Reviews with content warning for Medical content - A Memory Called Empire

Huge disappointment. I've wanted to read this book for years - I love the name and thought the concept was interesting. Unfortunately, I found the writing poorly paced, and filled with overly complicated terminology (yes I know it's sci-fi, yes, there is a glossary, but it's unhelpful when things are irrelevant to the plot). I'm not someone who fixates on writing styles - unless it's really good or really poor, I found the writing to be so distracting, all 'telling' and no showing, my eyes couldn't help but jump across the pages - and I found myself not lacking any critical information for doing so.

The premise of the novel is a murder mystery and political drama. This should be a novel filled with tension, betrayal and characters oozing with personality to make up for the lack of other plot. Well, it's not.

Our protagonist Mahit, is a foreigner to a vast and dangerous empire - or so we are told, and barely shown. As an ambassador, coming onto a new planet after her predecessor was murdered - Mahit should be left isolated and in a precious position. She only has the out-of-date memories and voice of Yskander, her predecessor in her head. Instead, she has the perfect allies right beside her - an assistant who loves 'aliens', an anti-establishment ministry of information worker and the equivalent of the emperor's 'knight' all become her allies within the first few chapters. She willingly gives up her (and her country's!) deepest secrets to these allies - and never suffers any consequences for it. Yes, her life is at risk a few times, but these allies always swoop in and rescue her, and again nothing ever changes. Her political enemies can never really hurt or scare her - as she always has the right information to sway an emperor or his most loyal and powerful 'knight'. There is also a budding romance between Mahit and another character - this as well, we are told we should see. There is never any tension on the pages. Yet a minor romance gets a bit, a bit of depth to it but never enough.

The romance between Yskander and Nineteen Adze, the Knight, and the Emperor himself - has more emotional depth. It's a sparse few lines in the novel, yet it's extremely vital to the plot. Again, we are told, that Mahit and Yskander's memories/personalities should fuse, she should love who he does, yet when faced with his love, with someone who let him die, Mahit can easily turn off Yskander's feelings. Why? Because.

Worst of all, this novel claims to be about the alluring power of an empire - even when it's threatening to swallow up your own culture. This too is handled so poorly. Mahit loves Teixcalaan - but why? She claims to love the language but sucks at poetry (the main way messages are sent). Sorry I can't think of any other examples - probably because they were so poorly explained or just weren't there! The city/culture itself is so poorly described I could scream. This is what I know of it: poetry, advanced technology, vaguely drawing upon ancient non-western empires - oh but don't worry, of course, our protagonist is 'white', of course, this is what, a poor example of...subversion??? Look this time the brown people have the empire! As if this hasn't existed in history? (all empires are bad, this is not a new concept lol). As if this is appropriate for a White European/American author to explore? We're told Teixcalaan doesn't dabble in neuroscience - but why? there should be a REASON beyond it giving an advantage to Mahit. A cultural, religious, financial, moral reason for this- nope nothing. The little snippets at the beginning of the chapters that are meant to give us insight into Teixcalaan's culture also fail - their humour is basically ours, their star-crossed lovers - ours. Nothing is fascinating about this world, it's all fake and dressed up in fancy words. Mahit never has to make a difficult decision of loyalty between this culture she's in love with and her own - even her moments of "Oh poor me I'll never be a citizen" have no emotional resonance for me as someone who was brought up with two very different and clashing cultures.

Overall a huge waste of my time and filled with unfulfilled promises.

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trashgobby's review against another edition

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adventurous informative mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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northisnotup's review

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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alexijai98's review against another edition

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adventurous tense 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

4.5

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nhollie's review

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mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.5

This book is very…slow. The pacing doesn’t really speed up until the last hundred or so pages, but for me, the slowness of the narrative worked. I looked at some more critical reviews after finishing “A Memory Called Empire” because I was curious what others thought. I didn't really finish the novel with strong feelings, but more of an overall pleasant feeling that I had read a book with a plot I enjoyed. I doubt people who enjoy faster, very character driven books will like this one.

I agree with the reviews that the imperial nature of the Teixcalaan isn’t discussed at length nor the xenophobia the main character faces. Those elements being discussed would have strengthened the sense of the world and Mahit's own interior world. It's alluded to in some ways, but it's a point that appears so much that it warranted more engagement. When I googled the author, I saw she had a PhD in Byzantine Studies, so I’m interested perhaps in how that particular Late Antiquity orientation of her own research perhaps influenced those omissions within her own work (and the pace, depth, and worldbuilding).

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