Review: A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine (2021)
Well-developed characters have their motivations clash in this complex first-contact story.
A Desolation Called Peace is the second novel by Arkady Martine, and a sequel to 2019’s A Memory Called Empire. Like its predecessor, it won the 2022 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Desolation returns to the machinations of the Teixcalaan Empire, a massive galaxy-spanning power that blends Byzantium and Aztec cultures together, and the struggles of Lsel Station, a small polity on the outskirts of the Empire’s borders that struggles to maintain a fragile independence. Teixcalaan is currently in the earliest stages of a war against an unknown enemy on the edges of Lsel space, and it becomes increasingly clear that they are outmatched both in firepower and viciousness. An urgent call for a first-contact specialist ropes in two characters from the first book: Three Seagrass, a Teixcaalan information officer, and Mahit Dzmare, Lsel’s ambassador to the Empire. Dzmare and Three Seagrass are faced with the task of trying to negotiate a cease-fire with aliens that they have not seen, let alone communicated with.
“There’s nothing about these enemies worth talking to—all they do is poison us, and they will poison us forever if we don’t burn them out.”
When A Desolation Called Peace was nominated for a Hugo, I saw several discussions around whether it was different enough from the previous winner to justify another award. While it’s not something that I consider for my ballot except for tie-breaking, many voters are wary of over-emphasizing an already-winning series at the cost of more original books, asking “does this book bring something different to the table?"—and my answer is an unequivocal yes.
“It is the worst thing she’s ever done. When she dies, she will die thinking of it, like a splinter finally reaching her heart after years of worming its way through flesh”.
Desolation is different from Memory in so many ways, that were it not for the skill shown across both books, I could be convinced they were from different authors. Where Memory focused on broad themes and an exploration of Teixcaalan culture, Desolation targets a tighter narrative and characters. Gone is the single viewpoint of Mahit, as Arkady broadens the narrative to four main characters, and a slew of smaller side-character perspectives during the interludes. Also changing is the writing itself: while Memory was full of weighty segments of prose and poetry, Desolation turns that down several notches - yet still manages to preserve the profundity of its most important segments. The end result is a novel that’s tighter, more consumable, and more character and plot-focused than its predecessor. They are almost as different from one another as Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead are (which also won a pair of Best Novel Hugos). It is a testament to Martine’s depth as a writer that such stylistically different novels both shine so brightly. If you walk away liking both these books— as I did—you will like them for very different reasons.
“A barbarian pretends that civilization might grow in the small hours of the night, between two people.”
Martine takes her time setting the stage in Desolation, showing each of the POV characters in their own independent storylines before it all coalesces together. By doing this, the book establishes a lot of detail previously unseen in the universe: life on Lsel Station is explored more, the motivations of the ruling Councilors are fleshed out, and the militaristic side of the Teixcalaan Fleet is shown. Martine weaves together the plot masterfully, developing each character and their motivations in relative isolation from one another, and then brings them together in conflict. The first third of the novel is spent setting the stage for this, which it is worked through until about the last quarter, where it reaches a climax and stays at that intensity until the ending. And what an ending! Martine manages to tie together every conflicting motivation and detail, pulling each side of her tangled web until it unravels into near-perfection. As a reader, I went back and forth being convinced that she was going to go specific places with the plot only to have my expectations dashed in delightful ways.
“… she’d replaced her ethical responsibilities with the appalling brightness of that love, and didn’t care what she burned out to preserve it.”
The intricate web is built not just on plot alone, but also on the strength of character motivations: clashing philosophies, conflicting goals, power plays and secret alliances—all coming to a head by the end. This is a true polyphonic novel; each character feels different and provides a unique perspective to the novel, as Martine flits between each of them in every chapter. As a testament to her strength here, for most of the novel, three out of the four characters are in the same small geographic space. While many multiple perspective novels use characters as ways to show diverse locations, Martine does it successfully with three characters standing right next to one another because the individual characterizations are so strongly differentiable. She uses these creatively - one character may have a much closer relationship with a side character than another, which is developed before the other characters interact. Both sides of a contentious budding romance are shown, and the reader gets the clashing perspectives from each participant. Even for the character that is removed from the others, they are exposed to information and motivations that involve all of the others. It’s very well done, and although there were a few moments during the first third of the book where I thought it was coming together a bit too slowly, in hindsight I see the craft that was occurring during those moments.
"Mahit had done fine without her on Lsel, had missed her only as much as she'd missed Teixcalaan, which was enormously and with aching frustration.”
Shining among all of this is the first-contact storyline . It is intelligent and well-thought out—which is exactly what you want from first-contact! The aliens are other in the strongest sense - their very language makes humans literally vomit, and their perspectives (shown occasionally during interludes) are barely interpretable. In short, the aliens feel alien. The contact with them feels fraught and challenging, and they feel like a legitimate danger throughout. It’s well done, and Martine mostly avoids taking shortcuts during the communication struggles. Every inch is hard-fought and feels deserved.
“To consider the uses of meat in this way is to invite the consideration of grief. All bodies senesce, or are damaged beyond repair, and are no longer a voice harmonizing; to know loss of voices is to know grief, to know lack, to cease from singing and to lament.”
Overall, A Desolation Called Peace was a joy to read. It is an intelligent and rich reading experience, and very little of the debut-author weaknesses that were sometimes present in A Memory Called Empire are present here. In fact, several of the weakest points of Memory are the strongest points in Desolation. Even if you were lukewarm on the first book, I’d recommend giving this one a try—it’s different enough in just the right ways that you might love it. It gets an almost-perfect score from me (it just simply didn’t grab me as emotionally as my highest scored books tend to do, but it will for others).
You should read A Desolation Called Peace if:
You enjoy books where the major conflict is around characters having clashing motivations and philosophies.
You want an intelligently done first-contact story.
You enjoyed A Memory Called Empire (or, if you were lukewarm on it because you wanted deeper characters - that’s provided here).
“It is the minds of a people that have to stay free. Bodies die, or suffer, or are imprisoned. Memory lasts.”
Also consider reading my review of A Memory Called Empire: