"A Memory Called Empire" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[Raucous]

I'm finding, thinking back on this book a week after finishing it, that my appreciation for it is growing (and I liked it quite a bit to start). The intricate Teixcalaan culture that Arkady Martine developed for the book and the way that it influenced the lives and actions of everyone in the book is taking me a bit of time to process. Perhaps it really did take a Byzantine historian to pull this off so convincingly.

[Melani]

I wish I knew why I didn't find the book more compelling. On paper, it seems like it should be right up my alley. But I just don't feel anything beyond meh about it. It was... fine. I wouldn't object to reading the next book in the series but I don't feel a mighty need.

I suspect it has a little to do with some of the disconnect I felt between what the author was trying to portray and what actually came across on the page. For example, I know the author was trying to portray the King's Guard lady (I have completely forgotten character names at this point) as some kind of political mastermind, but I didn't really see it. The author TOLD me she was a political mastermind, but it never felt like I was shown that.

So, while I can appreciate the world building and some of the other things the author was playing with, ultimately the book just doesn't hit that sweet spot because the writing didn't capture me.

[Don]

Allison, thanks for asking "Do you think this was a space opera?"--a question that might seem simple but is far more controversial than I first thought.

In an earlier comment, citing the expansive Teixcalaan Empire, extensive political intrigue and tense human drama, without hesitation, I answered, "it's on my space-opera shelf! However, my opinion wasn't unanimous.

Ryan, you wrote that you wouldn't call it a space opera: "There are no space battles or even space travel," which you consider "genre-defining." Perhaps, as you suggest, sequels might meet these criteria; certainly, the first installment is setting up that possibility.

After researching the definition and history of the genre, at the risk of fence-sitting, I think both views have merit. Since its emergence at the dawn of the 20th century, through periods of rising and falling popularity, the meaning of Space Opera has changed considerably. Initially, the term was a derogatory epithet, after "soap opera," a connotation that has never completely vanished. In 1977, the original Star Wars release date, the classic science fiction fantasy film was considered a glorified B-movie.

Although I understand your perspective, Ryan, even without space battles or travel, I think the novel has enough space in the form of science fiction fantasy and achieves sufficiently operatic scope to satisfy my cobbled up definition.

TOR.com columnist Emily Asher-Perrin refers to The Space Opera Renaissance (2006), in which co-authors David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer define the genre as “colorful, dramatic, large-scale science fiction adventure, competently and sometimes beautifully written, usually focused on a sympathetic, heroic central character and plot action, and usually set in the relatively distant future, and in space or on other worlds, characteristically optimistic in tone. It often deals with war, piracy, military virtues, and very large-scale action, large stakes.”

Space operas, writes Wired correspondent Charlie Jane Anders (2017), "run the gamut from intimate character dramas to galaxy-spanning epics, each of them as big and bold as their genre implies, but far more experimental and varied than ever before."

Finally, Den of Geek included A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine in its article on Best Space Operas of 2019.

[Oleksandr]

I'm not sure that space operas require space travel or space battles. For example, Dune is considered by many a space opera, buit both travel and battles are on the (alien) ground

[Megan]

I liked a lot about this book.

What I liked the most was the portrayal of Mahit's conflicting, unresolvable feelings about the way she related to Teixcalaan culture. I liked that they were unresolvable, that she was dealing with a culture that would never see her as fully one of them--human--no matter her love and her work, and she knew that, and that she also tripped up over her own assumptions, her own desires (or, her own + Yskandr's) a lot. (All of this ambivalence did sometimes make her a difficult protagonist, but I can understand how this was the path Martine chose to take through the story.)

I also liked how Martine provided two very different vehicles for passing-on-culture/knowledge/identity through Lsel's imagos and Teixcalaan's poetry canon, and what that meant for people's own identities and how they related to the larger community/culture. But because I really liked this angle, I wish it'd been explored more--like, one of my favorite passages was Mahit internally examining the idea of how imagos could be used unethically.

The plot itself was sometimes (okay, often) beyond me, trying to follow the intrigue and the conspiracies and the theorizing about possible conspiracies, but I liked the thematic stuff going on.

As for "space opera, y/n?", Cora Buhlert's recent essay, The Gradual Vanishing of the Planetary Romance, classifies it as a planetary romance, which seems like a good fit to me.

[Bonnie]

Thank you for posting that link. She isn't saying that writers don't write Planetary Romance anymore, but that people aren't using that *term* as much, and instead are using Space Opera on Planetary Romance.

I can see that people might be hesitant to use "Planetary Romance" because unclear... does it mean there has to be a romance? Or that a romance has to be important to the plot? >>> Or is the romance with the planet / life on the planet? ("Dune" is def not Space Opera!)

I for one rarely use the term Space Opera because it makes me cross. When I go looking for definitions they sometimes seem so broad that Space Opera = practically the same as Science Fiction itself... And if so, what is the point of the term?!

An anthology of Space Opera stories I read a few years ago had that exact problem - IMO most were "just" Science Fiction stories, not Space Opera stories. After that I mostly quit using the term.

[Bonnie]

Yes here are the books, anthologies edited by Gardner Dozois:
The New Space Opera
The New Space Opera 2
*One of the first stories was “Saving Tiamaat” by Gwyneth Jones - down on a planet, tricky negotiations between factions, critical diplomacy, political intrigue, a high tech gadget enabling something like channeling someone else like an alien sibling or something? I remember complaining right then to my DH — what was the point of “Space Opera” classification, if it was the same as what you would read Science Fiction for!
If I had to I might use the term for some of the Culture novels (not Inversions), Peter Hamilton, Ken MacLeod, Alastair Reynolds.

This might be skating off from our monthly book choice so I will bring it back to A Memory Called Empire... I wouldn’t call that Space Opera either! She travelled from her own planet to another planet but really about being a diplomat/Ambassador, political shenanigans, culture of Texlicaan (sp?), her own psychology, murder mystery, dealing with the Imago tech.

*(Read these some years back and might not have exact details right)

[Ryan]

Good article, thanks for posting. I hadn't heard of the terms planetary romance or sword and planet before. I'd certainly classify this book as planetary romance, though I don't like the term, because, well, the word romance suggests...romance. A different term for the same concept would be good to have in the discourse. Although, to be fair, I can't think of a good one off the top of my head.

[Megan]

I did enjoy learning the history of the term "planetary romance," and it fits how I think of A Memory Called Empire, but yeah, I don't see it becoming viable again as a widely used term in this day and age. Not when there'd be confusion of expectations with the "romance" part. It used to mean adventure and heroism, but the ascension of the romance novel genre has probably displaced those associations more or less permanently for most readers. (And as a romance novel reader, I admittedly also want to help maintain genre expectations from that side, too; I wouldn't want any readers expecting a genre romance novel to think AMCE will meet that expectation.)

I can see myself using the term "planetary adventure" when describing books like this. I hope I remember to use it in the future, at least! But I can see why AMCE can meet some expectations as a space opera; particularly, it deals so heavily with the personal effects of empire, that sense of large-scale is ever-present, even if it is backgrounded.

[Matthew]

I know I'm super late to the party, but I really liked this book. In fact, by the at-some-point-official Goodreads stars descriptions, I loved it!

I thought the depiction of Teixcalaan as a colonial empire possibly starting to collapse under its own weight was really interesting. The idea of a rigid culture forcing itself on the rest of the galaxy both militarily and culturally then having to deal with what it means to assimilate everyone, even if that was just backdrop, was fun.

My favorite thing, though, was that we had a highly competent, prepared protagonist who was dropped into an unexpectedly difficult situation, handled it well, and was *still* constantly consumed by self doubt. I also thought that being forced to operate without her imago, but with subconscious echoes of Yskandr's personality, was a nice additional source of tension.

As a language nerd/teacher/someone who's lived in other places, I found the way that language and cultural integration were handled to be spot on, which added to the fun.

I'm excited to see where the sequel goes. I'm assuming/hoping for totally different central POVs picking up with the mysterious alien invasion.

[Ariana]

Matthew wrote: "I know I'm super late to the party, but I really liked this book. In fact, by the at-some-point-official Goodreads stars descriptions, I loved it!

...My favorite thing, though, was that we had a highly competent, prepared protagonist who was dropped into an unexpectedly difficult situation, handled it well, and was *still* constantly consumed by self doubt..."

I really liked this aspect as well!

[Anthony]

Necroposting! I fall in the middle of the opinions expressed here, but I ticked up my rating to 4 stars because there is so much that impressed me here. It’s jam packed with ideas that feel entirely fleshed out in Martine’s mind, and that more or less get communicated in a compelling way. I will say that there are aspects of her approach that feel a little distancing, but overall, the sense of displacement, of being thrust into a truly foreign culture, was pretty mesmerizing for me. I did think that her use of so many italics was a bit egregious at times, but that’s more or less a minor quibble for me. A bigger quibble is that I am not entirely convinced that the cumulative stress and trauma that Mahit experiences through a *very* eventful sequence of events is always convincingly portrayed.

I’m glad to have finally read this, and I’m very curious to see where Martine takes us as she continues the saga.

[Jemppu]

Anthony wrote: "...A bigger quibble is that I am not entirely convinced that the cumulative stress and trauma that Mahit experiences through a *very* eventful sequence of events is always convincingly portrayed..."

This! I think was my ultimate pitfall with this. There were indeed lot of grand ideas, but the narration seemed to keep very consistently pragmatic and observant, which wasn't very convincing in conveying much experienced trauma or stress, as you say.

But! Glad to see you were able to enjoy it never the less.

[MadProfessah]

Would have been happy if this won the Best Novel nebula...

[Oleksandr]

MadProfessah wrote: "Would have been happy if this won the Best Novel nebula..."

I actually expected it to

[Lowell]

Another bit of thread necromancy...

I just finished this last night, and wow. I'm blown away.

I loved the prose. I loved the poetry, and the power of the right words at the right time. I loved the bits of flirtatious romance that felt natural as a part of the story - nothing felt forced.

I can see why it wouldn't be some people's cup of tea - In fact, I probably won't recommend it to some of my friends (even though they do read almost everything I point their way) because it's just not their kind of book.

But wow. I'm glad I got around to reading it.

[Anthony]

I wound up enjoying it a lot too, Lowell. There’s much to admire in it: it’s chock full of ideas and wit and features a complex, heightened approach that is very compelling.

[Lowell]

I think that, in the end, one of the things I appreciated most about the romance is that the sensible, well-prepared heroine recognizes that her week-long fling with the exotic object of romance *ISN'T IMPORTANT* and probably isn't viable, given current circumstances.

That feels like a smart, good decision based on understanding that attraction isn't love, and that emotional reactions when heightened by physical stress and trauma are almost certainly not the best things on which to base any kind of meaningful relationship.

[Jen]

I finished this last night and really enjoyed it. The audiobook narrator was great, and it was useful to me to hear the correct pronunciation of all the strange words and names.

My only qualm was the imago. So the first imago was installed correctly by professionals and she was still have trouble with it after 3 months, to the point that the imago controlled her body without her permission.. I know it was damaged and expected to fail under stress but it wasn't working super well. Then the second replacement imago, which she acted at the beginning like it was no good because he was dead for too long, was installed by basically a neurosurgeon hacker, someone who has no idea what this technology is, and from day 1 it was working properly, although she had a headache (and she even sort of got the 1st imago back). This was the one thing that was a bit too much of a stretch for me. She should have had just as many problems with the 2nd imago, if not more so, and if the 1st imago was already in her neurology, why did he go silent and only come back after the machine was taken out? It seems problematic.

The idea of having an imago I found really cool, and I understand from the point of view of plot why she wouldn't want to introduce the dead imago as a possibility until later but it was a stretch for me.

[Ryan]

The initial imago was sabotaged by someone in Lsel station who didn't approve of what Mahit was intending to do in Teixacalaan, though I don't understand Lsel politics very well. Thus the neurosurgeon hacker, who was NOT trying to sabotage the device, did a better job.

Also, read message 8 in this thread.

[YouKneeK]

I finished the audiobook yesterday evening. I liked it, but wasn’t thrilled by it. Like a few others said, I was really interested in the imago concept at the beginning and was disappointed that was cut off so soon. I enjoyed the humor of the internal conversations, and the mix-ups as they tried to deal with the insufficient preparation time they’d been given as compared to other people to get fully integrated. For example, it made me laugh when Mahit first met her liaison while she was still holding her luggage, and Yskander reflexively made the greeting gesture with Mahit’s hands, causing her to clumsily drop the luggage. I wanted more of that kind of stuff.

I did also enjoy the sarcasm and the banter between the other characters, especially Mahit, Three Seagrass, and Twelve Azalea, but the story itself was only moderately interesting to me for some reason. I normally like things that are more political, but I never felt that invested in what was going on here. A book with more complexity like this one works better for me in print though, so I might have become more invested that way. I’ll probably try it again in print someday to see if I like it any better, then continue on with the series at that time if I do.

This post was written by Thirty-Four Analysis, under the supervision of Sixteen Twister. (I gave Ernest the Cat credit for the 32 SF&F audiobooks I listened to last year, because he heard them too. It did say “books read” and not “books understood”, after all!)

[Jen]

Ryan wrote: "The initial imago was sabotaged by someone in Lsel station who didn't approve of what Mahit was intending to do in Teixacalaan, though I don't understand Lsel politics very well. Thus the neurosurg..."

Thanks, read message 8, interesting thoughts. And yes, I realize the first one was sabotaged, but it seemed to be working as intended until it stopped. This type of thing just seems complicated, like it would take a while for a mind to get used to having another mind inside of it, or even the memory of a mind.

However, she said early on that proper integration of an imago is supposed to take around a year.. she gets the second imago, and once she stops seizing, it works as perfectly as she needs it to right away, without any therapeutic interventions that were hinted at that she would have received on Lsel Station.. as a plot device, sure I get it, it was important, but it just didn't entirely work for me. The fact that she had such problems with the first one, and the second one - installed by a hacker who didn't know what she was doing really, to my thinking - installed on top of an already faulty first imago. It just didn't really seem plausible and didn't fully work for me. I loved the concept but the execution took me out of the story a bit too much for my liking. It kept this from being a 5-star read for me.

[E.D.]

I agonised a bit over whether to give 3 or 4 stars. I settled for 3 because although I enjoyed the story it didn't really grip me. The main cause of this I think is that I felt I was reading an 'introduction' rather than a complete story. Yes, I know that this is the first of a series, however, the short civil war and new emperor seemed to occur in an unseemly rush at the end. As if the author felt that she needed to suddenly tie things up ready for the alien invaders in the next book.

[Kevin]

Just finished it last night and I am so glad I discovered this book by the re-read program. ( I love that this group has a re-read because it has allowed me to discover so many great books I've missed).

What a fantastic and thrilling read. I thought the world building was spectacular. Some really interesting concepts, the imago line, the aesthetic of the city and it's cultural obsession with poetry and the arts. I really enjoyed how the author hammered the idea that only Teixcalaan was considered civilized and those not apart of the empire barbarians. I enjoyed learning about the city and found myself craving more details about it.

I thought the characters were good enough and fleshed out enough that when Twelve Azalea died I felt bad for Three Seagrass. As everyone has repeated, the political games being played between the different characters was interesting and kept me guessing. Reminded me a little of Dune but on a smaller scale, which I greatly appreciated. I really enjoyed the naming convention too. I know some people have disliked it, but I felt it added an extra layer to expanding and creating a unique world. ( I am partial to fantastic world building with many layers)

I truly think it's close to a must read for any Sci-Fi fan looking for a new exciting story.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I'm so glad you loved it! great thoughts

[Aga]

I totally agree with Kevin. I loved the book. The Polish translation was surprisingly good in comparison with the original. I'm going to wait for the second book in polish to support the translator.

And name Three Seagrass reminded me of Twoflower from Terry Pratchett's "The Colour of Magic".

[CJ]

Well, I finished it. I wrote a review of it where I talk about some specific, er, grievances I have with it.

But basically I don't think this novel works well as a SF novel. I don't know why this author wants to write SF. It felt sophomoric and inelegant in many ways, that there were a lot of elements in the book-- like with language and poetry--that gets presented as something that will give us more depth and insight but the author didn't really connect to the larger narrative and worldbuilding very well if at all, which felt very unsatisfying.

I'm glad I read it, but I have no desire to read the second book.

I read the audiobook with the ebook on hand (both digital loans from my library), which is something I regularly do if I have access to both.

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

* * * * *

Official December 2025 reread starts tomorrow.
Discuss the rest of the series HERE.

[Allie]

Although I wasn’t super motivated to read the rest of the series, I thought this book acts as a lens to see one refraction in the limits of selfhood and identity. It reminds me of posthumanist theory that questions where we end and other beings or entities begin, be they symbionts, like humans and our microbiome, or machine-organism hybrids, like our extended selves through social media avatars. (In the case of the former, If we have more bacteria cells in our body than human cells, then what sense does it make to call ourselves just one “human” self?) Of course, the author is not discussing the distinctions of biological entities at different scales, but rather how multiple conscious semblances of identities (multiple “selves”) might coexist, in terms of the implanted memories from one’s predecessors as followed in Mahit’s culture. The interesting part is that once implanted, the different identities are never expected to remain separate. And ambivalent, shifting, and slow process of change takes place where Mahit, like others from her Station, slowly absorb the predecessor and the ghosts of those before them into their sense of self. I appreciated the descriptions of the implanted ancestors, as it felt there was much attention paid to the instability of identity, and the lack of control one would have over the process. I find that sci-fi from Western and white authors doesn’t do well with this kind of lack of ontological control, so it seemed to offer a different way of approaching our attachment to self.

[Bobby]

Allie wrote: "Although I wasn’t super motivated to read the rest of the series, I thought this book acts as a lens to see one refraction in the limits of selfhood and identity. It reminds me of posthumanist theo..."

Thanks for your reply. Very detailed. I wish I had more inciteful things to say about any of these books. It was a page turner for me and I ripped through it. Kind of like the main character was on an out of control train or something. I guess I didn't feel like it was very profound, though I enjoyed it. Reminded me of the Trill in Star Trek Next Generation. They kept talking about a problem with the city's AI but it wasn't clear to me what it signified. Was a fun ride but maybe not so deep for me.