And so, almost blind and with only the help of her liaison Three Seagrass, Mahit has to navigate a new culture, the politics around an uncertain line of succession, the Empire’s interest in imago machines, and the feeling that something even more dangerous than the upheaval happening in the City is coming. Which leaves Mahit woefully unprepared for the situation she is stepping into, Lsel Station diplomatic training relying largely on imago memory. It then goes on the fritz almost immediately after she steps foot in the Empire. But the previous ambassador Yskander has, somewhat suspiciously, been avoiding coming back to the Station to update his imago file, and so the imago that Mahit has been fitted with is almost 15 years out of date.

Once successfully integrated with a compatible successor, the imago machines mean that the full years and experience of previous imago owners of that line are passed down and integrated into the host’s own personality. Tiny, self-contained Lsel Station has survived by making sure skills and experience survive and are passed down via neurological devices called imago machines. But she is facing more problems than just figuring out a cause of death. Mahit is the new ambassador from Lsel Station on her way to the Teixcalaanli Empire to replace a long-term ambassador who has been killed. If you are at all looking for some space opera right now, add it to your list. This was a lovely book, full of meticulous, engaging world-building, fascinating plot developments, and a really interesting look at identity. There’s something about complicated plots, action, and space, that is really great for pulling me out of my apartment and into a nice brain space right now. Or it might save them from annihilation.I picked up A Memory Called Empire as part of my ongoing fling with space opera as a great antidote to quarantine. For she’s hiding an extraordinary technological secret, one which might destroy her station and its way of life. And while she hunts for the killer, Mahit must somehow prevent the rapacious Empire from annexing her home: a small, fiercely independent mining station.Īs she sinks deeper into an alien culture that is all too seductive, Mahit engages in intrigues of her own. Now Mahit must navigate the capital’s enticing yet deadly halls of power, to discover dangerous truths. But no one will admit his death wasn’t accidental – and she might be next. Yet when she arrives, she discovers her predecessor was murdered. Īmbassador Mahit Dzmare travels to the Teixcalaanli Empire’s interstellar capital, eager to take up her new post. Shortlisted for the 2019 Goodreads Choice Awards. For those who loved Ann Leckie's epic space opera Ancillary Justice, Tamsyn Muir's Gideon the Ninth and Iain M. Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire is one of the hottest science fiction debuts.

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