A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

Even the shorter perspectives in the interludes added a lot to the book, with one of my favorite passages of the entire novel coming in one Lsel Station Councilor’s assessment of another. Three Seagrass is about as wildly impulsive as readers of the first book would expect, but is still entertaining Nine Hibiscus is a well-drawn military leader and Eight Antidote perfectly balances childhood naïveté with intelligence and a burning desire to do right by his home. There are still some elements of political thriller and one or two unlikely moves that seem contrived for plot purposes, but the splitting of perspectives allows for more political depth and less rushing from point to point.Īnd the new perspective characters themselves are excellent.

Whereas the first book saw Mahit desperately trying to piece together fragments of information about the political environment while being dragged around by the plot, the second starts each perspective character on more stable footing and thus allows them quite a bit more agency. And to my eyes, almost every other element is a step up. The exploration of Teixcalaanli culture in A Desolation Called Peace is no longer new, but it’s still just as good as in its predecessor, and the addition of Teixcalaanli perspective characters allow for a more rounded view of that culture and its challenges-particularly evident in the relationship between Mahit and Three Seagrass. Meanwhile, Lsel Station seeks stalemate that will keep them out of the clutches of either power, while back in the heart of the empire, Eight Antidote seeks to understand the tactics being used and the factions within his own government with their own ideas of how to wage war. Her job is to learn enough to defeat them before they bleed even more of the empire’s resources than they already have.

Nine Hibiscus has led six legions of Teixcalaanli forces to the front lines of a war against a mysterious, aggressive, and seemingly unknowable alien power. Joining Ambassador Mahit Dzmare are her former Teixcalaanli cultural liaison Three Seagrass, Teixcalaanli heir Eight Antidote, and Teixcalaanli general Nine Hibiscus. While A Memory Called Empire was told from the sole perspective of tiny Lsel Station’s ambassador to the ravenous and sprawling empire of Teixcalaan, A Desolation Called Peace expands to four major point-of-view characters, with other minor perspectives scattered throughout the interludes. Arkady Martine won the Hugo Award for Best Novel with her debut A Memory Called Empire - a book with some fascinating cultural work to go with a solid-but-unexceptional thriller plot-and has returned to the Best Novel ballot with the second half of the duology: A Desolation Called Peace.

A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine