A review by amandasupak
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

adventurous 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? No

5.0

 

Named characters: 77 (OMG this book has an index with every character and a little blurb about them in case you don’t remember who they are. Also if the author talks about a character you have not heard about in a while she will catch you up real fast without breaking the pace of the story. Please, why can’t every fiction book do this!!)
 Audiobook note: I highly recommend the audiobook reading because some of these names are crazy hard to pronounce! 

I loved everything about this book! It deserved a Hugo win in 2020 for sure. It was an epic empire spanning science fiction, the writing is beautiful, there is lots of discussion about consciousness, memory and brain/technology interfaces (including imago technology and the cloudhooks that the emprie uses), the main characters are great, and the world building is sooooooo good. I loved the idea that the main empire is based on the Aztecs, who love poetry and all have goofy names which are a combination of a number and a noun like three azalea. It felt foreign and futuristic while also not being completely incomprehensible. It was giving the Culture Series by Iain Banks vibes in the best way! 

 

Spoiler discussion of the story

I love how the story is from Mahit’s perspective. She’s lived her whole life on a space station and she has spent her childhood learning about the empire, wishing she could be one of them. She gets her chance when she gets picked to be the ambassador and is flown to the empire post-haste after the last ambassador (Yskandr) died mysteriously. But to her advantage she has an implant (called an imago) of the memories of Yskandr, but they suddenly stop working shortly after she arrives at the empire. She spends a lot of the book trying to discover who murdered Yskandr, figuring out if she can trust her cultural liaison three seagrass, how to fix her imago, and understanding the power structure of the empire as it’s starting to fracture with riots and unrest. The book ends with the her implanting the imago of the dead Yskandr in her head, the emperor Six direction killing himself and passing the torch onto one of his advisors Nineteen Adze to quell the riots, and a lurking alien attacking planets just out of empire space.