Review of A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine

As mentioned in my review of the first book, I ordered A Desolation Called Peace from my indie bookshop about thirty pages into A Memory Called Empire. The result? Arkady Martine is one hell of a writer. This sequel forms the conclusion of a tight duology.

Spoilers for the first book but not for this one.

Mahit Dzmare has returned to her home, Lsel Station, after barely a week as the Lsel Ambassador to Teixcalaan. She is immediately mired in the politics of Lsel’s ruling council—one of the councillors wants to forcibly remove her imago machine; another might be an ally to her but might not, and so on. No one else knows Mahit actually has two imagos—two different versions of the previous ambassador, Yskander, in her head. Meanwhile, her one-time liaison, Three Seagrass, assigns herself to a dangerous mission on the frontlines of the Teixcalaan military action against an unknown alien force. Three Seagrass and Mahit soon reunite, and this time the stakes aren’t just the Teixcalaan Empire, but perhaps Lsel Station and all of humanity.

Whereas the first book hews closely to Mahit’s point of view, Martine opens up the narration in A Desolation Called Peace. In addition to following Mahit, we are treated to limited third-person perspectives of Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus, Three Seagrass, and Imperial Heir Eight Antidote. She keeps the writing narration-heavy yet exposition-light, a paradoxical style I truly appreciate. You get to luxuriate within the world of Teixcalaan—often from Mahit’s point of view as ambivalent outsider—without feeling like you are receiving an intense crash course in imperial history. The increase in perspectives, however, allows Martine to explore and build out this story to a more epic scale.

Mahit and Three Seagrass are goals, a fantastic OTP, no notes.

I also love them both as protagonists, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Nine Hibiscus. The stuff with Twenty Cicada, aka Swarm, was a bit predictable but still satisfying. Eight Antidote annoyed me a bit and was giving child prodigy (but not in a good way). This is where the narration-heavy style lets me down, for the book often delves too deep, in my opinion, into things like Eight Antidote’s reasoning and motivation. There is far more telling than showing in this book. I’m not against that, but your mileage may vary depending on which character the book is following in any given chapter.

On one level, this is a story about first contact, about a threat to the neverending expansion of empire, about the travails of translation and interpretation with something truly alien. I thought Martine telegraphed the nature of the aliens pretty obviously from the start, so little about the mystery of how to communicate with them interested me. At the same time, I liked the fleet politics and the conflict between Mahit and Three Seagrass. Somehow, Martine balances all these disparate subplots, keeps all the plates spinning, in a very satisfying way.

On another level, this is a story about creating the future. Reluctantly, this is where I admit Eight Antidote shines. For a culture built on war and conflict and blood, Teixcalaan struggles sometimes with the idea that it is good to be at peace. Eight Antidote’s certain rejection of conflict is heartening, reading this now in 2024 with the world the way it is. I appreciate the grand themes Martine is getting at here. The internecine plots within the Empire’s ruling class are so deliciously crafted and such fun to follow. There are people who would plunge Teixcalaan deep, deep into war just to further their ambitions, and it is startling, albeit not surprising.

On a third level, this is a story about loving people. Whether it’s Nine Hibiscus’s longstanding platonic bond with Twenty Cicada, Mahit and Three Seagrass’s tenuous romantic connection, or Eight Antidote’s opaque relationship with Nineteen Adze, Martine shows us so many different types of love and care. The desolation in A Desolation Called Peace includes, I think, the fact that peacetime is when we realize what—who—we have lost. In war, there is no time to mourn the dead. Afterwards, the emotional valence of our lost loved ones—whether they are dead or simply have left—is felt more fully. If the majority of this book is a tense thriller, the denouement is a rewarding, bittersweet, hopeful coda.

If you liked A Memory Called Empire, you will like and must read this sequel—and you should definitely read the first book before you read this one. I will gladly consume any more stories Martine gives us in this universe, and perhaps any more that she creates.