A Desolation Called Peace

When a novel feels like it strongly stands alone and ends with such closure, it's hard to imagine what a sequel would be like. This sequel to A Memory Called Empire is different, stranger. I like it a lot, but it is also not what I expected.

It grows a few more points of view, over the original's singular voice from Mahit. It's also a first contact military sf story in space as opposed to the first book's city-centered succession politics and poetry. It's a story about not being able to truly go home again after travelling, about disobeying orders that don't sit well in your heart, about the psychology of different kinds of consciousnesses (in some ways similar to the Ancillary series), and about what peace means to individuals and empires.

One thing I enjoy is that the book gets into the friction between Mahit and Three Seagrass. The first book is a whirlwind week of adventure, and ends with a smooch between them during a momentary pause before the climax of the book. There's no time for conversation or for feelings or for anything other than an emotional moment of connection. This book gives them more space and time, where feelings that were smothered in the first book about the complications of perception rear their head and have to be processed. This also makes it feel much different than the first book, where everybody, and especially Three Seagrass, feel more "on side", even when relationships and goals are complicated.

I don't think either of these books are creating larger worldbuilding that would extend out to a longer series. However, I do think they each are remarkably thematically tight books and both worth reading.

Ich mochte Band 2 richtig gerne, weil ich die politischen Erwägungen und das zusätzliche Worldbuilding noch spannender fand als in Band 1. Jetzt, wo ich Band 2 auf Englisch gelesen habe (Band 1 auf Deutsch), kam mir die Sprache auch weniger „kindlich“ und generell runder vor. Nichtsdestotrotz fand ich manche Namen im Deutschen einfach gelungener als im Original (Neunzehn Breitaxt klingt so viel pompöser als Nineteen Adze). Was Gender jenseits Männer/Frauen angeht sieht es leider fast genau so mau aus wie in Band 1. Wobei möglicherweise in einem Satz ein Nebencharakter mit „they“ bezeichnet wurde, aber das ist ein bisschen wenig ;). Zum Ausgleich hatte ich in Band 2 — vielleicht wegen des fehlenden generischen Maskulinums — weniger das Gefühl, dass die Gesellschaft hinter den Kulissen doch patriarchal ist. Auch scheint es, als würde Homo-/Bisexualität nicht „akzeptiert“ werden, sondern einfach gar keine Abweichung von irgendwas sein. Das finde ich erfrischend. Leider habe ich auch in Band 2 nichts zusätzlich über die Reproduktion im Imperium oder auf Lsel gelernt, die Themen hängen ja häufig zusammen.

Inhaltlich hat mich die neue Alienspezies mitgerissen. Um nicht zu spoilern gehe ich hier nicht ins Detail… aber ich hätte sehr sehr gerne ein Spin-Off mit der Spezies im Zentrum.

Was mich auch sehr gefreut hat: Das Buch stellte alle „Gruppen“ kritisch da: Die „Aliens“, die Stationsbewohnenden, die Texa.. Texaner_innen. Es wurde schön veranschaulicht, wie sehr, was man für richtig und falsch hält, für absurd und normal, davon geprägt ist, was die eigene Gruppe als richtig/normal/… vorgibt. Was sogar undenkbar wird dadurch. Wirklich gut gemacht. Meine einzigen Minuspunkte sind, a) dass ich gerne noch mehr aus Aliensicht gelesen hätte b) dass ich 11 Jährige als Hauptcharas einfach nicht sonderlich mag und doppelt nicht, wenn es wieder das monarchistische Auserwähltentrope ist.

Aber das verzeihe ich, denn die von Arkady Martine erschaffene Welt ist super spannend und ich würde gerne mehr von ihr lesen.

There were many directions in which Arkady Martine could have taken the sequel to her popular 2019 novel A Memory Called Empire, and she has chosen an interesting and entertaining one.

The worldbuilding for which A Memory Called Empire was praised is back in A Desolation Called Peace, and while the first book focused on the Teixcalaanli capital, the second one explores more of the life onboard of the Lsel Station, as well as life in campaigning military fleets of the empire. For the most part, the worldbuilding in the sequel does not disappoint.

The bits where it does disappoint is in Martine leaning perhaps too heavily on space opera tropes in the parts of the book that take place aboard starships. While the descriptions of the capital or the palace grounds therein continue to be evocative, the descriptions of what it is like onboard of an imperial warship feel dull in comparison.

The plot continues to explore the politics of empire, and their relationship to individuals. Like with the first book, Martine manages to portray empire as a system built up of individuals—same as those it looms over, poised for conquest. The grand plots of the novel are not driven by villains motivated by their own evil nature, but by people who, entwined as they are with the culture of the empire, are doing what they think is the right thing to do. This is perhaps the most compelling aspect of Martine's Teixcalaan novels—the view of empire from within, but also from the liminal space on its edges.

The one complaint to level here, though, is that the book's pacing leave some to be desired in the first parts of it. The action moves rather slowly as everyone gets from where they were at the end of the first novel to where interesting things will happen in the second one. It is in the second part that things become more interesting and compelling.

Overall, the book is likely to be enjoyable for anyone who enjoyed A Memory Called Empire. The lack of novelty inherent in a sequel means that A Desolation Called Peace does not outshine the first novel, it is nevertheless a worthy successor.