A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan, #2)

by Arkady Martine

2021. Borrowed from CLP on 12/23/24 to read for the Mpls Sci-fi (and sometimes F) book club on January 7, 2025. Lisa Tuttle in The Guardian wrote that it was "first-class SPACE OPERA, with added spy craft, political and diplomatic intrigue, and scary aliens [and first contact drama], along with interesting explorations of perception, ways of communicating, and what makes a person." https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/12/the-best-recent-science-fiction-and-fantasy-reviews-roundup Interview: https://locusmag.com/2020/01/arkady-martine-histories-of-power/ 2 eeviews: https://locusmag.com/2021/03/adrienne-martini-reviews-a-desolation-called-peace-by-arkady-martine/ Also an excellent and assured PROSE STYLE, approaching literary fiction. Shifting point of view, reminiscent of The Expanse series. Lots of nterior dialogue, made more interesting in Mahit by the presence of *two* Yskandrs. Lovely hooks back to the first novel; unobtrusive, inviting, not confusing to the current plot. For an example of great writing - structure, character, style - see the Nine Hibiscus section of chapter 7. And note throughout, the repetitions of words, and thoughts, e.g., “And didn’t try to get away from Mahit’s touch, not at all.” p. 296. Nice use of emphases too. E.g., “Three Seagrass did *try* to remember her training.” And pauses - through dashes. A quite stunning use of voice and orthography. Throughout, I’ve been “simply, deliciously, hideously intrigued” ch. 8 p. 183 Note: there’s a fine glossary of nouns (persons, places, and things) at p. 481. ARKADY MARTINE is the pen name of AnnaLinden Weller, b. April 19, 1985 (5 years to the day after I got married): University of Chicago (BA) University of Oxford (MSt) Rutgers University (PhD) Her first novel was A Memory Called Empire (2019) and it’s sequel, this one, A Desolation Called Peace (2021), together form the Teixcalaan series; each won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. My DRAMATIS PERSONNAE, not merely copied from the glossary: *Mahit Dzmare, Lsel Station ambassador to the Empire, linguistic specialist Yskander Aghavn, Mahit’s imago(s), the prior (murdered?) ambassador (“the places they were misaligned bloomed into [neuropathic] pain”) (also p.o.v. characters in their “conversations” with Mahit. Aknel Amnardbat, Councilor for Heritage Dekakel Onchu, Councilor for Pilots (military defense, exploration, and navigation) Darj Tarats, Councilor for the Miners (resource extraction, trade, and labor) Councilor for Hydroponics, Nineteen Adze. Her Brilliance. New Emperor. *Nine Hibiscus, fleet commander of the 10th legion and newly appointed yaotlak (commander of all fleet commanders); Captain of the Weight for the Wheel; former protégé of Nine Propulsion. Twenty Cicada, ikantlos-prime, friend to Nine hibiscus, highest-ranking of all the officers, a/k/a “Swarm” Eight Antidote, clone of Six Direction, heir to the throne, 11 y.o., very smart and brave and enterprising, his lack of opportunity for a childhood is so sad. Three Azimuth, Minister for War, after Nine Propulsion’s “retirement” Eleven Laurel, Third Undersecretary to the Minister of War, the Third Palm, the Ministry of War’s internal intelligence service (infosec, political officers, internal affairs) and mentor to Eight Antidote and Sixteen Moonrise; the only one of his rank to remain after death of previous emperor? See ch. 11 p. 287 for the rivalry. *Three Seagrass, Information Ministry specialist at Palace Earth, makes herself Special Envoy to the fleet Sixteen Moonrise, fleet commander of the Twenty-Fourth Legion and Captain of the Parabolic Compression; political foil to Nine Hibiscus, in direct communication with Eleven Laurel. Seven Aster, Second Undersecretary of the Ministry of War, the Second Palm. (supply chains and logistics). An organizational chart would be helpful: six ministers (Teixcalaan), six councilors (Lsel Station), six Palms for each? Teixcalaanli Palms—Third, war; Six, engineering and shipbuilding; Two, logistics; xxx, Judiciary; xxx Life Support; Brings all three * together on the Weight for the Wheel in ch. 8. Their relationships are fraught, yet deep and satisfying. The fourth p.o.v. is Eight Antidote. sabotage - Amnardbat’s, Interlude before ch. 11, pp. 268-6; Datj Tarats’ efforts to foment the war with the aliens. propaganda, misdirection, treachery first contact - communication, linguistic and conceptual, e.g., ch. 11 pp. 290 ff. politics very convoluted and dangerous, maintains tension throughout Mass destruction as the only path to victory vs. negotiation through communication and respect for foreign existence. IMAGO-LINES - what are they, how do they work, do the Teixcalaanli (a) know about them and (b) have access to them and (c) *want* access to them? Clues in the poem ch. 11 p. 270? Mahit’s ‘imago’ of two Yskandrs - how did that happen, how does it work? Like a witch’s familiar? Or Lyra’s dæmon? No privacy. Uploaded memories mandatory at Lsel station, camera and recordings of conferences on the Teixcalaanli ships and everywhere in (and under?) the Palace. PAIRS: > Six Direction and Eight Antidote are clones, or just lineal descendants? pp. 40 ff. “sole heir to Teixcalaan entire” “ancestor-Emperor” > > > Eighth Antidote joins the Shard collective via the Shard trick to communicate with a single Shard to stop the planet-destruction order, while Twenty Cicada joins the alien hive mind by ingesting the fungus to permit joint understanding and thereby negotiate a truce. This last is the key: if either one failed or did not try, there would be Armageddon. And neither knew the other was trying - or needed to. Naming conventions, e.g., number glyphs - does one choose one’s own? Is there a pattern, or a significance, to the numbers? discontinuity, 2d interlude, chs. 8, 10, 17, 18, 19 Conflicted motives, conflicted ethics, e.g. Mahit: “how much she wanted to be useful, and how much she hated that wanting” Hidden and ambiguous loyalties and motivations, e.g., Eleven Laurel, Sixteen Moongrass have loyal motives but terrible ways to a comp,ish them. “War and Science again, working together and not letting Information in on the game” ch. 18 p. 453 ‘your spook and your spook’s pet’ - an insult regularly used by Sixteen Moonrise CURSES and IMPRECATIONS: starfucked, Stars, bloody stars, blood and stars, bloody fucking stars, bleeding sunlight, bleeding star, bleeding starshine, Sunfire and space willing, Blood and starlight, Blood-soaked starlight, blood-and-sunlight, I’d swear to that in a sun temple with blood from both wrists at once— thank starlight, bloody fucking starlight, thank every single divinity anyone had ever sacrificed blood to VOCABULARY: starflyers cloudhook (the glass-and-metal overlay on her right eye that linked her) plastisteel jump gates asekreta ixplanatlim, ixplanatl *imago, imago-lines infopaper petrichor collective proprioception proprioception animalian encumbrances algorithmic AI algorithmic reform indiction(s) the shattermost of shatterharmonicists friable shockstick lychee (there is a fruit called litchi) palace-hummers cartograph flit-ship use-name noun-sign number-glyph infofiche stick groundcar

Stanislav Petrov,

To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles—this they name empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.

we,

a wantful voice,

starflyers,

eyeshine

dirt-home,

blood...

The hunger of we to reach out.

This body or that body:

genes for strength and...

genes for patience and patter...

This...

This body

meat

Cf. They’re made out of meat, by Terry Bisson (1990). https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html Terry Bisson died recently. 2/22/42-1/10/24. There’s a lovely obit at LocusMag.com, and here’s a notice with links in the comments to Bears Discover Fire; the collection of that name (1993) is not available as an e-book nor at the Internet Archive. https://beamerbooks.wordpress.com/2024/01/10/the-angels-discover-terry-bisson/#respond

a body for making other bodies meat, for making also other ...

the we,

Bodies who are meat and cannot sing! Bodies who think language, who cry with their mouths and leak water from their eyes, who are clawless but vicious in their own hunger to reach out.

the clever meat dies like every other meat, like we do, but it does not remember what its dead meat knew.

full of resources to scavenge,

we have rendered them up for usage, the meat and the resources both.

a curious body even

the singing of the we.

the interdict regarding Teixcalaanli military transport through Stationer space is suspended;

Lsel Station

Emperor of All Teixcalaan Nineteen Adze

Six Direction,

NINE Hibiscus

Weight for the Wheel

the displayed planet-points had winked first distress-red and then out-of-communication black,

Her Brilliance the Emperor Nineteen Adze’s

newest yaotlek—

Nineteen Adze, new-crowned, had very badly wanted to make a war.

Nine Hibiscus had been an officer of the Six Outreaching Palms—

It had begun with rumors, stories of aliens that struck, destroyed, vanished without warning or demands,

Verashk-Talay

Lsel Station,

five Teixcalaanli colony outposts on the other side of the jumpgate in Parzrawantlak Sector went as silent and dull as stones,

cloudhook,

the glass-and-metal overlay on her right eye that linked her—

A fleet could last a long time, fed on those sips of sugar-water violence, as long as they believed their yaotlek knew what she was doing.

Nine Hibiscus—who spelled her name with the same number glyph Nine Propulsion used,

Nine Hibiscus, bereft of the comfort of mentorship

the sun-spear throne

Twenty Cicada,

ikantlos-prime,

the cadaverous thinness of his chest,

Haha

Two Foam,