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booksthatburn's review
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
*I received a free review copy as part of 2022 Hugo awards voting.
A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE is a collision of cultures bleeding into war, trying to find the bounds of personhood in more than flesh and bone.
The plot follows several parallel threads, centering on various characters. I love Twenty Cicada’s storyline. He’s one of my favorite characters, followed closely by Eight Antidote. Mahit and Three Seagrass are working together again, this time to find a way to communicate with the aliens whose proximity Mahit had used as leverage in the previous book. The worldbuilding focuses on intra-empire politics as much as it focuses on the empire’s communications with Mahit and with the aliens. It balances stress and war with levity and intimacy, exploring connections and communication as characters with conflicting methods and competing aims collide.
This answers a few things left hanging from the first book, showing the next steps without closing much off. There’s a new storyline involving aliens which is almost entirely new (the existence of those aliens was pivotal in Mahit’s big move at the end of A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE). A few major things involving those aliens are both introduced and resolved. It specifically leaves aspects of Mahit’s relationships to other characters to be resolved later, but with substantial changes from how they were at the start of the book. Some of narrators are the same, with the addition of a new perspective between sections. I don’t think Eight Antidote was a narrator last time, if he was it was brief, but he, Mahit, and Three Seagrass are all narrators this time.
This story likely wouldn’t make sense to anyone who hadn’t read the first book. Because Mahit was on her first journey as an ambassador last time, A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE had a lot of exposition which could fit naturally into that story. A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE is therefore (assuming one read the first book) free to focus on building up descriptions of the fleet, the Shards, and the aliens, leaving the Empire and its basic details to be shown but more rarely explained.
The ending utterly devastated me, wrapping up the main story and leaving me sated, but promising more in the vast future now made possible by the resolution.
A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE is a collision of cultures bleeding into war, trying to find the bounds of personhood in more than flesh and bone.
The plot follows several parallel threads, centering on various characters. I love Twenty Cicada’s storyline. He’s one of my favorite characters, followed closely by Eight Antidote. Mahit and Three Seagrass are working together again, this time to find a way to communicate with the aliens whose proximity Mahit had used as leverage in the previous book. The worldbuilding focuses on intra-empire politics as much as it focuses on the empire’s communications with Mahit and with the aliens. It balances stress and war with levity and intimacy, exploring connections and communication as characters with conflicting methods and competing aims collide.
This answers a few things left hanging from the first book, showing the next steps without closing much off. There’s a new storyline involving aliens which is almost entirely new (the existence of those aliens was pivotal in Mahit’s big move at the end of A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE). A few major things involving those aliens are both introduced and resolved. It specifically leaves aspects of Mahit’s relationships to other characters to be resolved later, but with substantial changes from how they were at the start of the book. Some of narrators are the same, with the addition of a new perspective between sections. I don’t think Eight Antidote was a narrator last time, if he was it was brief, but he, Mahit, and Three Seagrass are all narrators this time.
This story likely wouldn’t make sense to anyone who hadn’t read the first book. Because Mahit was on her first journey as an ambassador last time, A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE had a lot of exposition which could fit naturally into that story. A DESOLATION CALLED PEACE is therefore (assuming one read the first book) free to focus on building up descriptions of the fleet, the Shards, and the aliens, leaving the Empire and its basic details to be shown but more rarely explained.
The ending utterly devastated me, wrapping up the main story and leaving me sated, but promising more in the vast future now made possible by the resolution.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content, Medical content, Death, Grief, Blood, Gore, Medical trauma, and War
Moderate: Cursing, Colonisation, Violence, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Panic attacks/disorders, Alcohol, and Vomit
Minor: Suicide, Ableism, and Self harm
criticalgayze's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
First, I would like to thank the publisher (Macmillan Audio) for an advance listening copy of this title that I am very behind on reading.
I think the choice to move all of the characters into unknown territory in the sequel works in this novel's favor and boosts it slightly over A Memory Called Empire for me. My major gripe with Memory was that I felt the reader was not given quite enough world building on the Teixcalaan empire to understand and appreciate all the machinations of the palace intrigue plot. I also thought it focused too much on describing, rather than showing, poems as a cornerstone of the Teixcalaan society's culture. In A Desolation Called Peace, the poetry element plays a much more minor role, and the story moves away from the under built empire to a first-contact narrative. This allows all three societies involved in the engagement to be on unsure footing, and it forces Martine to have to explain for the benefit of all involved. (The issue is not fully resolved, however, as we do still get some of the under-explained dissidence in the empire via the storyline of the empire's heir.)
I also really appreciated the use of a choral narration. The reemergence of choral narration is proving a big stylistic device in recent literary fiction, and I am appreciative of the grandeur of it all.
I would also like to again shout out Amy Landon, who returns to the sequel to provide fantastic narration.
I think the choice to move all of the characters into unknown territory in the sequel works in this novel's favor and boosts it slightly over A Memory Called Empire for me. My major gripe with Memory was that I felt the reader was not given quite enough world building on the Teixcalaan empire to understand and appreciate all the machinations of the palace intrigue plot. I also thought it focused too much on describing, rather than showing, poems as a cornerstone of the Teixcalaan society's culture. In A Desolation Called Peace, the poetry element plays a much more minor role, and the story moves away from the under built empire to a first-contact narrative. This allows all three societies involved in the engagement to be on unsure footing, and it forces Martine to have to explain for the benefit of all involved. (The issue is not fully resolved, however, as we do still get some of the under-explained dissidence in the empire via the storyline of the empire's heir.)
I also really appreciated the use of a choral narration. The reemergence of choral narration is proving a big stylistic device in recent literary fiction, and I am appreciative of the grandeur of it all.
I would also like to again shout out Amy Landon, who returns to the sequel to provide fantastic narration.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Medical content, and Death
Moderate: Sexual content, Genocide, and Xenophobia
just_one_more_paige's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
The first book in the Teixcalaan series, A Memory Called Empire, made my favorites of the year list in 2020. It was such a phenomenally detailed space opera that totally swept me off into its world (but also really made me work for it, with the intensity of the world-building). That being said, I bought myself a copy of the sequel as soon as it came out. Though as I'm sure everyone could have predicted, it took me much longer than that to finally get to reading it.
A Desolation Called Peace throws us right back into the Teixcalaan Empire, as fleet commander yaotlek Nine Hibiscus is facing down an enemy armada, one that communicates in an unintelligible language that makes listeners feel physically ill and whose weapons are nigh on unbeatable. As more of her people die every day, Nine Hibiscus reaches out to the Information Ministry for help, and is answered immediately by Three Seagrass, whose life has felt quite mundane since the events of the last book and Mahit Dzmare's departure. She decides to answer the call by heading to the warfront herself, with a stop along the way to pick up Mahit from her home Lsel Station. Thoroughly surprised by Three Seagrass' arrival, Mahit takes her up on the (only sort of optional) invitation to head to the front as a reprieve from a tense political situation at Lsel (related to the suspected poor integration of herself with her imago predecessor Yskandr). Together, under Nine Hibiscus' tight watch, the two women enter into an unprecedented and very precarious attempt to make first contact (and negotiation) with the aliens attacking Teixcalaanli's fleet, attempting to do the almost impossible and prevent what looks to be an inevitable violent conflict (while simultaneously figuring out what their own interpersonal relationship reality is).
I feel like that was a super long summary blurb, but it also feels ok that I said that much. There's no real secret or twist in this novel that could be given away. And if you read and liked the first one enough to want to read this one, you're in it for the detail, the language and the political intrigue and the continuation of the wonderful subtleties in Martine's world-building. And to get that, you really do have to read the full book anyways. So, all that having laid the foundation, let me just say that this is quite possibly one of the best sequels I've ever read. It builds perfectly on the Teixcalaanli world we were introduced to in the first, all the intricacies of setting and communication and politics internal to the empire, and expands it outward, external. It's the perfect way to grow that both complements and doesn't repeat anything. With that expansion in scope comes an expansion in lingual understanding, Martine's particular speciality, based on how elaborate that aspect is in both novels now. The coded ways of talking, of sharing meaning without saying it directly, but rather approximating the words you actually mean, is masterful and fascinating. And I love the way language is presented in conjunction with cultural ideology here, like the idea of having a word for loss being innately and necessarily connected to the people having the concept of loss and/or pronouns being necessarily preceded by the concept of a self. Amazing and such intelligent writing/philosophy.
I enjoyed watching the way Mahit got to grow in this one, since the shell-shocked "new ambassador" reality was less immediate (though she moved into "shell-shocked for other reasons" pretty swiftly). The point is, though, she had a little more space to work to comes to terms with the duality of her love for Teixcalaan everything (language/culture) and her anger at the way it colonized and labeled her and her people barbarian, along with the additional complications of her feelings for Three Seagrass and the further intertwining of herself and Yskandr's minds. Related, the push and pull of Three Seagrass and Mahit’s emotional connection to each other, despite all ingrained social reasons against it, was written so well. This particular relationship is tightly intertwined, thematically and representationally, with Martine's conceptual exploration of colonization: a nuanced look at colonizers/the colonized and the complex relationships between them, as affection and interest grow, but a deep lack of awareness of how to correctly respect/acknowledge from the colonizer (to the extreme that they don’t even understand how minimizing/insulting they are being), that the gulf between is potentially uncrossable despite all individual want to the contrary. There were some other newer, or more fully developed, characters that I really enjoyed reading as well. Nine Hibiscus and her adjutant, Twenty Cicada, were fascinating to read. And I actually liked Eight Antidote’s narrative sections as well. They were a humorous and mature-childlike way to learn and tell a story to make the political complexity of this story and Teixcalaan's foreign relations, diplomacy and internal affairs, accessible to readers (similarly to the way seeing it through Mahit’s fresh ambassador eyes did in the first book).
Overall, this was a most spectacular, very original, first contact story. The feelings of excitement and terror intermingled and communicated so well that I *felt* them myself. All the pressure of international conflict, mass casualties, time crunch and myriad other horrible outcomes riding on whether or not successful contact/negotiation could be made was intense and I loved it! Plus, all the interpersonal stuff and ideological compulsions and nuances on top of it: nonstop reader engagement. This sequel, expanding on the first but really a standalone in its own right, was simply magnificent.
“This was definitely true and also not very comforting at all. True things weren’t, mostly.”
“…a person who so loved […] that she’d replaced her ethical responsibilities with the appalling brightness of that love, and didn’t care what she burned out to preserve it.”
“For assuming she would come with her, of course she would – and not thinking that when the Empire asked, even in the person of a friend, a maybe-lover, there really was no way for a barbarian to say no and keep being the kind of barbarian the Empire thought of as a person.”
“Language is not so transparent, but we are sometimes known, even so. If we are lucky.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Violence, War, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Medical content, and Sexual content
totallyshelfaware's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, Medical content, and War
Moderate: Colonisation and Xenophobia
Minor: Grief and Genocide
cerilouisereads's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Blood, Death, Gore, Medical content, War, Violence, and Cursing
Moderate: Sexual content and Xenophobia
Minor: Genocide
mandkips's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Medical content, Sexual content, Body horror, Gore, Xenophobia, and Genocide
trips's review
adventurous
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Amazing continuation of A Memory Called Empire. The plot is a bit slow to start because Martine has a lot of threads going, but once they start converging, things get crazy. This book is though provoking yet easily enjoyable.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Vomit, Medical content, and Genocide
nullandvoidlibrary's review
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood, and Medical content
Moderate: Sexual content
aardwyrm's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
As good as the first one! (Would be totally incomprehensible without it. It's that sort of sequel.) The intertwining plots and painstakingly detailed worldbuilding add up to a marvelous and successful balancing act, and the mysterious aliens are menacing and creepy and yet ultimately harmonize with the complicated world. There are a few characters it's fun to hate, but the book does an unusually good job painting portraits of many multilayered antagonists all acting in the best interests of their understanding of the right thing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death and Medical content