A Desolation Called Peace continues Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series about: where do the boundaries of culture/community and individuality get drawn? What does it mean to be a member of a community. Those themes are much more deeply explored in a Desolation Called Peace with the addition of the ring aliens and a deeper focus on life on Lsel station.

However, it lacks the central focus of a Memory called Empire -- Teixcalaan culture is just so richly developed. A Memory Called Empire was brilliant in part because the best parts of the world, the philosophical questions it raised and the most compelling central character was all bound up in a central mystery about Lysander. A desolation steps away from that singularity of focus, and also includes multiple substories and the book really suffers from this diffusion.

Nonetheless, Arkady Martine realizes alien cultures with a depth like no one else, and a Desolation is one of the best science fiction books I've ever read, it just pales in comparison to its predecessor.