Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining Station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn't an accident—or that Mahit might be next to die, during a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court.
Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.
I liked this book - it has enough people acting like people that it really hooked me, which is unfortunately something that not a lot of space operas try to include. I do feel kind of annoyed that some of the things about the imago tech were talked up a lot - its secrecy, its danger to the psyche - but we didn't really end up seeing those things realized. Seems like everybody and their dog knew about the imago-machines before Mahit got any chance to tell them, and if they didn't, she told them right away.
But I digress. It was a fun read, and I'm looking forward to reading the next one - just, not yet.
a fun read with beautiful, full worldbuilding and compelling politicking, and plenty of space opera to keep you from putting it down. for me, I didn't find it very striking as a plot or character book, though there's plenty of both, and didn't get much out of it as an ideas book (compared to other SF I've read that plays with self, empire, and language)
that said, I do love books that know how to interact with language! linguist-me was left satisfied!
I feel like "political thriller" is a buzzterm that gets thrown around rather loosely (having a single character who just happens to be a politician does not a political book make). But here it feels earned; we got ambassadors with secret agendas, high society galas, partisan riots in the streets, technological sabotage, constantly shifting secret alliances and backroom deals made in the dead of night. Oh yeah, and two distinct imminent wars looming over everyone's heads.
It's hard for me to say whether all of that was a helpful vehicle or a distraction for what this book really wanted to be about, which was identity (what is the ~self~ and how much can that change before you become someone else?) and about being enamored and subsumed by a different culture that you will never be 100% assimilated into, whether you want to or not. That isn't to say that this …
I feel like "political thriller" is a buzzterm that gets thrown around rather loosely (having a single character who just happens to be a politician does not a political book make). But here it feels earned; we got ambassadors with secret agendas, high society galas, partisan riots in the streets, technological sabotage, constantly shifting secret alliances and backroom deals made in the dead of night. Oh yeah, and two distinct imminent wars looming over everyone's heads.
It's hard for me to say whether all of that was a helpful vehicle or a distraction for what this book really wanted to be about, which was identity (what is the ~self~ and how much can that change before you become someone else?) and about being enamored and subsumed by a different culture that you will never be 100% assimilated into, whether you want to or not. That isn't to say that this felt like three different books rolled into one, but if you wanted to make that argument, you'd have material to work with.
Language nerd that I am, I enjoyed how the protagonist would play around with the fictional language of the empire she was in, usually intentionally-accidentally switching to informal speech when playing dumb was in her best interests; "weaponized barbarism" for lack of a better term. And the reader very much gets the impression that she's an outsider in this setting, what with her occasional faux-pas and cultural references that go over her (and the reader's) head that other characters in the scene are so familiar with that they don't require explanation.
There were stretches of this book that just felt like a constant stream of back-to-back appointments and it took a little longer than I'd like for the proper action to begin. Still, it's a well-told story with believable enough worldbuilding that I'd like to revisit, but I was also ready to say goodbye to these characters towards the end. Maybe that's just a result of my innate preference for shorter books though, so you might get more out of it if you have a higher "stamina" than I do.
I called this a sci fi thriller (question mark?) because I'm not fully sure whether I think it's really a thriller. Yeah I think it's a thriller. A sort of space opera/thriller maybe. Anyway, I enjoyed this quite a bit. The world building was fun, the characters were interesting and not annoying. The story was well paced, and kept my interest throughout. A fun book. I've already bought the sequel.
This was a very interesting read that really worked to highlight the allure and dangers of imperial culture – both for the empire and for everyone else. We see Teixcalaan through the eyes of Mahit Dzmare, new ambassador from a small space station who grew up enamoured with the culture, and see how it is to be in that culture without being born into it.
Teixcalaan is steeped in a literary tradition that is so ingrained in daily life it is almost enviable. Could you imagine it being stylish to send emails that are entirely clever references to Byron? Or political speeches invoking obscure Byzantine emperors to root policy in? Hell, can you imagine if cocktail parties had poetry instead of speeches, and we shared couplets instead of tiktoks? It feels good, in a way.
But we also see when this falls apart. The constant dramatization of everyday interactions. The …
This was a very interesting read that really worked to highlight the allure and dangers of imperial culture – both for the empire and for everyone else. We see Teixcalaan through the eyes of Mahit Dzmare, new ambassador from a small space station who grew up enamoured with the culture, and see how it is to be in that culture without being born into it.
Teixcalaan is steeped in a literary tradition that is so ingrained in daily life it is almost enviable. Could you imagine it being stylish to send emails that are entirely clever references to Byron? Or political speeches invoking obscure Byzantine emperors to root policy in? Hell, can you imagine if cocktail parties had poetry instead of speeches, and we shared couplets instead of tiktoks? It feels good, in a way.
But we also see when this falls apart. The constant dramatization of everyday interactions. The othering of the less educated, or differently educated, which we see with the ambassadors and to some extent as Mahit leaves the central province. We see the constant intrigue and the crazy political choices seemingly done in order to appear out of an epic, the purposeful rhyming of events, the constant lookout for similarities to guess how things will turn out. It's interesting to read, but seems painful to live.
There are plenty of other interesting themes in this book with the imagos, cloudhooks and AI city services, stratification of society, general weakness of dictatorships, and so on and so forth. But the culture of Teixcalaan stands out so far that it's practically its own character, and it's an impressive thing to read about.
As for complaints, I have two somewhat minor ones. First, the pacing feels really slow early on and really fast towards the end. The plot is a boulder rolling downhill out of control, speeding up as it goes, but it's a gentle slope and it takes a while to get going. My other complaint is just that the story structure feels sort of typical for the first book of a sci-fi series: it's mostly bound to a single planet, but the lingering problems are all threats from outer space. I may not have known how the book was going to end, but I sure knew which hooks weren't going to be resolved.
Did not catch me. What I liked was the lyrical speak and the brain implant concept but in it's core it had to little sci-fi elements for me to much "human" interest. In it's core it's a political murder mystery
I'm so pleased with A Memory Called Empire. It's rare to have a pairing of both a really rich, engrossing world and characters that I cared about so much. It felt like not a decision or phrasing was done without careful consideration. I could feel the pull Mahit felt between her home and the empire, and her exhaustion as the book stretched on. An absolute force and I can't wait to read the next one.
This one had a Dune feel to it. Planets, Space Stations, alien threats, Artificial Intelligence running an entire City, neurological implants, a murder mystery and political intrigues. The pace was slower than I'm used to but it managed to keep me interested enough to pick up the book at every opportunity I had. It's heavy on world building but it is executed in a very clever way through the eyes of the protagonist Mahit Dzmare. She goes to the City at the heart of the Empire of Teixcalaan as an Ambassador to her original home, the Lsel Station. Teixcalaan's culture and language is heavily influenced by poetry being a sophisticated place with lots of social norms. This book has that intellectual appeal without being boring.
Review of 'A Memory Called Empire' on 'Storygraph'
5 stars
A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE is a political drama sparked by a murder mystery which asks whether the safety of secrecy is worth its weight in blood.
Mahit is the main character but she's not only herself (at least, that's the plan). She's supposed to have a technologically-enabled memory of her predecessor, Yskandr, the most recent ambassador to Texicalaan. It's fifteen years out of date but she's making do until a plot thing happens and she's alone in her head for much of the narrative. As an ambassador she's trying to make choices which will preserve her people's way of life, but increasingly she finds that her predecessor may have had different aims and made other promises.
Mahit forms her own connections (especially but not only with Three Seagrass), but she also has to contend with the remnants of relationships formed by Yskandr. His death is the catalyst for her arrival, …
A MEMORY CALLED EMPIRE is a political drama sparked by a murder mystery which asks whether the safety of secrecy is worth its weight in blood.
Mahit is the main character but she's not only herself (at least, that's the plan). She's supposed to have a technologically-enabled memory of her predecessor, Yskandr, the most recent ambassador to Texicalaan. It's fifteen years out of date but she's making do until a plot thing happens and she's alone in her head for much of the narrative. As an ambassador she's trying to make choices which will preserve her people's way of life, but increasingly she finds that her predecessor may have had different aims and made other promises.
Mahit forms her own connections (especially but not only with Three Seagrass), but she also has to contend with the remnants of relationships formed by Yskandr. His death is the catalyst for her arrival, but she doesn't know what promises he made (or broke). I enjoyed the webs of politics so much partly because Three Seagrass and Mahit are able to communicate well about the structure of what certain moves matter. I love the rapport between Three Seagrass and Twelve Azalea, beginning with but not limited to their nicknames for each other ("Reed" and "Petal", respectively).
The worldbuilding is excellent, colored with small details about ordinary objects and spaces, specifically how Mahit relates to them. Mahit's outsider status provides ample opportunity for in-universe explanations, but her training before arriving in Teixcalaan means that she doesn't need explanations for the simple stuff which would bog down the narrative even if a genuinely new visitor might benefit from the tutorial. Much of the active worldbuilding is through discussions about language and culture, filtering other characters' explanations and descriptions through Mahit's background as a Stationer. I particularly enjoyed the ways that foods are described, since generally I recognize the foods, but her way of describing them excellently conveyed what they are even though she didn't have the terms or the specific cultural context in Teixcalaan.
The plot centers around a murder mystery of sorts and the politics of imperial succession. It's emboldened and complicated by the aims of an empire whose people think of themselves as the only ones who matter, and their uncertain language around describing others while still letting their very words recognize humans outside Teixcalaan as people. I enjoyed the mystery, the "murder" portion of the mystery is just one part of a very fascinating whole. Mahit and Three Seagrass are players in an ongoing conversation about what it means to be a person, and how the language one uses changes the thoughts they'll have. This plays out gradually, where the discussion is given room to breathe amidst the more hectic parts of the plot.
I love this and I'm planning to keep reading the series, this is an excellent start and I'm eager to see where it goes.
i think the success of a political intrigue book hinges on the reader being able to figure out the overarching story and motives of the main players, and maybe it's just not my preferred genre but it felt like the information wasn't there. protagonist unlikable and not very bright. too many words in italics. no real depth of character although the world-building was somewhat interesting. wanted to be a Culture book but didn't really get there.
I loved this. All the questions about what’s a barbarian and what makes empires and invasions, not to mention a world built around poetry and allusions, not to mention the intrigues and friendships and romances—just a big yes to it all. (As a side note, ugh titling reviews is hard)
I quite enjoyed this book! A fun narrative about a young diplomat from a remote space station who finds herself appointed ambassador to a Big Evil Empire. The book takes place in the imperial capital and thematically does the whole "man, giant empires really do suck a lot" thing, and does it well. The one Big Weird Sci Fi idea (basically multiple people cohabiting in one brain) is pretty cool and also the author manages to portray it without being offensive to people with, say, dissociative identity disorder. I feel like it dragged a bit at the end and sort of fizzled out, and ultimately I found myself reading a book set on the main character's home space station than at the heart of this big scary empire. I live in a big scary empire so it all seemed pretty standard to me. Still, totally recommend the read.
Reminded me of Ann Leckie's Radch Empire, with the focus on culture clashes, and the upper class. Otherwise, a very different book. I really liked the sci-fi concept that distinguishes the main character's culture as well.
