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A review by lighterthaneyre
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
5.0
I will say the first chapter was a bit of a struggle. At the start it's holding the reader and characters at arms length, but by chapter three the protagonist has landed on the capital planet, and it gets much much more engaging.
This is a political thriller that doesn't think it's smarter than it's reader, but touches on a lot of really interesting themes. A lot of those themes are feeling particularly relevant, in the Year of Our Lord 2020. There's obvious themes of imperialism and cultural imperialism, but it also touches on the fall of stability; the assumption of governments being infallable; algoritms being only as impartial as their creators and their users; the strange trust insiders place in their system of power even as they watch those systems turned against themselves. I feel like I should read it again to pick up more, with more nuance.
This is a political thriller that doesn't think it's smarter than it's reader, but touches on a lot of really interesting themes. A lot of those themes are feeling particularly relevant, in the Year of Our Lord 2020. There's obvious themes of imperialism and cultural imperialism, but it also touches on the fall of stability; the assumption of governments being infallable; algoritms being only as impartial as their creators and their users; the strange trust insiders place in their system of power even as they watch those systems turned against themselves. I feel like I should read it again to pick up more, with more nuance.