A Desolation Called Peace

By: Arkady Martine

Narrated by: Amy Landon

Length: 17 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, winner of the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

An alien terror could spell our end....

An alien threat lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is supposed to win a war against it.

In a desperate attempt to find a diplomatic solution, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy to contact the mysterious invaders. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass - both still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire - face an impossible task. They must attempt to negotiate with a hostile entity, without inadvertently triggering the destruction of themselves and the Empire.

Whether they succeed or fail could change the face of Teixcalaan forever.

©2021 Arkady Martine (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

The best first contact story I've ever read

An excellent sequel that matches the original in the intricacy of worldbuilding, narration, political intrigue and suspense!

Amazing thought experiment

the thought experiment presented by the story is simply amazing, the communication impediments presented by the differences between the species, the way events are always viewed in only one protagonists' perspective, this book is simply one of the most thrilling reads, surpassing the first one (which i got to admit did not expect).
P.S. There is a bit of an obsession in mentioning the endocrine system 😁.

Amazing

A Desolation Called Peace - that was one of the most amazing books I have read in a long long time

Not as enjoyable as the first book, weak middle

In some ways I am being unfair to the book by giving it so few stars. However, it did not feel as interesting as the first book, since many of the intriguing mysteries receive answers and thus become mundane.

This book would have benefitted from more attention from an editor. The child character is not a plausible child, but much of the time behaves like an unusually short adult. The Teixcalanli characters frequently feel overly elaborated and artificial, which might be an interesting and appropriate weakness for them, if the narrative ever acknowledged it. The book briefly flirts with the idea close to the end, but ultimately shies away from it. In any case there were times when I'm found myself expecting the subverted meaning of dialogue and found myself bored by it.

Both this and the first book have some secrets which the characters come to learn, with this later one clearly having the less juicy secrets. The first book was unusually strong in this area, while this one is merely mediocre.

Although I am uncertain if the allusions were intended, the start of the story called to mind the attempt to communicate with unknowable implacable destructive Shivans in FreeSpace. Conversely, in the end the street felt like it could have easily been a narrated piece of a game of Stellaris. It is probably not good that the plot of a novel resembles video game plots.

It is obviously a matter of taste, but I personally was more interested in the conflict of the societies than the love life of the main character. There is no shortage of stories with steamy lesbian sex, but grand narratives about societies in contact and conflict are few and far between.