Reviews with content warning for War - A Desolation Called Peace

Reviews tagging 'War'

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

45 reviews

maddiebusick's review against another edition

adventurous challenging 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? Yes

4.5

I loved everything about this except for the ending. This entire universe from this book and the previous book was so fascinating as were the characters and it will stick with me forever.

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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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.

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crystalmethany's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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thoughtsontomes's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.0

While the end of the last book was promising, this added so many POVs that felt pointless and distracted from the story I wanted, which was more exploration of the imagos and more of the first contact. Some of those POVs played a part in the last part of the book, but I still think it could have been done in a more condesned and less meandering way. I found myself not caring about the extra POVs. We went from 1 POV in book one to 4+ in this book. Also, there were a lot of loose ends not tied up with those POVs in any satisfying way. The authors writing is good, but I didn't like how it was applied to this plot.

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rencore's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

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tangleroot_eli's review

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adventurous challenging tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated

I enjoyed A Memory Called Empire, and this book blew it out of the danged water. The world-building was even richer, the characters more distinct, the perspectives more tightly controlled, and the intrigue more intriguing. Basically, Martine took everything she did well in Book 1 and did it even better here. Gosh I hope there's more.

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minervacerridwen's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

What a ride!
I would definitely recommend this duology if you like political intrigue, compelling characters, and in particular a hilarious queer poet-diplomat entangled with your space opera. I felt the plot in "A Desolation Called Peace" was stronger than in the first book, and I absolutely love that we got to see Eight Antidote's point of view. With the characters who were already in the spotlight in "A Memory Called Empire" it felt great to reconnect. I'm very happy to have liked "A Memory Called Empire" so much that I decided to pick this one up immediately.

The only downside, if I have to name any, still is that this world's view on gender is barely addressed, but it didn't feel as relevant as it did in the first book, where the worldbuilding was still happening more actively. There seemed to be one character with they/them pronouns at the very end of the story (unless Cure simply couldn't make out their gender), which only served to make me more curious about that little aspect - but as it didn't reflect on the actual story, it didn't really affect my reading experience. I'll be happy to dive back in if Arkady Martine ever decides to return to Teixcalaan.

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