A Desolation Called Peace

Arkady Martine's intensely political take on space opera with added poetry gets its second entry. The first of the Teixcalaan novels was an impressively polished debut - beautiful prose, interesting plot and a clever new feeling take on Sci-Fi. It was a deserving Hugo winner. This follow up had a tough act to follow, but Arkady has knocked it out the park again.

The themes carry over from the first novel to a certain extent - culture and identity are the over-riding questions being examined. Firstly on the culture side we have the conflict between being a member of a small and relatively culturally minor society going to live in a big dominant culture - how much of your own cultural identity do you preserve? Where does assimilation begin and culture loss occur? Secondly we have identity - one of Arkady's best concepts is that of an Imago machine - a device that stores the memories and experiences of your predecessors and allows you to approach a given task with much more knowledge than would be available otherwise. The question here is how much of yourself gets overwritten by the memories of a previous person?

A Desolation Called Peace adds in a first contact tale. We move away from the capital of Teixcalaan and into the Lsel station and ultimately the Teixcalaan fleet. This starts to delve into the topics of jingoism and military intrigue.

Martine has a great ability to portray these challenges and conflicts but leave them open to interpretation - you don't have black and white answers. The characters are complex, nuanced and believable.

When it comes to Teixcalaan - believe the hype. This is superior space opera. Clever and erudite without being overly densely written. Weighty topics dealt with subtlety and nuance, written in an easily digestible style. One of my top reads of the year

A Desolation Called Peace, Arkady Martine's next installment in the Teixcalaan following her Hugo award-winning novel A Memory Called Empire is just as culturally rich and profound as A Memory Called Empire was. Still, instead of focusing the guts of the story on the understanding of what memory is, A Desolation Called Peace focuses on how we communicate.

“On the flagship Weight of the Wheel:
“You'd have to ask medical,” said Two Foam.
“Someone ask medical,” said Mahit. “I can't talk to anyone. I'm not a citizen.” And she smiled, terrifying and far too beautiful with all those teeth exposed, gesturing to her entire lack of cloudhook.”

Arkady Martine quoted in the first book, “This book is dedicated to anyone who has ever fallen in love with a culture that was devouring their own.” The first novel, A Memory Called Empire, was about the power of memory and specifically what memory is. Cultural memory can devour and expand inside of you and push the “you” out and replace it with a new transformed you.

It can devour.

This abstract idea was wrapped in an exciting murder mystery that kept the story moving and gave it an understandable hook for readers to latch on to. Desolation is about memory again, but I think it expands on the idea of how memory is expressed through language and communication. This time the grander idea is wrapped in an exciting first contact story between two disparate creatures.

The story starts up right at the end of the first book. We have a huge looming threat of an advancing alien empire that is both figuratively and in some cases literally devouring up the edges of the Teixcalaan Empire. As this is a first contact story, no one knows who or what these aliens are. I applaud Martine for her description of the aliens. Often, writers create aliens that have some sort of likeness to humans so that readers can empathize and understand them. I get that.

However, if you think about aliens in a real sense and how infinite the universe is, they could be anything. Douglas Adams made me think hard about this when he created a planet with living mattresses wallowing around in the muck.

“She's a barbarian, but don't hold it against her. She's brilliant.”

We cut back and forth between Nine Hibiscus, the yaotlek of the campaign, Mahit Dzmare, and the newly appointed Undersecretary to the Minister of Information Three Seagrass. Three Seagrass was Mahit Dzmare liaison in the first book. Also, we have the young perspective of young Eight Antidote, the clone of the previous employer who is very much like his predecessor, but with notable differences. Each of the characters represents a different perspective on the aliens and how they will affect the future.

Mahit Dzmare is back on Lsel station. In the first novel, we learn that she has a faulty imago machine, courtesy of the ministry. They would like her to download herself to be stored, but they will know that she has an updated imago machine if she does that. She is in a politically tricky position. The ministry would like her line terminated and probably her as well.

Three Seagrass is at home in the shining city when she learns of the alien issue. She decides that she needs to get to Mahit post-haste to work together on the first contact problem and understand what the aliens want. This allows Mahit to leave the station and accompany Three Seagrass to the Weight of the Wheel, the Teixcalaan flagship.

I had a difficult time with this part of the story. Yes, Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass are a great pair to work on this problem. But, the first contact with an alien species is such a complicated conflict. Martine sped through a bit of that. I am reminded of the movie “The Arrival” and this scene specifically:

“Dr. Louise Banks: So first, we need to make sure that they understand what a question is. Okay, the nature of a request for information along with a response. Then, we need to clarify the difference between a specific “you” and a collective “you”, because we don't want to know why Joe Alien is here, we want to know why they all landed.

And purpose requires an understanding of intent. We need to find out: do they make conscious choices? Or is their motivation so instinctive that they don't understand a “why” question at all? And, and biggest of all, we need to have enough vocabulary with them that we understand their answer.”

I felt like much of the ideas of collective “you” and understanding intent were skipped. I understand that A Desolation Called Peace is a weighty novel as it stands, and some streamlining was necessary. Also, Martine does explain the process that Mahit and Three Seagrass go through when dealing with the aliens, but it seemed just a touch too easy for a first contact scenario.

Along with the deep political intrigue betwixt the characters, there is significant character development in all of them. Young Eight Antidote begins to get first-hand experience in politics and protecting its people and culture. Mahit starts to develop a deeper and more complex symbiotic bond with Yskandr. And while they are two separate people, they begin to meld and share ideas. This character development is in service to the overarching plot and the discussions about what communication is and what part language and memory plays in it.

Mahit's experience on Teixcalaan has been invaluable. It has allowed her eyes to be opened up to worlds outside of her own. This, in turn, has allowed her to see her own culture with a critical eye. Does that make her dangerous to Teixcalaan or Lsel station? Possibly. I think her new perspective on things is one of the most exciting parts of this story.

I am looking forward to seeing where Martine takes hers and Three Seagrass's character.

The story continues and gets vastly more complicated. The aliens are a terrifying threat, and all of the characters, including a couple of new ones, are tested mentally and emotionally. Everything comes together in an unexpected climax.

What is A Desolation Called Peace? I was curious as to the phrase choice of desolation. A desolation has two definitions that I know of, and it applies to the story in different ways. Desolation can be “a state of complete emptiness or destruction.” A Desolation Called Peace is a first contact story, and the aliens bring desolation in their wake. They destroy all before them wholly and thoroughly. They are a desolation, living destruction.

Secondly, the word desolation is “anguished misery or loneliness.” Much like how Mahit feels at the beginning of the book. I found that more in-depth and particular word choice is found throughout this book, and I am quickly coming to associate this kind of next-level writing with Arkady Martine.

Upon further research, the title of the story is seemingly based on one of Tacitus' speaking about Calgacus, “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.” It is no shocker to me that the title A Desolation Called Peace would have historical significance. Arkady Martine is a historian, and the detailing and worldbuilding reflect that upon each page.

Every piece of this story flows and melds into others. It is an exquisitely written book. Martine is a master at language, character building, and history, and that mastery is evident in every facet of the story.

A Memory Called Peace was an excellent book, wholly deserved of the awards and acclaim it has received. But that was Martine's debut. It feels like now, with Desolation Called Peace, Martine is settling into her groove. I will read anything that she writes; her work is that good, and I recommend it to any science fiction or political intrigue lover.

I'm torn between rating this 3 or 4 stars. I did enjoy it, although I think it wasn't as strong as the first book. I loved the characters, especially some of the newer ones, but the plot was a bit thin. And as a second book, it has the unfair disadvantage of not showing us a new world but one we already know a bit.

So let's call it 3.5 stars. I'm leaving it at 3 for now and may change the rating once I've thought about it some more.

ETA: Okay, I rounded it up to 4 stars. I keep thinking about the book and even though it didn't fulfull all my expectations, it was really good. Plus, Twenty Cicada deserves half a star all by himself, so there.

Overview: An expertly written book that challenges conceptions of identity and otherness while managing to to be gripping, moving with utterly beautiful use of language.

Thoughts: Ms Martine's debut novel utterly blew me away, combining the literary skill of a poet with the best traditions of Science Fiction, and (in my humble opinion) pushing the genre into the ‘next level'. I considered it the best novel of the year, and I was clearly not alone as it went on to rightfully be nominated for numerous awards and won the prestigious Hugo Award for Best Novel.

I was a little cautious and restrained myself from dancing in the street at the discovery of a literary genius. This was after all a debut novel and it might be a fluke. I reserved judgement until I could read at least one more novel.

Now I have read A Desolation Called Peace and it is good.

Ms Martine manages to easily hit my five key points for a great novel:
• Characters you care about.
• A fascinating setting you want to explore.
• A plot that makes you desperate to find out what happens next.
• A deeper question that leaves you pondering.
• Good use of descriptive, memorable language.

Ms Martine gets an absolute full five stars for each of these criteria.

To be utterly frank I'm not sure I'm able to explain how I feel about this novel.

Having read both novels back to back I'm deeply moved and left pondering the central question (“How broad is your definition of ‘we'?”).

As a sign of a good story I'm already missing the fascinating setting wondering how Teixcalaan will be affected by exposure to the group mind civilisation, and how Lsel will be affected by the trauma of near extinction at hands of the three ringed vessels and the central characters I'm desperate to see how Mahit and Reed's relationship pans out (I'm a softy - they should be together!) and how Mahit will react to exile. To be quite frank I really feel for Nine Hibiscus loosing Swarm, at least as the individual in the way she knew him. Also Eight Antidote is turning into a great character, but I wonder how his "Shard Trick" experiences will change him.. I don't know if there will be another story in this series, but I would love to read more.

I really loved A Memory Called Empire, but one of the bits of it that felt a little forced to me was the Mahit/Three Seagrass romance. I feel like that book was so much about Mahit and Yskander and the murder mystery that the romance just didn't ever feel like it belonged. This book actually changed my opinion completely. This book is totally about the complicated relationship of Mahit and Three Seagrass because it's about the complicated relationship between colonized and colonizer. They are the microcosm for the larger political themes, and the two stories play out in a way that is both realistic, emotional, and fascinating. The political intrigue is ramped up another level, the aliens are great, and Martine's writing remains strong. If you liked or were just ambivalent with the first book, definitely go on to the second. Well-deserved Hugo.

As someone who has spent most of his life immersed in other cultures, speaking and thinking in a language that I love but that's not my own, Mahid's sens of not-belonging resonated well with me. She and all the other major characters were well realized, and had complex interior lives that made this book very enjoyable.

If I am not mistaken, “They should have sent a poet” is a quote from Contact, which is very fitting because this book deals with a very unusual first contact scenario, so much of Teixcalaan culture revolves around poetry, and because Martine writes beautifully.

The spin on the alien hive-mind is what elevates this book to five stars for me, the parallels to Lsel's imago technology and the empire's Sunlit and Shard pilots were wonderfully drawn.

A worthy successor to what was a spectacular first book in this series.

Nice continuation from the first book. Can't remember what the pace of the plot was for the first book but this one was a bit slow for my taste. More of the interesting naming convention, which I enjoyed thinking about, however I had a hard time remembering which name set went with which person causing me to miss some of the storyline.

I might go back and change this to 4 stars as I keep percolating about it...my main complaint with this book is that I think it's a wee bit crushed under my all-consuming love for A Memory Called Empire. Which is not Martine's fault! This sequel is sexier and higher stakes, with another doozy of an apt opening quote: “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles - this they named empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace” (Tacitus quoting Calgacus). For me personally, the tension in this book around clashing war tactics was less compelling than the geopolitics without the immediate threat of genocide of the first, and I think some of my star rating reflects the profound sense of melancholy I was left with about Mahit & Three Seagrass - Martine is so, so skilled at illustrating the ways that bias embedded in language itself makes it impossible for Three Seagrass to really see, and therefore truly love, Mahit, and I didn't want a happy ending, I don't think, but maybe just a squee less pathos? These are personal problems, though, and this is a beautiful book. A quote from a review on whatever you call the part of a book where they put quotes from reviews struck me as very accurate: “demands and rewards the reader's attention.” I couldn't have torn through this even if I wanted to, which I didn't, and I feel myself uncomfortably, but maybe ultimately productively, provoked by all the many things Martine gives a person to think about, especially what it means to be alive. Okay, there, I wrote myself into it. 4 stars!

I loved the world of Teixcalaan, with all its poetry and political brutality. With the second book in the series, I was at first disappointed that we were spending most of our time out in space on Weight for the Wheel and Nine Hibiscus. But the pace quickly picked up once we began encountering the unknowable enemy, and we reconnect with Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass. Their complicated relationship soon takes center stage, even though they share their POVs with Eight Antidote, the Emperor-To-Be who is trying to figure out what kind of leader he wants to become - even when it flies in the face of his teachers and mentors.

Good:
Cool aliens
Intel into the Shard pilots and Sunlit
Sexy times

Not my favorite:
I always want more Yskandr
The discovery amount what makes the aliens tick comes SO LATE in the story, and I would have liked to explore that more
Too much time spend on Stationer politics that didn't really go anywhere (in this book at least)

Overall, a good successor to A Memory Called Empire, and I'm excited to see how the trilogy ends!

I was much impressed with this book while reading it for the first time. It's written with assurance and a fluent mastery of sf as a genre.

Plenty is going on, with a variety of characters each pursuing his or her own objectives in multiple threads, helping or more often hindering each other. The characters are good, the story-telling is good, the world-building is a little eccentric but well done, the aliens seem very alien.

As I neared the end, I was wondering how the situation set up in the story could be resolved; I had no idea what to expect. Then the ending came, and I found it an anticlimax. It's not a bad ending, it's quite acceptable, but I was expecting this impressive book to end with some surprising flourish, and instead it peters out rather quietly. The resolution of the situation is mildly surprising, but the main surprise is that it works. I come away thinking, “Oh, was it that simple, after all?” For me, the ending is the weakest part of this book.

On second reading, of course I found the ending less surprising, but the final chapters still seem weaker than the rest of the book. It's not just the sense of anticlimax; I'm not convinced that the method used to resolve the situation would work.

Although we don't get to know even the main characters in depth, and I don't think I have anything in common with them, I do feel the urge to go on reading about them; as I often do when a good story ends. But it seems that Arkady Martine has no plan to continue this series any further.

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.