Reviews with content warning for Colonisation - A Memory Called Empire

Reviews tagging 'Colonisation'

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

65 reviews

winter_meadow's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious medium-paced

Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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onthesamepage's review against another edition

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mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

The Empire, the world. One and the same. And if they were not yet so: make them so, for this is the right and correct will of the stars.

I put off this book for a long time because, based on how people were talking about it, I expected it to be a pretty complex hard scifi. But it really isn't. I would say it is hard scifi, but I was surprised by how readable it was. The concepts are all adequately explained without it feeling like infodumping. There are a lot of new terms, and there is a comprehensive glossary that explains all of them, but I honestly never referred to it. Everything I needed to know was explained within the text, or easy enough to guess from the context.

I think it also helps that the story engine is familiar and simple: a murder mystery instead of something that relies on knowledge of the world to understand. And through the investigation into the murder of an ambassador, we discover how the empire works, and what the politics entail. I thought it was incredibly effective.

So perfectly imperial, to have messages made of light and encrypted with poetry, and require a physical object for propriety’s sake. Such a waste of resources. Time and energy and material. She could wish it didn’t delight her.

The concept of the imago-machines was a really good hook, and it also served to immediately make me feel sympathy for Mahit, who finds herself in the midst of the political games set up by her now murdered predecessor, without the tools she expected to have on hand to deal with it. It's easy to care about her and Yskandr, as well as Three Seagrass and Twelve Azalea, whose existing friendship, complete with cute nicknames and banter, made them easy to like.

Even though they are colonisers.

Empire was empire— the part that seduced and the part that clamped down, jaws like a vise, and shook a planet until its neck was broken and it died.

I think that's the only thing that was really lacking for me in this story. Both Mahit and Yskandr have a love for Teixcalaan, even though they know that the Empire will always want to expand, and consume everything in its path. The Empire considers them to be barbarians, which they are fully aware of, but it doesn't change their desire to belong there and be part of the empire instead of falling outside of it. I was hoping for more pushback against colonisation—there are parts that hint at it, and it's not that Mahit isn't aware of it, which makes her personal struggle interesting and compelling. It's something I hope the author explores more in the sequel.

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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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alainral's review against another edition

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Soft DNF. The worldbuilding is strong but the political intrigue was exhausting to read when I really wasn't in the mood for it, and pacing was a bit slow for my already strained attention span.

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peregrinwho's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.25

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wordsareworlds's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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

5.0

It's been the better part of two years since I read this book and I still think about it regularly. It's a phenomenal work.

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gardens_and_dragons's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.5

A layered and complex space opera centered around a murder mystery. It explores inherited memories, the legacy of empire and lived experiences of those absorbed in it, and identity.

Honestly it was fantastic sci-fi regardless of the political machinations- the technology, world building and culture are fully fleshed out and you are able to be swept away as much as Mahit is with the Teixcalaanli empire, but also understand how it is terrible even if it beautiful.

I’ll give it a few days - might be a 5 star from me, but I think it falls just short because it does have some weird issues. One is with pacing in the middle.

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