A Memory Called Empire

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.

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 It's fifteen years out of date but she's making do until a plot thing happens and she's alone in her head for much of the narrative.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.