Book Review: A Memory Called Empire
Note: Summary section is generally spoiler free, but beyond that will be a full discussion of my thought and reactions to the story. Please read at your own risk.
Summary
A Memory Called Empire is the first book in a series by an author I have not previously read. I enjoyed the book, and I think they did a good job balancing the need for a "completed story" within this book against the needs of world building for a larger series. By the end I still had a lot of questions about the world and things happening in it, without the feeling of a cliffhanger ending. I would describe this book as a solid character-driven sci-fi story.
\(\huge \vdash \rule[0.5ex]{6.5em}{1pt} \bullet \rule[0.5ex]{3.5em}{1pt} \dashv \text{ 6.5/10}\)
——— Spoiler Warning ———
Full Review
The story focuses on the experience of a newly appointed ambassador from a small nation traveling to the neighboring empire for the first time. I really enjoyed the author's usage of poetic / narrative self determinism as a defining characteristic of the empire. The idea that citizens of this empire sort of "self-select" into character roles previously defined in their societies' collective literature, and how this expectation to "follow the narrative" can become self-destructive. They also do a really good job illustrating how a society can build values around somewhat arbitrary things. In the case of Teixcalaan it's poetry. This is a perfect fit within the context of a society so focused on narrative beauty, but it's important to keep in mind that throughout all of this we are interacting with the Teixcalaanli nobility.
The story does not really do much to address what life is like for the more ordinary citizen of Teixcalaan, and maybe it doesn't need to. But I think it's worth remembering as you read through this book that what we are seeing is not the "norm", but the "ideal". The Teixcalaan we see is the story that the empire tells itself: The idealized concept of what every Teixcalaanli "should be".
The protagonist, ambassador Mahit does not fit easily into this Teixcalaanli narrative of self-determination and achievement. Like most of her people she has an "Imago machine". A brain implant: with what amounts to an AI built from the recorded thoughts of her predecessor. Unusually the goal of this implant is not to act as an embedded assistant, but to be gradually integrated into the "host" until they reach the point of being a single gestalt personality. For the ambassador that would only be a single generation, but that seems to be the exception rather then the rule. With some "Imago Lineages" going back 15 generations or more.
The story spends a lot of time dealing with the nuance of what a device like that could mean for the definition of the self, how such a device could be misused, and how societal norms and expectations define our values around such things. To Mahit the idea of an Imago is not only "normal", but desirable: something she has dreamed of. While to the Teixcalaanli it is either repugnant, or a way to bypass the normal social order.
Overall I thought the book discussed some really interesting ideas, and I am looking forward to reading the second.