Review of "A Desolation Called Peace" by Arkady Martine
Disclaimer: I received an advance copy from Tor in exchange for an honest review. A Memory Called Empire was one of my favorite books of 2019, so I was thrilled to get an early look at A Desolation Called Peace. Without hesitation, I can say that Arkady Martine has built on an amazing debut novel and delivered an excellent follow-up. Even though Memory worked well as a stand-alone, Desolation is very much a second book. It takes the characters and setting that we are already comfortable with and uses it to dig deeper into the questions of cultural imperialism and autonomy that were central to Memory, while making full use of the rich sci-fi setting and using the truly alien in a much more direct way. For anyone who enjoyed the rich prose, tense atmosphere, and intricate political maneuvers of the first book, this one will not disappoint. For anyone who wanted a closer look into the emotional lives of the main characters (especially Three Seagrass, who was held at some remove until the ...