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A review by leahjanespeare
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
adventurous
challenging
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? It's complicated
5.0
Holy fucking shit. No wonder this won the 2020 Hugo.
We are immediately thrown headfirst into the mindset, the lure, the seductive aspects of spending time around and inside a galaxy-spanning colonizing empire. The world-building is immense and intricate without info dumping and I was never bored. If you’re interested in linguistics and communication at all, you’ll find the competitive poetry and language of the Teixcalaani people ASTOUNDING and humbling as a mere Earth-dwelling language speaker. Ambassador Mahit spends a lot of the book struggling with her identity not only with the imago machine she has in her brain, which are like a tech version of the Trill from Star Trek, but also how much she is falling in love with this enemy empire against her better judgement. There is pretty heavy internal narration that includes a lot of implied political mechanics with a giant scope, so if you want pew-pew space battles, look somewhere else. But if you like the good ol’ fashioned (but progressive) hardcore space opera like the Imperial Radch series you will absolutely be wowed by this book.
I’m a little nervous to start the second since the bar just shot through the atmosphere but I will also now devour anything Martine writes.
We are immediately thrown headfirst into the mindset, the lure, the seductive aspects of spending time around and inside a galaxy-spanning colonizing empire. The world-building is immense and intricate without info dumping and I was never bored. If you’re interested in linguistics and communication at all, you’ll find the competitive poetry and language of the Teixcalaani people ASTOUNDING and humbling as a mere Earth-dwelling language speaker. Ambassador Mahit spends a lot of the book struggling with her identity not only with the imago machine she has in her brain, which are like a tech version of the Trill from Star Trek, but also how much she is falling in love with this enemy empire against her better judgement. There is pretty heavy internal narration that includes a lot of implied political mechanics with a giant scope, so if you want pew-pew space battles, look somewhere else. But if you like the good ol’ fashioned (but progressive) hardcore space opera like the Imperial Radch series you will absolutely be wowed by this book.
I’m a little nervous to start the second since the bar just shot through the atmosphere but I will also now devour anything Martine writes.