A Desolation Called Peace

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!