A Desolation Called Peace

Teixcalaan, Book 2

By: Arkady Martine

Narrated by: Amy Landon

2021 Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year

"[An] all around brilliant space opera, I absolutely love it." (Ann Leckie, on A Memory Called Empire)

A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space-opera sequel to Arkady Martine's genre-reinventing, Hugo Award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire.

An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options.

In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass - still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire - face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.

Their failure will guarantee millions of deaths in an endless war. Their success might prevent Teixcalaan’s destruction - and allow the empire to continue its rapacious expansion.

Or it might create something far stranger....

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

©2020 Arkady Martine (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

Lambda Literary Award - Nominee, 2022

Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year, 2021

Read this book!

Gorgeous writing and a truly compelling story. I can't wait for more from this author!

This is an amazing series

This is an achingly beautiful, subversive, delicious story. Language, identity, exile and the impact of Empire in the minds of the people who endure one.

What an incredible sequel

I thoroughly enjoyed immersing myself in the world described by Arkady Martine. This book introduced several new characters and they all stand out. Really well done sequel.

All around great…

Compelling story, powerful concept, engaging characters, satisfying conclusion(s)—and excellent performance. I always listen at 1.25x and it was perfect at that pace.

so good

I love this series and I wish there was more. a great continuation from the first and it kept me on the edge of my seat. 5/5

If you liked A Memory Called Empire...

You won't be disappointed!

Palace and fleet intrigue! Mahit getting in trouble by merely existing! Three Seagrass being Three Seagrass! Reflections on the self and the myriad conflicting emotions of falling in love with a culture that you are inherently distinct from.

Honestly the only reason I gave the story 4 stars is a nit pick on xenobiology that nevertheless stuck in my craw.

Excellent!!

Absolutely fantastic - loved the second part as much as the first. It’s quite unlike any other space opera I read - it’s very original, political, adventurous and super imaginative. Pick this one up for sure!!!

An engrossing space opera

This second book in the Teixcalaan series moves in larger circles than the first one which mostly confined itself to the politics of the world city. Most notably, this story has multiple viewpoints running at the same time, including that of the non-human alien adversaries. It is out and out space opera with those baffling aliens, enormously powerful military spaceships, technologies which are being kept secret from the Emperor herself, and a romance acknowledged in the midst of everything. In the end there are three ways of direct mental communication which were all unknown to the ordinary citizen of the Empire. The author does a decent job of raising the stakes again and again leading up to the big climax, and when early on the characters make decisions which advance the plot while at the same time seeming somewhat unmotivated, I was okay with it, because I just wanted to see how it would play out.

I wouldn't recommend reading these books out of order. While the plots are not closely intertwined, the characters who recur certainly are.

Because I read this as an audiobook unlike the first in the series which I consumed as an ebook, I think this heightened the differences I felt between them. It had more examples of shared minds on the grand scale as opposed to the small scale sharing of the Stationer imago technology we learned about in the first book, by the aliens, by the Teixcalaanli shard pilots, and by their Sunlit police force. It is a mixed subject, with its obvious frightening aspects but also glimpses of how it can enrich lives too and provide a communal meaning to a group. The first part of this book portrays the villainy of the Lsel station directorate up close as the precipitating event for the characters' flight out to the battle zone, and it crops up again at the end. Charges of spying by Mahit are not new, but supporting evidence of those loyalties is. The settings are in space more often than on planets as they were in book one, although they do not feature the microgravity experience at all.

I was fine with the planet side subplots, though I didn't really understand the palace intrigue fully. It was clear that hiding information is an important motif both on the personal level and institutionally. I also don't completely understand where the aliens' motivations lay, such as why exactly they had slaughtered everyone on a colony planet even though it didn't benefit them. Maybe it was a mistake on their part? I'm not sure. The tension leading up to the climax was undercut for me because I never really believed that the atrocity being advocated would actually get carried out.

I can understand that the author's style, which emphasis the interior lives of the characters so much, might not be what everyone prefers. It is a book where no one in the halls of power say anything without calculation, in their own mind or that of an image riding along, and what a person says to you and does not say is subjected to deep analysis, even when a person is in the throes of death. Rarely does anyone say a line of dialogue without a heavy dose of premeditation, which plays well for readers that are that way by temperament too, maybe not for everybody. I will be looking forward to the next thing coming from her along with the fans, however, whether it is set in this universe or something completely new.

Solid follow up if not slightly predictable.

As the title reads. The first book was a novel concept but the second book did little to add to the narrative. Still an enjoyable read but would have liked to seen more.

Compelling and sophisticated

You really need to read this together with the first book, A Memory Called Empire. The first book explores collective life through institutional memory and technologically augmented memory. This book explores a kind of collective consciousness based on a kind of shared proprioception and the limits of language. But lots of standard good sci-fi stuff weaving it all together.