crafted, perfected, and put in the place it was meant to be. Yet unlike the previous book, I struggled to get into this one. It took a while to engage me. But I can’t explain what was different between Memory and this. Pacing is one of those nebulous areas of reviewing where each reader’s experience will vary. Some will enjoy it; some will wish it had moved faster. And it could just be me at the moment. I might pick this up in few months and have a different experience. But as a reviewer, everything I’ve written above is shaped by my struggle to engage with the book. While there was plenty of tension and conflict throughout the book, I didn’t feel the tension. I admired its construction but bounced off it. I think this is my failing and not the book’s. A Desolation Called Peace is a finely crafted story that is worth reading.

Conclusion

Arkady Martine’s A Desolation Called Peace returns the reader to Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass for another adventure in a standout SF setting. Teixcalaan is as wonderful as I remember, and with the introduction of new and engaging characters like Nine Hibiscus and Eight Antidote, A Desolation Called Peace expands the Teixcalaan universe. Come for the aliens; stay for the Kauraanian kittens.

This improves on the first book in nearly every way for me. there are now multiple point of views which really enhanced my understanding of the world and kept me interested and engaged. I personally felt it was better paced and I enjoyed the change of sub-genre to a more military sci-fi. This work is still beautifully written and thematically rich but in general a better story for me. I had such a fun time trying to predict what would happen next. It was full of familiar sci-fi tropes but the mixture itself was so unique and such a fun experience! Basically if you loved A Memory Called Empire you will probably love this one and if you had some issues with the first book I feel like this sequel improves on everything that A Memory Called Empire already did a really good job of. The pacing was consistent for me, the characters more vibrant, and the plot kept me at the edge of my seat.

I received an ARC of A Desolation Called Peace from Macmillan-Tor/Forge in exchange for an honest review.

When I finished reading A Desolation Called Peace, I thought of something Bilbo says in The Fellowship of the Ring: “I feel thin. Sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” Martine’s follow-up to her stellar debut, A Memory Called Empire, is an ambitious book. I hesitate to say too ambitious, because I would much rather read an ambitious failure than an unambitious success, but Desolation may truly be too ambitious. It goes broad where Memory went deep, and as a result characters, plotlines, and themes are left un- or under-developed.

A Desolation Called Peace feels bigger than A Memory Called Empire, for better and for worse. Not only does Desolation span more physical space, but it features more POV characters. I am sad to say that I was far less interested in Mahit and Three Seagrass this time around, and I frequently found myself skimming their sections. More engaging is Desolation’s major new character, yaotlek Nine Hibiscus, and the supporting players in her story: Twenty Cicada and Sixteen Moonrise. I likely would have enjoyed this book much more if it had spent more time in the POV of Nine Hibiscus and less (or even none) in the POVs of Mahit and Three Seagrass.

But it is eleven-year-old Eight Antidote who steals this book. Not only is he the most dynamic character with the most organic emotional growth, but it is in his POV that Martine’s writing truly shines: his narration features a higher frequency of comma splices and run-on sentences, which captures with delightful precision the way children actually talk. Eight Antidote’s POV also supplies the reader with an occasional dose of Desolation’s best secondary and tertiary scene-stealers, such as Eleven Laurel, Three Azimuth, and the Emperor Herself, Nineteen Adze.

(Like, for example, Anomander Rake in Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen, Nineteen Adze maintains her mystique because Martine wisely keeps her at a distance. She remains my favorite character in this series—although she has fierce competition from Twenty Cicada and Eight Antidote in Desolation—and if the Nineteen Adze novella Martine has mentioned comes to pass, Tor can consider the payment for it pre-deducted from my bank account.)

I have several minor quibbles with Desolation. A pivotal plot twist is not foreshadowed, at least not that I noticed, and it comes too late in the book to be properly developed despite being the thematic crux of the story. Major plot threads which were left dangling at the end of Memory are ignored or casually dismissed, whereas major plot threads in Desolation are wrapped up in a tidy bow; it feels neither realistic nor satisfying. I also continue to be annoyed by some of the writing quirks which prevented me from fully falling in love with Memory, particularly the lengthy paragraphs and incessant use of italics to emphasize things which do not need to be emphasized.

A Desolation Called Peace ultimately left me conflicted and a shade disappointed. All the ingredients of great storytelling are here, but they weren’t baked properly. I was bored by Mahit and Three Seagrass and frustrated by the number of plotlines, both from Memory and Desolation, which were either abandoned or resolved too quickly and too neatly. But I loved spending more time in the world of Teixcalaan and with the characters, old and new, who make this book shine—Nine Hibiscus, Twenty Cicada, Eight Antidote, Three Azimuth, and Nineteen Adze, among others. And I can’t fault Martine for playing it safe, because Desolation doesn’t: they miss more often than they hit, but this is a novel chock-full of wild swings, bold ideas, and rich thematic material. It gives up the crisp, clean mystery of A Memory Called Empire in exchange for something sprawling and messy. That said, I am still overall positive on A Desolation Called Peace and am looking forward to what Arkady Martine, already a titan of worldbuilding and one of the most inimitable authors of speculative fiction working today, brings us next.

(I’m ready for something non-Teixcalaan, but give me that Nineteen Adze novella first.)

I know it’s early in the year, but this is one of those books that I couldn’t wait to read. First things first, you have to read A Memory Called Empire (book 1). Full stop. This book picks up a bit after book 1. Mahit has returned “home” to the Station. Three Seagrass has risen in the ranks of the government. And both are pretty much miserable. And then near the Station, the Empire is at war with unknown aliens. When the warfront puts out a request for help communicating with the aliens, Three Seagrass jumps at the chance and picks up Mahit on the way. Once at the front, they have to figure out how to communicate with the aliens before the war spins out of control. All the while back in Teixcalaanli, the heir to the Empire is learning more of the world and his place in it. First- the writing in this book is amazing. The characters are great and the world-building is spectacular. But it also explores some heavy topics like identity, culture, memory, leadership and “otherness.” If you want an amazing space opera, please please please pick up this duology.

As the sequel to a Memory Called Empire, A Desolation Called Peace has a very similar feel but the story pushes along in a completely different context than the city planet from book one. The sense of wonder I felt in the first book at how cool it would be to explore the city planet transfers into the sequel as well, where I found myself so fascinated with the politics found at the edge of the Empire. Like the first book, language and poetry find meaning and context within the science-fiction world, and it works so well. The characters are loveable, and the worldbuilding is spectacular. The information and worldbuilding can sometimes feel intimidating, but overall, if you liked the first book, the second installment is something you'll enjoy also.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! A full review will be posted on armedwithabook.com on February 13, 2021

First contact was for diplomats and people who got into epic poems.


An alien enemy lurks at the edges of Teixcalaanli space, and when the commander of the fleet requests a language expert, Three Seagrass—still reeling from her part in the events two months before—hops aboard. But first, she's going to make a little detour to Lsel Station to pick up her favorite barbarian, Mahit Dzmare, who has fallen into some political troubles back home.

I AM SCREAMING

NOT SINGING

SCREAMING

*deep deep hyperventilating breaths*

Okay, I'm good.

*SCREAMING RESUMES*

"I am very small," Three Seagrass said, delightedly. "I squish. Put me between the boxes of hearts, I'll do just fine."


It's not going to be a lie when I say that A Memory Called Empire blew my mind, made me feel like I knew nothing (I still don't) and then this book added weird aliens to the mix (fucking mushrooms and fungus, folks—steer clear of that shit) and a language that you think you know the answer to but you really don't.

Loyalty wasn't transitive. It didn't move up and down the chain of command smoothly. It could get cut off, or rerouted.


Like the previous book, this one delves heavily into politics and plays with the idea of collective consciousness/memory (on three different levels).

In a world that has just survived a massive change-up to the old regime, with an insurrection squashed, a new emperor (regent) installed and a child-emperor clone who just squeaked shy of having his will replaced with his ancestor, there is a lot of underlying tension and mistrust.

Everyone has their own agendas and motivations, and different ideas of what the Teixcalaan Empire should become, all competing in a massive reshuffling of personnel and resources and rebuilding after a coup. And then add a mysterious war to the mix—you get blood hungry imperials who are just chomping at the bit to attack, and a commander who is willing to use more sense than traditional bloodlust to go for the kill and the win. And then the aliens are beyond weird, plus the fighter pilots are all acting hinky after a new tech upgrade that seems to be eroding their mental stability.

Swimming through this political morass is the fleet commander Nine Hibiscus (chosen for her position because she was too smart for her own good), Three Seagrass (mourning the loss of her best friend and the departure of her barbarian crush and also her writer's block), and Eight Antidote (the ten-year-old clone of the previous emperor).



Back on Lsel Station, Mahit has spent the past two months wandering around kicking rocks (admittedly, she has a lot to deal with, what with being flung feet first into a massive political situation as a barbarian ambassador and then dealing with a botched imago surgery that left her with two Yskandrs to deal with).

She quickly gets bogged down into political shenanigans yet again, what with three of the six councillors wanting to use her for political gains. Wrapped into this is the implication of imago lines and collective memory.

Lsel Station has maintained its position and knowledge as much as it has because it has passed down its memories in human form, to the point where imago history/human memory is considered the only accurate form of history and knowledge, rendering paper histories useless. It's a fascinating concept of the understanding of history and historical accuracy, made even more interesting with a comic strip of two people struggling to stay warm and one urging the other to just go ahead and burn the useless (but actually very important) records because they had imagos and those were what was important.

I did want more on the imago lines and accurate records, particularly since there was a lot of evidence that the minister in charge of the imago lines was manipulating them (with the implication her predecessors did the same thing) to subtly alter the perceptions of history and memory into a more uniform shape. Because when the only thing that remains of the historical record is human memory (and everyone admits that the imagos are better for skillsets rather than specific details), what becomes of history?

Anywho, Mahit is in a world of hurt until she manages to escape offstation with Three Seagrass, and the two try to manage their tumultuous feelings for each other while battling sleep deprivation and an alien language that induces literal nausea when heard. The cultural differences—particularly with Three Seagrass's cultural prejudice against anything not of the of the world—makes an impact, and this understanding of what is Teixcalaanli and what isn't (and who gets to be part of the world and who doesn't) has a huge and subtle piece of the book.

How much, for example, can an outsider become immersed in the world? What does it take to belong to the world entirely, particularly when there are so many qualifications and addendums? Three Seagrass, who grew up and lived entirely in the main city in the upper levels of society, has been culturally indoctrinated and belongs without question, whereas Nine Hibiscus' XO, Twenty Cicada (already questionable because he took the name of an animal instead of a non-living thing) was of a barbarian world that was forcefully assimilated into the Teixcalaanli empire. The balance to which he is a performative Teixcalaanlitzim and also retains his cultural roots is interesting, and it's very clear that the only reason he was allowed to ascend so high was due to Nine Hibiscus' paternalism/friendship. Anywho, Twenty Cicada was definitely one of my favorite characters, mainly because I love amazingly competent logistical people who save cats and grow plants and flowers.

Oh fuck I've written too much and there is still so much more to say!

Remember me? I'm the Emperor, just in kid shape. Just wait, and I might be the Emperor again.


The last main character is Eight Antidote (I'm not really going to talk about Nine Hibiscus because her POV was kinda boring and I would rather have had Twenty Cicada's POV instead), who is a literal child that gets absent-mindedly treated like an adult and allowed to make his own decisions. He's pretty mature for his age, but the general shoulder-shruggy nature of Nineteen Adze in ensuring that he has structure, education and um, something of a childhood, is definitely lost—which turns his POV into something of a tragedy, mainly because of how culturally indoctrinated I am into how childhood is supposed to go (and admittedly, several other characters are like "well shit when I was ten I was painting my toenails" so even they realize how far out of his depth this poor child is allowed to go).

Eight Antidote was moderately similar to Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird—a precocious, intelligent and yet still naive of the world child allowed to explore their world and make sense of it as they see fit. However, Eight Antidote has no support/comfort/disciplinary-figure like Calpurnia (unless you kinda count Three Laurel or the City itself? In which case, damn, the kid is fucked), and he also lacks a person who takes the time to put the world into context and explains things (Nineteen Adze kiiiinda does this, but she cannot completely reconcile her emotions regarding Six Direction, the previous empire, and it's pretty clear that she's floundering just as hard with how to deal with this child-who-is-the-former-emperor-but-not in a way that's morally right and fair and whatnot).

Anywho, because Eight Antidote is Scout on Speed, he both sees things the adults can't, maintains his white/black morality, and acts upon it when he sees the adults doing nothing (specifically with the war and the Shard pilots).

There's definitely a lot more to go into, but I lack the nuance to really do it justice, because Arkady Martine is brilliant (the only downside to this book is a fairly um, cringy sex scene—there's nothing wrong with it at all, I just felt the way it was written and described was out of tone with the rest of the book, like, a different writing style/perspective? I'm butchering this explanation).

And, of course, there is the humor underlying this entire book. From a pandemic of cats breeding unchecked in the air vents of a space station to comic books to the inherent ridiculousness of bureaucracy, I loved it. Plus, there's this gem of insight into how you manage computer systems:

"Wake up the ship, then," Four Crocus said, "and when the programming comes up, say yes to everything."


SAY YES TO EVERYTHING

I received this ARC from NetGalley for an honest review

Arkady Martine's new science fiction novel A Desolation Called Peace is a sequel to her Hugo-award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire. Like its predecessor, Desolation is a far-future space opera. Martine carries over her exquisite world-building, and some of the same characters, from the previous volume, and gives both world and people a series of new challenges. The galaxy-spanning Teixcalaan Empire -- reminiscent of both the Byzantine Empire (the subject of Martine's scholarly work as a historian) and the empire of the Aztecs -- regards itself as the epitome of civilization. All outsiders are disparaged as "barbarians." The Empire is at once aesthetically dazzling, enormously wealthy, bureaucratically vast, and politically ruthless. Its accomplishments in art, literature, and architecture are unparalleled. It dominates galactic trade and commerce, and controls access to the "gates" (presumably wormholes) that allow for travel between distant planetary systems. With its fearsome military might, the Empire slaps down anyone and anything that dares to challenge its worlds-spanning dominance. Teixcalaan is something like a science-fictional analogue of the United States (at least in the period after we "won" the Cold War but before our recent decline), though its overtly totalitarian political structure bespeaks a franker acknowledgment of aspects of the American Empire that we tend to dissimulate, even to ourselves.

A Desolation Called Peace switches fluidly among multiple points of view; but like its predecessor, its main character is an outsider (a so-called "barbarian"): Mahit Dzmare, from the small independent space colony Lsel Station. The Station is fully in the Teixcalaanli sphere of economic influence, but it has so far managed to preserve its political independence. Mahit has grown up studying, and loving, all things Teixcalaanli, while maintaining her Lsel cultural identity. In A Memory Called Empire, Mahit is sent as Lsel's ambassador to the Empire. Coming to the Teixcalaan capitol planet and city, she fully indulges her love for its culture; but her ambassadorial charge is to preserve Lsel Station from the Empire's imperialist designs.

Immediately upon arrival, Mahit is thrown into a world of complex and treacherous political scheming (that fully merits the adjective 'Byzantine' in its looser metaphorical sense); at the same time, she is forced to recognize that, no matter how well she integrates herself into Teixcalaanli cultural life, she will never fully be accepted by it. She will never escape being regarded as an inferior barbarian. Mahit acutely feels the same post-colonial dilemma that so many people of color and people from elsewhere than Western Europe or North America have had to face in our actual world today: how to negotiate between their having been shaped by, and having come to love, certain aspects of Euro-American culture, and their inescapable awareness that this culture has systematically devalued and exploited them.

A Desolation Called Peace inverts the situation of the previous novel. Now, several Teixcalaanli legions find themselves at the edges of the Empire, engaged in low-level space combat with a nonhuman but sentient alien species. If the Teixcalaanli regard human beings from other cultures as barbarians scarcely worthy of recognition, how can they deal with this far more deeply alien presence? The aliens' technology is at least equal, and in some ways superior, to that of the humans; but their communications, both among themselves and when they address themselves towards humans, don't seem to be categorizable as anything we can recognize as language. Given the inscrutability of the aliens, together with their mastery of stealth guerrilla warfare, it seems that the Empire is faced with an alternative between humiliating withdrawal, or genocide of the alien species on a planetary scale (with the latter still not guaranteed to end the war for good).

In this situation, the linguist and spy Three Seagrass -- Mahit's Teixcalaanli contact and semi-love-interest from the first novel -- is called to the space frontier to try to find a way of negotiating with the aliens. Three Seagrass asks Mahit to come along and help her. Mahit agrees, because she is in political hot water back home at Lsel Station; although she preserved the Station from direct annexation by the Empire, she is still regarded by her own people as overly pro-Teixcalaanli and therefore untrustworthy.

What follows is another story of (sorry) Byzantine political intrigue, combined with the ontological uncertainties of a First Contact novel. A Desolation Called Peace is rich on a personal-is-political level, as Mahit must negotiate her way among many stresses: the distrust and disdain of the Teixcalaanli in general, the condescension of Three Seagrass despite the mutual sexual attraction between them, and the ill-will of her Lsel compatriots -- not to mention the difficulties of grasping the desires and beliefs of civilized beings who nonetheless look grotesque and menacing to human eyes, and whose vocalizations (which they think of as singing) literally cause nausea due to infrasonic vibrations when heard by human ears in human bodies.

I should probably be a bit more circumspect in the rest of this review, so that I do not give away too many spoilers. I will just say that the novel's resolution comes about through Martine's other great theme, besides questions of borders and negotiations and cosmopolitanism. This other theme has to do with the nature of individuality, and of possible connections among minds and bodies. The major science fictional novum of A Memory Called Empire, alongside its broad political and cultural vision, is a key technology that Lsel Station has, but the Empire does not. This is what the novel calls the imago -- a prosthetic computational device that contains the memory and personality of ancestors or predecessors. Upon reaching adult maturity, every Lsel citizen is implanted with an imago that is suitable for their personality, and for their chosen career. Mahit is given the imago of Yskandr Aghavn, her predecessor as Lsel ambassador to Teixcalaan, and who shared many of her cosmopolitan interests and even (to some extent) sexual proclivities. An imago often contains a multi-generational line of predecessors, and its personality is supposed to integrate with that of the host. For various reasons, Mahit finds such integration difficult, over the course of both novels. The technology is supposed to be a Lsel secret; but when the Teixcalaanli find out about it they tend to be both fascinated and horrified.

Questions about the integrity of the self, and of personality connection and integration, are central to both novels. Mahit is genuinely helped by Yskandr's imago, and mostly values their integration, but she also sometimes has difficulties with having what is ultimately another person "inside her endocrine system." Similarly, after Mahit finally has sex with Three Seagrass (maybe this is a spoiler, but after we've been teased about this prospect over the length of two long volumes, it just had to happen eventually), she worries about what it means to say that "this person has had their hands inside you." So it is not too much of a stretch to see the technological forms of personality integration imagined by Martine as extensions of sexual connection -- just as First Contact tropes in science fiction generally are extensions of actual worldly problems of connection among people of different cultures and belief systems. In all these cases, questions of intimacy -- of welcoming someone who in one sense combines with you but also at the same time remains other than you -- are combined with questions of freedom and coercion, and of unequal power relations between the partners.

A Desolation Called Peace imagines an expanded range of technologies of connection among separate bodies and minds -- alike among the Lsel Stationers, the Teixcalaanli, and the aliens. I will just mention that these exist, on several levels, without going into description and analysis of all of them. It is quite beautiful the way in which these prospects of connection nicely resolve the narrative, and lead to at least a certain possibility of peace, beyond the alternatives of either continual skirmishing or violent annihilation -- while at the same time, things remain open, complicated, and unresolved on a broader, philosophical level, and in terms of future prospects for the characters and their societies. A Desolation Called Peace gives us so much of what I look for in science fiction: deep and cogent worldbuilding, characters who definitely intrigue us and grab our attention, whether or not we actually like them, and deep conceptual speculation, which opens up new prospects for thought.

Following the events in A Memory Called Empire, the Teixcalaanli empire fights an elusive, powerful alien armada that they cannot communicate with and can rarely see. In a desperate move, fleet captain Nine Hibiscus requests the assistance of a diplomatic envoy to try to negotiate with the aliens. Three Seagrass responds, and, in an unusual move, decides to ask Lsel ambassador Mahit Dzmare to accompany her. With nothing to lose, the disgraced ambassador defies her government's will and joins the envoy from their would-be colonizers on an impossible mission.

I love the way Martine weaves together many layers of complicated politics that are heavily informed by richly developed culture and tradition. Every part of the world building feels like it has the weight of history, informing everything from interpersonal conflict to factional disputes to diplomatic relations. Yet even with so much subtle nuance behind every character interaction and choice, the plot never feels bloated and the pacing, while a slow build, never seems to lag.

This is everything I could have hoped the sequel to A Memory Called Empire would be. I love what Martine has done here with a first contact narrative, in which both sides are long used to operating from a position of power, which makes for a fascinating interplay between propaganda, cultural norms, and the ability to acknowledge the reality of the situation. It's science fiction that keeps you thinking, without ever overexplaining or beating you over the head with a message.

This is the series to read if you want a character-driven space opera with gorgeously evocative prose, rich world building (Teixcalaan is inspired by the Aztec and Byzantine empires!), a complex political landscape, and a nuanced exploration of themes of language and communication, colonialism and imperialism, and how culture shapes understanding. As you might expect, it's not a light read, but it is easily one of the best series I've read in recent years. A Memory Called Empire deserved all the accolades it has received, and this sequel, A Desolation Called Peace, was every bit as wonderful as I had expected. I cannot recommend this book highly enough and sincerely hope to read many more in this universe from the author.

Martine picks up right where the first book leaves off. The worldbuilding in this series is second-to-none, in how the politics of diplomacy confront the interpersonal relationships of the characters. It is intentionally complex, and if you enjoyed the first one, you will certainly enjoy more.

I’ll kick off with the pressing question – do you need to reread A Memory Called Empire to read this? On the one hand this is quite a different book in terms of location and plot, and in theory you could get away with as much as remembering the names and roles of some of the characters. But my heart says that if you have any opportunity or excuse to reread the first book you should grab it with both hands. I do honestly think this is a series that gets better and better with each reread so that’s one benefit – but also the events of this book do directly draw from the events of book one and you’ll just have an all around better time if you remind yourself firmly of what’s going on. I didn’t read them back to back but I’d read the first book within enough time that I knew what was going on.

With that question cleared up let’s look at the book! I’ll start by saying that, though the plot is quite different, if you loved the first book I guarantee you will enjoy the second. It has that same gorgeously evocative writing style, those same cutting themes, those same amazing characters…and this book just gives you even more. We get new characters and new perspectives and new ideas. After seeing the Texicalaanli world in book one we get to see them at war, a whole different beast. I love a second book that takes things from the first book and just expands and that’s definitely what we see in this sequel.

I think the themes are probably one of the strongest aspects of this book. I would definitely recommend finding a friend with whom to read this because there’s something extra special about spotting something really subtle (and also glaringly obvious) about the plot or themes and then immediately chatting about it and developing theories and ideas. This series has always had strong themes and a strong message at it’s core and again those ideas are pulled out in such an interesting way across this book.

This plot is also fantastic. In a lot of ways there are a lot of scifi tropes in this story but the way that they combine and their context within the themes and worldbuilding means that nothing ever feels predictable and it all feels interesting. I remarked at one point that around 50% of the way through the book I still had absolutely no idea which of my various theories as to where the story was going would actually happen – and I loved it.

I have briefly mentioned the characters but I will say it again – I loved them all. They all felt very distinct and one thing I liked is that you quite often get a characters perspective and then you’ll see that character through the eyes of a different perspective which all feels very powerful – and you know I like reading a book where I know more than the main characters do! There’s familiar faces from the first book, obviously, and a host of new characters I know people are just going to love (and some that might be a wee bit scary).

I will say, though it isn’t a negative thing for me, that the chapters in this book are very long, essentially combining multiple POV sections into one chapter. That’s not something that bothers me but I thought I would mention it so you can be prepared going in. I wouldn’t think ‘ooh I’ve got 5 minutes I’ll just get another chapter done really quickly’ – it will not happen.

I loved this book and I am very excited to get to talk about it with more people once it is out!

My rating: 5/5 stars

I received a free digital advanced review copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley – all opinions are my own.

A Desolation Called Peace is out March 2nd!