Scan barcode
A review by lanster
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Ended up being pretty average, which is a shame because it had potential.
On paper the stakes in this book are very high, but not a lot happens in 500 odd pages, which is not a problem in itself, but requires the characters and their development to be very compelling instead.
However, I would not call Mahit a compelling main character, and this makes some parts of the book feel lacklustre as a lot of it is her explaining her thoughts and feelings. I think after she seemed completely unaffected bya near-death experience in a terrorist attack a few days after starting her job on a new planet far from home it's hard to care every time she moans about being stressed or lonely or any other emotional plight.
Similarly, most of the characters around Mahit seemed to exist only to support her on her journey of self-discovery instead of having their own their own agendas, which for a political intrigue thriller seems to be a flaw. The most complex and interesting character by far was Nineteen Adze.
The world-building is cool and it's definitely novel, but there were a lot of questions and ideas that weren't fully explored in this book (even though it had 500 pages to do so!), e.g.what are the sunlit? How does the AI work? Who are the killer aliens? What's the empire and its citizens like anywhere other than the palace? .
The quality of the writing was fine but could have been a bit tighter, it felt like a lot of the imagery devolved into pretty generic sci-fi stuff for the sake of it.
I'm not going to read book two.
On paper the stakes in this book are very high, but not a lot happens in 500 odd pages, which is not a problem in itself, but requires the characters and their development to be very compelling instead.
However, I would not call Mahit a compelling main character, and this makes some parts of the book feel lacklustre as a lot of it is her explaining her thoughts and feelings. I think after she seemed completely unaffected by
Similarly, most of the characters around Mahit seemed to exist only to support her on her journey of self-discovery instead of having their own their own agendas, which for a political intrigue thriller seems to be a flaw. The most complex and interesting character by far was Nineteen Adze.
The world-building is cool and it's definitely novel, but there were a lot of questions and ideas that weren't fully explored in this book (even though it had 500 pages to do so!), e.g.
The quality of the writing was fine but could have been a bit tighter, it felt like a lot of the imagery devolved into pretty generic sci-fi stuff for the sake of it.
I'm not going to read book two.