And I’m most likely going to start my second read as soon as I’ve filed this review. At the end of the day, this novel asks questions of the reader that left me deep in thought for months after I’d finished the book. A Goodreads Biggest SFF Book of 2019 and Goodreads Choice Awards Nominee. It has compelling, complex characters that made me root for them with every turn of the page.It raises complex, thorny issues about colonization, empire, culture, society, identity, personhood, economics, and so much more-issues that are interrogated and investigated with a clear eye not given over to cynicism. A Guardian Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of 2019 and Not the Booker Prize Nominee. A Memory Called Empire is a success by every metric possible. Not only that, but her worldbuilding is some of the most elegant and rich I’ve come across in recent science fiction. Martine’s writing is a brilliant, measured exercise in raising stakes, propelling emotionally rich and complex characters forward, and delivering information that always feels organic to the situation. Martine has perfectly calibrated each chapter to do as much as possible to serve character, emotion, plot, and worldbuilding, all in perfect balance with each other.

A confident beginning with the promise of future installments that can’t come quickly enough. This is both an epic and a human story, successful in the mode of Ann Leckie and Yoon Ha Lee. Aspects of the story that could come across as stiff, detailed worldbuilding or decadent indulgence in the multitude of characters running around in other hands are instead deftly incorporated into the forward motion of the plot. Love and sex are an integral aspect of and a thing apart from the nuanced and dangerous politicking. Martine hits the ground running, and the relentless pace doesn’t let up for the entire book.

A memory called empire book review