Reviews with content warning for War - A Memory Called Empire

The major themes I took from this book were: an exploration of how cultures may differently define the "self", the feelings associated with accepting or rejecting a colonizing culture (as well as being accepted by or being rejected by that culture), and how quickly alliances and motivations can change based on changing circumstances and relationships.

What I liked: I thought the concepts of imago machines and a poetry-based political system were fascinating. I wanted to keep reading in order to find out more about the world. The characters were all written to be strong and individual.

What I didn't like: I'm not sure if it's because I wasn't paying close enough attention, but I found the plot to be a bit incoherent at times. I couldn't isolate the precise motivations of each character, as they seemed to be changing over time. Some plot points would come up, and then never come up again, or come up at a point where they no longer really matter since the situation had since changed. Maybe this was on purpose, to reflect the changing political circumstances, but it led to a slightly less-than-satisfying read. The main character kept coming back to two main points (her missing imago machine and her relationship with the Teixcalaani culture) so often that it felt a bit ham-fisted.

Overall, I think it's an interesting concept that could have been executed slightly better. Still a wholly worth-while read.

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existentialhell's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional reflective 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? Yes

5.0

The horror and humanity of empire, and what loving it can do to its prey. And what the prey can do to the empire. Read it.

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becksus's review

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adventurous challenging informative mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I enjoyed the worldbuilding and language, culture and new words (that I felt were influenced by the aztecs for one), though it was a huge infodump at times. I couldn't make sense of the interspersed bits of literature and messages very well as they were out of context and I wasn't always sure if they were in the past or future. I like Mahit as a main character, and the imago-machine is a brilliant thing! I envy the balance struck at writing it so well. A solid scifi, if a bit difficult to understand at times.

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