Don't read this book if you haven't read the first one. Even reading the first one didn't mean that I didn't flounder during the first part of the book. There are so many characters with different alliances to different people. Once I figured things out, this is a great book. The characters all have their own motive and desires. Every side is understandable when these desires clash.

Aliens are introduced in this book and they are so terrifying. Did Arkady Martine want to create something that can give you nightmares? Uncovering the method to communicate with them made them even more horrible.

As well written as this book is, I'm going to take away a star because it took me so long to remember what is going on. I needed a refresher course.

This review is based on an advanced reader copy provided through Netgalley for an honest review.

This is the second time this year that I've had the opportunity to read a sequel to a book I had fallen in love with, only to discover that the sequel (somehow!) is even better than the first. A Memory Called Empire swept me off my feet and reminded me why I love space opera so much. When I was lucky enough to grab an ARC of A Desolation Called Peace, I was so excited to follow along with the adventures of Mahit and Three Seagrass, and curious to see what the author would do within her fully and exquisitely realized universe. I was not at all disappointed. Martine expands her storytelling to offer multiple POVs--an approach I am usually suspicious of, but she handles it well and the multiple POVs pay off at the end. While the ending did feel a little rushed, we are still satisfied, and left with some deliciously intriguing questions. A fantastic book.

I made the overeager mistake of requesting this one before finishing the first book in the duology. Unfortunately, I did not end up liking the second half of a Memory Called Empire. I still tried this sequel, but I just don't like this one enough to give finish it oniy to give a mediocre review.

While Arkady Martine’s fabulous space opera debut A Memory Called Empire had a satisfactory ending there was clearly more story to tell. For a start, a potential alien threat on the boundaries of the Teixcalaan Empire, a new Emperor on the throne following a revolt that saw the old emperor die and the return of Ambassador Mahit Dzmare to the sort-of independent station of Lsel and into the hands of those who set her up to fail. All of these questions are answered, not in ways that could necessarily be expected in the sequel A Desolation Called Peace.
When the book opens the aliens lurking on the edges of Teixcalaan space have come out of the shadows. A battalion of warships have been sent to both investigate and engage the enemy. But they find a whole planetary colony wiped out and a dangerous enemy that they cannot communicate with. Their request for assistance with making contact with the aliens is picked up by Three Seagrass who takes it on herself to go to the front and not only that, to stop at Lsel Station and pick up Mahit Dzmare on her way. But Mahit has troubles of her own, a pawn of warring councillors, trying to find out who sabotaged her imago (the memories of the previous ambassador that she was to carry) while being threatened with having it ripped out of her. Desperate she joins Three Seagrass and heads to the front where the two throw themselves into understanding the alien threat. At the same time there is politics galore happening both within the battlegroup and back on the Teixcalaan home world.
While Dzmare is ostensibly the ‘protagonist’, Martine tells her story through a number of unique points of view. Each of these characters have their own arc and allows Martine to set up multiple mini-cliffhangers. Once again she draws all of these together slowly and carefully into a page turning finale in which the soul of the Empire is at stake. Living up to the promise of good space opera, this volume does have space battles involving fleets of fighters and energy weapons. But as readers might have come to expect, the solutions to problems come from negotiation, understanding and more than a little political nous.
A Desolation Called Peace lives up to the promise of its predecessor. A completely different book with very different concerns, it expands the universe and ups the pressure on the main characters while continuing the political manoeuvrings established in the first book. And it continues to ask the big questions about consciousness, humanity and civilisation, although this time not only in terms of apparent civilisation versus perceived barbarism but humanity against a type of intelligence that it clearly not human.
As with its predecessor, Martine manages to wrap up all of the main plot threads and relationships by the end of the book, providing a satisfying conclusion. But there are plenty or fascinating characters and some dangling threads that could be picked up in a third book. Given the strength of the first two, another entry in this series would not be unwelcome.

Mahit Dzmare is back on Lsel and desperately trying to hide the secret that she has not one but two imago lines in her brain. Eight Antidote, imperial heir to all Teixcalaan, is learning what it means to be a spy by moving through the Ministry of War and absorbing knowledge. Three Seagrass, unfulfilled by her job in the Information Ministry, grabs an assignment to make first contact with the brand new alien threat that is hovering near the borders of Teixcalaan. All of these storylines converge as we once again explore Martine's exquisitely created universe and the glittering civilization that is Teixcalaan.

This is another beautifully constructed story by Arkady Martine. "A Desolation Called Peace" picks up slightly after where "A Memory Called Empire" ends. However, the focus-point of this story is not entirely the city called the Jewel of the World but rather is split between the city and the bridge of a fleet warship which is preparing itself to face Teixcalaan's newest alien enemy. We are brought up to speed on older characters but we are also introduced to new characters in the form of military personnel and members of the Ministry of War. "A Desolation Called Peace" is also far more focused on war and the military than on the court politics that were the center of "A Memory Called Empire." Overall, this sweeping space opera is just as entrancing as Martine's first title and is worth a read for fans of books like Dune or The Traitor Baru Cormorant.

Excellent follow up to A Memory Called Empire. I enjoyed reading it and I'm eager to listen to the audiobook edition. Texicalaan feels real as you read, and that's all I can ask of my sci fi.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3682372875

Just finished, at 1 AM. Boy, is it good. Space war! Incomprehensible, disgusting aliens! Here's what their language sounds like, to a human:
"A sharp, ugly noise with the intimation of a headache inside it, that ended in a scream that had taste—a foul, oilslick, tongue-coating taste that made her nauseated."

“You don’t need a translator, you need a winnowing barrage,” Captain Twelve Fusion said. “Whatever made that [noise] shouldn’t exist.”

Best novel of 2021! OK, first I've finished this New Year.... Arkady Martine aka AnnaLinden Weller writes like an angel. I thought her first was amazingly good. This one's even better. Six stars! And I'll be re-reading both books.

This novel (and its prequel) is a study in what happens if women take on all the hard, important jobs in a complex civilization. Like, will they be nicer to each other? [Mostly yes.] Will they bring their kids to work? [Absolutely!] Can they be as bloody-minded as men, if duty calls for it? [Well. That’s complicated. As it should be.] What do the MEN do? [Um. Mostly they are invisible, here. Certainly not the romantic leads!]

A sample:
Three Seagrass took a breath, the kind that expanded all of her narrow chest and belly: breathed not only for oratory but for something even louder. And, exhaling, began to sing.
“Within each cell is a bloom of chemical fire,” she sang, bell-clear alto, a voice for calling lost people home, a carrying voice, meant for distance. “Committed to the earth, we shall burst into a thousand flowers—as many as our breaths in life—and we shall recall our names—our names and the names of our ancestors—and in those names blood blooms also from our palms . . .”
It was the Teixcalaanli funeral poem. The one Mahit had heard arranged in a hundred different ways, spoken or sung—the one she’d read the first time in a textbook in a classroom on the Station, marveling at chemical fire and the idea of flowers made of blood. But she’d never heard it like this. Three Seagrass had made it sound like a war chant. A promise. You spilled our blood, and we will rise.

I loved Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass in the first book, and still do. Wonderfully complex people. They like each other a lot. As Reed puts it, she is "amazed and horrified and utterly delighted, all at once, which was pretty much how Mahit doing anything made her feel, really." And there's a HOT romance, in the girls' tiny stateroom:
“Come on,” she said, when the kiss dissolved from lack of available oxygen, “come on, I’m not going to fuck you standing up—”
“That bed’s tiny.” One of Three Seagrass’s hands had gotten under her shirt, cupped her breast, teased expertly and distractingly at the nipple. “There’s a perfectly good floor right here . . .”
“I’m not that kind of barbarian,” Mahit said, and found herself laughing, too, and pulling away long enough to squirm out of her jacket, pull her shirt over her head. The air of their quarters on bare skin raised shivery gooseflesh down her arms, over her ribs. The air, and Three Seagrass’s eyes on her.
“You’re not,” Three Seagrass said, dark and intent, “but I am.”

Followed by, well. Something completely unexpected (and much less pleasant!), that leads indirectly, maybe, to the solution to the alien conundrum.

I can't recommend this book too highly. Martine/Weller pushes all my buttons, and gets almost everything right. If you like intelligent, character-driven, woman-focused space opera, this is the book for you!

The author is being coy about what comes next, but she left obvious hooks for more books in the Teixcalaan universe. She stopped in a good place for the Empire. But left us on tenterhooks re Mahit and Reed's relationship! Bother. They should get on with living happily ever after! And perhaps they will, in the misty post-book future....

I was very fortunate to score an (unexpected) eARC from Tor via NetGalley. Lucky me! Thank you, Tor.
I deliberately took my time reading the book. Martine writes like an angel. But not quickly, and not much.

[review will go live on 2 March at the link provided]

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine is the sequel to A Memory Called Empire, which I previously read and reviewed and which was last year's Hugo Award-winning novel. While I enjoyed the first book, I enjoyed the sequel even more.

An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options.

In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass—still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire—face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.

Whether they succeed or fail could change the fate of Teixcalaan forever.

The central plot point is the war brewing between the Empire and mysterious aliens, only a few jump gates from Lsel Station. Our protagonists from the first book drag themselves into the thick of things and find themselves face to face with the aliens. Meanwhile, we are also introduced to two new characters — the senior fleet commander on thee front and the eleven-year-old imperial heir — who are both also excellent. I really enjoyed following all their stories and the way they ended up tying together when it came with dealing with an existential threat to human life.

After having done a lot of the heavy lifting with regards to worldbuilding in A Memory Called Empire, Martine is free, in A Desolation Called Peace, to explore other aspects of the world and characters. Some new concepts are introduced, but more of the focus is on characters and events. And while this book does follow some of the key characters from the first book and hinges on events that were set in motion in book one, both books are complete story arcs. You probably shouldn't read them out of order, but the first didn't leave us on a cliffhanger and the second had a lot more peril and a lot less poetry in it.

I really enjoyed A Desolation Called Peace, even more than A Memory Called Empire and I really hope Martine brings us more stories set in this world, even if no novel-length sequels are currently planned. I highly recommend this book to fans of space opera and space intrigue/diplomacy more generally. If you found the first book a bit slow, I think you'll enjoy this instalment more.

5 / 5 stars

First published: March 2021, Tor Books
Series: Teixcalaan book 2 of 2 (for now)
Format read: eARC
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

The previous book in this series was so good, and I found this one to be around the same level if not somewhat better. I strongly believed that Martine is such a talented writer and knows what the fans want. There are several more POV’s in this book, all with their own unique voice. I also want to say that the POV’s play a big role in what kept the story going for me. There was so much politics in this one, but the tension was significantly higher than the first one, Which I enjoyed. Theres also a new friendship that I’m so rooting for!

It's always a pleasure to see a series improve (in my view, at least) as it goes on - here we have that difficult second novel after A Memory Called Empire and I'm delighted to say that the pacing issues that plagued it for me have been pretty much resolved.

We start this book with our protagonist Mahit Dzmare, ambassador to the Teixcalaan empire, back on Lsel station where she is desperately trying to make sure nobody finds out the entirety of what she's been up to in recent months. Not so much her involvement with the death of the Teixcalaan emperor but more that there was an issue about her implant, the one that allows her to access the memories of her predecessor. At a convenient moment, the aliens that the empire had been warned of in the previous book have turned up on the edge of the empire and the other main character, Three Seagrass, pretty much gives herself the job of going to speak with them and drags Mahit along for the ride.

There are also a couple of other sub-plots going on, one from the point of view of Eight Antidote (clone of the former emperor) who finally hears what he was supposed to be for and another from the fleet commander, Nine Hibiscus, who has all sorts of difficult decisions to make about these aliens alongside a possible insurrection from within the fleet she commands.

All this is handled deftly, with just enough detail to keep the pace of the novel up, and also a few twists in the plot. I'm always delighted when I don't see something coming and there were a couple of places where that happened with this book. The author also does a good job of making supporting characters fleshed out, with Nine Hibiscus' XO being the prime example of this, though he may turn out to have a more important role in any future novels (don't worry, no spoilers as to why!). Definitely 5 stars from me and I can't wait to see where this story goes next, or where this author goes next.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass, reunited due to Mahit’s desperation and alien incursion, have to find a way to communicate with the extremely dangerous aliens (and figure out if they can love each other across the cultural boundaries that define Mahit as a barbarian and not quite a person to Three Seagrass). Meanwhile, the empire’s eleven-year-old heir is learning how to do politics and trying to stop a war. The eleven-year-old was way too mature for my comfort, but maybe their years are longer. If you enjoyed the first one and palace politics in space in general, then this is the same stuff on a broader stage, but I found it a bit too chilly for deep enjoyment.

Había mucha expectación alrededor de la publicación de la continuación de la flamante ganadora del premio Hugo, A Memory Called Empire. En este sentido, Arkady Martine no decepciona, ya que nos trae una novela que continúa con las andanzas de los personajes de la anterior entrega, pero que cambia tanto el escenario como el foco.


Me parece especialmente destacable la forma «realista» (dentro de lo que cabe) con la que se afronta un primer contacto con una especie extraterrestre que se considera una amenaza. El enfoque principal que se utiliza es el lingüístico, intentando establecer puentes entre los negociadores mediante repetición de sonidos o representaciones gráficas. Es muy interesante cómo los encargados de las negociaciones se enfrentan a la dificultad inherente de conocer al otro, cuando no hay apenas puntos en común. También se aprovecha el estudio de la biología, que tendrá un papel fundamental en el desarrollo de la novela, por motivos que se irán desvelando a partir de la tercera parte del libro y que me han recordado por momentos a Peter Watts o Tade Thompson.

Pero A Desolation Called Peace no sería un digno miembro de la saga Teixcalaan si no tuviéramos intrigas políticas. No temáis, aquí las tendréis a raudales. Cada personaje se encuentra a veces manejado por los hilos invisibles de sus superiores o controladores en una recreación bastante correcta de una trama de espionaje a la antigua usanza. Ya sea en las relaciones entre el Imperio y las colonias o dentro de la propia flota militar del Imperio, cada acción tiene detrás una reflexión destinada a colocar las piezas en los lugares más aventajados para el golpe final. Aunque resulta muy entretenido ver cómo se van desarrollando los acontecimientos, en determinadas ocasiones el ritmo de la novela se resiente precisamente por esta preparación tan exhaustiva. Este es el principal problema que le he encontrado al libro, que en ocasiones se vuelve demasiado moroso en su avance.

Me gusta mucho cómo se hace hincapié en la cultura de los «imagos», esos implantes mentales que permiten crear una continuidad de los conocimientos que se van pasando de unas personas a otras mediante un implante que permite fusionar la personalidad del donante con la del receptor. De una forma bastante inteligente, Martine vuelve a hablarnos sobre conciencias colectivas desde otros puntos de vista distintos. Espero que este extremo se explore en mayor profundidad en la siguientes entregas de la saga.

En definitiva, estamos ante uno de los libros destinados a ser un éxito en 2021.

4.5 stars

A Desolation Called Peace is the follow up to A Memory Called Empire and is a very worthy successor. Filled with just as much intricate politics and intra-government backstabbing as the first, whilst also building on the characters and world, as well as having a very engaging plot throughout – I think I love this book even more than the first!

We are following Mahit and Three Seagrass again, who we meet in book 1 but I feel like it was so much easier in this book to get invested in their story as I already loved them whereas in book one it took me a little while to warm up to them. I also loved getting both their POVs and how that added to their relationship dynamic and the plot. I think it would have been very easy for the author to go in a certain direction with their relationship but I love that she took the time to explore complexities and nuance in their dynamic, especially with Mahit being and Stationer and Three Seagrass being Teixcalaani. Also there was a steamy scene that I was not expecting but it really went there!!!! Soft sapphics will always have my heart <3

We also follow Nine Hibiscus a Teixcalaan fleet commander, who is in charge of the frontlines of the war with a new alien species who they are just making first contact with. I really enjoyed her character and how she was trying to be the best leader she can whilst also having lots of political factions trying to thwart her and having to make some very hard decisions towards the end. I also loved her relationship/friendship with her second in command Twele Cicada, he was also such a great character and I feel like the small bits we got of their friendship really added to the emotional impact at the end of the story. I also loved the fact they had rescue kittens living on their ship from a previous mission – this was such a cute little detail that I was so soft for!!!

We also follow Eight Antidote the heir to the empire and who we met briefly in the previous book. I really loved his storyline and how hard he was trying to learn to be a good leader, whilst still having the navitee and goodness of a child despite understanding the dark political world around him and the reason he was created. I loved his mentorship with the empress (we didn’t get much of her in this book but she is still the hot milf empress of my heart <3).

This book is filled with a lot of similar themes to the first with the idea of the colonising empire eating up all other cultures, but Mahit also feels a love for the empire at the same time. I think this is so well explored, especially with the addition at the beginning of the scenes on Lsel stations and getting to know some of the political players there, and what their true goals are, as we only see a little of that in Memory.
We also explored a first contact storyline with a species that are very hard to communicate with, and this is how Mahit and Three Seagrass end up on the frontlines trying to communicate and establish peace. I loved this storyline, and especially the stuff with the fungi as well as how all the POV storylines tied together towards the end. I also really liked how the interludes has some very clever foreshadowing for certain revelations later in the book.

I love the overall tone of this series, it’s not super action packed sci-fi, instead it’s very political and theme heavy with quite a slow pace, but also somehow manages to be incredibly compelling and engaging throughout. I was not bored a single minute while reading this!! The ending is also not a super explosive battle scene, but I thought it was a perfect ending with the tone of the book and how everything wrapped up and came together, and a great culmination of certain character arcs. I would have liked some more at the end regarding some of the Lsel characters but the end of the book felt very much like there is going to be another book so I think we will probably see that then!

In conclusion a great sequel, filled with plenty of heart and charm and great characters, along with a fascinating world that is so easy to become immersed in! Truly transportive Sci-Fi.

I absolutely loved the first book of Teixcalaan, so I was very excited to a/ be able to ask for the second book on NetGalley b/ actually get an eARC for it 🙂

The story of A Desolation Called Peace starts a few months after the end of A Memory Called Empire. It is divided into several points of view: Mahit, Three Seagrass, Captain Nine Hibiscus, the Emperor, and the Emperor’s heir, as they navigate a tricky first contact situation with an alien species whose intentions seem more than belligerent. Nine Hibiscus is the captain of the fleet handling that first contact; Three Seagrass and Mahit are there to handle the diplomacy.

As in the first book of the series, the world building is delightful, and I really enjoyed the whole cultural and political aspects of all the civilizations involved. However, while poetry and its use in the empire was a strong component of the first book (which I enjoyed immensely), it’s definitely less present in this one, and I missed that a bit. I also had a bit of an issue with pacing: the middle 60% of the book are perfectly paced for my taste, but the first 20% feel a bit lagging and the last 20% feel a bit rushed. I’ll admit that it may have a lot to do with wanting certain things to happen in the first 20% of the book and not wanting the book to end in the last 20% of the book – which may actually be a good thing 😉

That said, I really enjoyed this second installment. I really liked the different points of view, and I got new characters to like. The story and its resolution were very satisfying, and I found myself highlighting a few quotes on my reader – which I hadn’t done that recently. A solid read, and definitely recommended to people who enjoyed the first book.

Thanks so much to the Tor team for providing this e-arc for review. I'm having a very hard time focusing on e-books at the moment but what I was able to read was absolutely phenomenal, poetic, and extremely captivating. I can't wait to have this book in stores.

"When she smiled again, Mahit thought she understood what made Teixcalaanlitzlim so nervous about bared teeth."

An engrossing and intelligently crafted sequel, A Desolation Called Peace continues the fascinating exploration of the world of Teixcalaan and beyond.

This time the story is less focused on Teixcalaani political intrigue and more on inter-species diplomacy, as we discover more about the ship-eating aliens at the edge of Stationer space.

Just as beautifully immersive as A Memory Called Empire, the sequel benefits from multiple POV's, each bringing a fresh perspective to the events unfolding throughout the story. I enjoyed once again spending time in the multi-layered, complex and detailed world. An absolutely stunning sci-fi series.

*Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A superb companion to A Memory Called Empire and a standout book on its own, A Desolation Called Peace is an incredible read. This is going to be a must for fans of the first book in the series, and I will have to say that readers should read the first book before this one for the necessary context needed to understand exactly what is going on with the political and cultural elements that this book deals with. Martine's returning characters shine here as they try to quickly stake their place in a shifting and turbulent situation that neither of them is fully equipped to handle on their own, and several of the new characters threaten to steal the show even if the novel doesn't spend as much time with them as our protagonists.

Fans of A Memory Called Empire and books like it will be well served with this title.

First, a necessary disclosure: this is book 2 of a duology, so I would strongly recommend reading book 1 (which I reviewed here) before you jump into this one. Can you read it as a stand alone? Probably... but you will miss out on a lot of context and dramatic events that brought our characters to where they are in this book.

The story picks up two months after the end of the first book. Lsel Station got what they wanted - the Teixcalaan Empire is now at war with the mysterious aliens that had been disappearing their ships in the darkness of the void. Mahit is back on Lsel, but the place she grew up in doesn't feel like home anymore, especially with the secret she is carrying about the sabotage of her imago machine and the unorthodox method she used to repair it.

And back in the City, the new Emperor is now forced to win a war she didn't want, while also fighting the clock and dagger fights with officials of different departments that didn't particularly want her on the throne... like the ministry of War, who she needs to fight this war instead of her.

We get to follow some of the characters that we came to know and love from the first book, like Mahit and Three Seagrass, who end up in the middle of the action once again, trying to find a common ground with an alien species so different that they don't even have a language per se and who don't consider individual deaths as anything of consequence.

We are also introduced to new characters, some of which we briefly saw in the first book, like Eleven Antidote, the 90% clone of the late Emperor. I must admit that I absolutely loved his POV in this book. He is eleven years old, but he is not a typical child. He's been brought up and educated as a clone of the Emperor, so he never had a real childhood. He is also very smart and precautious, and he likes to think things through and solve mysteries. And I loved the courage and determination he showed when he acted to right what he was convinced was a wrong, even though he was going against the orders or the current Emperor by doing so.

Another wonderful new character is Twelve Cicada, who is the second in command to Nine Hibiscus, the fleet commander charged with wining the war against an enemy who can appear in and out of subspace and spit a substance that dissolves ships along with the pilots. I loved the relationship between these two and how they complemented and tempered each other. And I found highly satisfying the fact that Twelve Cicada was the one to find a solution to this conflict in the end.

This book touches several important themes. What exactly is the price of civilization and isolationism? Can you be a person even though you aren't "civilized" in the eyes of your opponent? To Teixacaalisim, everyone else is a barbarian, including other humans, so the encounter with something even more alien has them unsettled and unable to react properly.

Who are you in the end as an individual, when your home station feels like hostile environment, but the Empire you longed to belong to all your life threatens to swallow you whole and kill your individuality? That is the question Mahit grapples with in this book.

And finally, is destroying a whole planet a price an Emperor is willing to pay to maybe end a conflict before it becomes a war of attrition? Or is that an act too atrocious even for Teixcalaan? What legacy do you want to leave for your descendants? That's the problem Eleven Antidote grapples with.

There are multiple layers in this book, so it's hard to address them all without spoilers. My advice is, read this duology. Go by the first book and read that while you wait on the second one to come out in March 2021.

PS: I received an advanced copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This novel was SO satisfying. Labyrinthine politics (internal and external) that actively oppose real progress, the perils of liminal states, First Contact, the dangers of rigidity, colonizers seeing their own reflection, language limitations (seriously, lots of language focus; it's very cool), and how love doesn't automatically wipe out a lifetime of institutional bias. Also, very scary aliens.

A Memory Called Empire was one of my favourite books of 2019, possibly all time, so there was absolutely no way I wasn’t going to love A Desolation Called Peace. It was wholly inconceivable. So, nothing I say in this review should be at all surprising, really.

At the end of A Memory Called Empire, it was revealed that an alien threat was approaching Teixcalaanli space, and fighting that threat is what takes up the bulk of A Desolation Called Peace. There are added POVs, too, with Eight Antidote, Three Seagrass and Nine Hibiscus in addition to Mahit. So, we follow Nine Hibiscus on the frontlines of the war, Three Seagrass as she wrangles her way into being sent out there too, Mahit as she is co-opted into said war (though also as a way to escape Stationer politics), and Eight Antidote as he deals with the politics at home.

It’s an even more complex book than A Memory Called Empire.

And, really, that’s what I love about this series. There’s such depth to the worldbuilding and consideration of even the tiniest aspects of it, and I love it. You can so easily lose yourself in Martine’s world and writing. And here, you get an expansion of that world. No longer are we only on the Teixcalaanli home planet, but we’re also in Stationer Space, and at the outer reaches of the empire, meeting new aliens who don’t communicate in nearly a similar way to everyone else.

In the first book, there’s this line “Like a flower turns to the sun or a person takes in oxygen, he said, Teixcalaan reaches again toward the stars.” and I always think of that as reflective of how the books feel. They’re a slow unfurling of the plot, so that you’re always wanting to read more to find out what happens next. Combine that with the aforementioned worldbuilding, and you get the kind of book I mean when I say I like slow adult SFF. The sort you can just immerse yourself in for hours on end.

And then when you finish, you’re left with a desperate desire for more.