A Memory Called Empire

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Malletts Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Science Fiction / General / Martine, Arkady	4-week checkout	Due 05-02-2024
Pittsfield Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Science Fiction / General / Martine, Arkady	4-week checkout	Due 05-13-2024
Traverwood Adult Books 4-week checkout	Adult Book / Fiction / Science Fiction / General / Martine, Arkady	4-week checkout	Due 04-29-2024

"A Tom Doherty Associates Book."
"During a time of political instability in the highest echelons of the imperial court, Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arrives in the center of the multi-system Teixcalaanli Empire only to discover that her predecessor, the previous ambassador from their small but fiercely independent mining Station, has died. But no one will admit that his death wasn't an accident--or that Mahit might be next to die. Now Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion--all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret--one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life--or rescue it from annihilation"--From publisher.

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I loved this book so much that I bought my own copy! submitted by valeriemates on August 8, 2021, 2:45pm Science fiction is full of characters where the memories of one person are passed along and put inside another person. But this book takes the idea to places that I have never seen any other SF go. The main character, Mahit, grew up on a space station that has a long tradition of passing along one person's memories to the next person who has the same job. Mahit is going to be an ambassador to a world called Teixcalaan, so she is given the memories of the previous ambassador to have that job, Yskandr. But Yskandr had died suddenly on Teixcalaan, probably murdered, so the only backup of him that was available to install into Mahit is from fifteen years ago -- so all of Yskandr's memories of the most recent fifteen years are missing. Mahit is assigned to go to Teixcalaan as the new ambassador and find out what happened. The book does a joyful job of describing what it might be like to have another person's memories installed in your mind -- something that I have never seen another book explore in this much detail. For example, Yskandr has to remember not to try to use Mahit's muscles -- sometimes the two of them negotiate with each other. And Mahit and Yskandr are both trying to guess what later-Yskandr might have done to get himself murdered.

Mahit is an insightful political operator navigating through a world that is utterly different from the space station that she grew up on. She meets lots of interesting Teixcalaani characters and rapidly finds herself in the middle of huge world events, amid lots of neat and memorable characters.

The world-building of Teixcalaan is gorgeous. I loved the way Mahit would encounter things that were unfamiliar to her and compare them to familiar things from her space station. I also enjoyed Mahit's enjoyment of the poetry and language of Teixcalaan.

I read a lot, and this is my favorite book that I've read in years.