Released, I am the spear in the hands of the sun.
A Memory Called Empire
by Arkady Martine
Genre: Sci-Fi
About: An emergency call is made to Lsel Station. The Emperor requires a new ambassador and Mahit is honoured to be chosen. Usually, when someone takes over a role, they're given an imago of their predecessor's memory and personality. But Mahit's imago is fifteen years out-of-date, and her predecessor did much in that time: including making enemies. If she's to survive, she'll need to learn all her predecessor's secrets...
The Good
I was expecting a very rich, serious political sci-fi but this book was actually surprisingly light-hearted. The tone reminded me of The Founders trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett, and I love that series. Mahit was a very likeable main character and I was really drawn to the concept of having an imago (someone else's memory and personality) imbued into a person's psyche. I loved the moments we got of Yskandr inside Mahit's mind. I also really liked the Teixcalaan culture being so centred around language, in particular its poetry. Words had real meaning in this story and there were some really thoughtful inferences about nationality and colonisation.
The Bad
Honestly, I skimmed a lot of this book because it was often repetitive. People were constantly trying to kill Mahit, and her reactions afterwards was to have a meeting with a someone in order to get information. We meet a lot of people and the descriptions were very long-winded. Usually if I start skimming a book I find I miss out plot points and have to go back and re-read sections, but with this I don't feel I missed out anything. I liked the banter but it was mostly centred around a Teixcalaan being surprised at how 'citizenship-like' Mahit was. And I did like the writing, there were some very beautiful moments, but the descriptions made every scene so much longer than it needed to be.
The Somewhat Iffy
I wish we'd had more of Mahit/Yskandr interaction. I understand why the older Yskandr couldn't be present for much of the story, as he had the answers to so many of the mysteries, but the fifteen year out-of-date Yskandr could have absolutely been present for longer. That dynamic was so interesting and it got taken away so quickly. I also found it odd how much it was stressed that imago technology was secret, and yet almost immediately Mahit gave her state secret away. That tension and distrust of Teixcalaan's would have been really interesting to read. Instead Mahit often reflected that she had no-one she could trust and how alone that made her feel, while her actions and interactions with others showed that she did in fact trust very quickly.
Overall
The characters and the tone were a lot of fun, but the story was quite repetitive and the aspects that pulled me into the story weren't exploited enough.
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