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A review by fedak
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
2.0
Went into this one with high expectations given the awards and high reviews, came away fairly disappointed
- There is little in the way of character development, backstory, or arc. You learn nothing about the protagonist beyond her childhood dream of wanting to travel to the capital. The supporting characters are similarly one dimensional and the romance subplot is undeveloped.
- This is billed as a "world building" narrative- but there is absolutely nothing interesting about the setting. It could easily have been set in the capital city of any other historical or fictional empire.
- While this doesn't pretend to be hard sci-fi- there's numerous items that push the bounds of plausibility of a society that has mastered interstellar travel. Communication by physical mail. Medical screening at the port that would miss a brain implant. Encryption by cipher. Etc. (And all of those have material impact on the plot)
- The one interesting plot device (having the protagonist be able to access the memories of her predecessors) is abandoned in the first few chapters. The murder mystery that is teased (i.e. having the protagonist solve the murder with a stale copy of the victim's memories floating around in her head) is never developed and would have made for a much better story.
- And this bothered me more than it probably should have: but almost every dialog with the protagonist results in the other person commenting on or praising her for what a master orator/diplomat she is- when she has barely mumbled more than 3 sentences since meeting the person.
- There is little in the way of character development, backstory, or arc. You learn nothing about the protagonist beyond her childhood dream of wanting to travel to the capital. The supporting characters are similarly one dimensional and the romance subplot is undeveloped.
- This is billed as a "world building" narrative- but there is absolutely nothing interesting about the setting. It could easily have been set in the capital city of any other historical or fictional empire.
- While this doesn't pretend to be hard sci-fi- there's numerous items that push the bounds of plausibility of a society that has mastered interstellar travel. Communication by physical mail. Medical screening at the port that would miss a brain implant. Encryption by cipher. Etc. (And all of those have material impact on the plot)
- The one interesting plot device (having the protagonist be able to access the memories of her predecessors) is abandoned in the first few chapters. The murder mystery that is teased (i.e. having the protagonist solve the murder with a stale copy of the victim's memories floating around in her head) is never developed and would have made for a much better story.
- And this bothered me more than it probably should have: but almost every dialog with the protagonist results in the other person commenting on or praising her for what a master orator/diplomat she is- when she has barely mumbled more than 3 sentences since meeting the person.