The premise of this book is great: the young new ambassador to an aggressive space empire must try to protect her far weaker culture from colonization while also investigating the mysterious death of her predecessor. Her partner in both endeavors is an out-of-date copy of that predecessor’s mind that is installed in her head.

Neat! A space opera that revolves around diplomacy rather than combat and shows a colonial perspective while also using the contrast of cultures to pose some interesting ideas about identity and community.

Unfortunately the book doesn’t play out this premise very far. The young ambassador Mahit Dzmare, though supposedly tested for aptitude and trained for diplomacy, acts naive and clueless. She spends most of her time as a pawn of various imperial factions, and not even a very valuable one.

She is constantly torn between her loyalty to her home and her infatuation with imperial culture, but that culture is just not very appealing. It is cleverly coded as Space Aztec (rather than the more hackneyed Space Roman or Space Briton), and their society revolves around simulated blood sacrifice and poetry.

I just didn’t feel the seduction of all that poetry, and I ended up skimming the long passages where Dzmare laments her inability to compose like a native. There isn’t much description of Dzmare’s native culture though, so perhaps the implication is that she’s from an even duller place.

Still, the book has some strong characterization and enough interesting ideas to see me through to the end. It’s refreshing to read this kind of space opera that innovates in so many ways, even when not all of them end up paying off.