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Published Mar 2021
496 pages
Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi, Speculative, Alt. History
Publication Information
A Desolation Called Peace is the spectacular space opera sequel to Arkady Martine's genre-reinventing, Hugo Award-winning debut, A Memory Called Empire.
An alien armada lurks on the edges of Teixcalaanli space. No one can communicate with it, no one can destroy it, and Fleet Captain Nine Hibiscus is running out of options.
In a desperate attempt at diplomacy with the mysterious invaders, the fleet captain has sent for a diplomatic envoy. Now Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass―still reeling from the recent upheaval in the Empire―face the impossible task of trying to communicate with a hostile entity.
Their failure will guarantee millions of deaths in an endless war. Their success might prevent Teixcalaan's destruction―and allow the empire to continue its rapacious expansion.
Or it might create something far stranger...
"[E]xhilarating...Martine's aliens are viscerally unsettling and utterly believable, and she deploys them masterfully to underscore themes of colonization, assimilation, and cultural violence. This complex, stunning space opera promises to reshape the genre." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Martine weaves a dramatic and suspenseful story of political intrigue and alien first contact...each character is rendered in exquisite detail." - Booklist (starred review)
"This follow-up to Martine's debut, A Memory Called Empire, contains beautiful prose and complex worldbuilding that will immerse readers in a dazzling story of alien contact and colonization." - Library Journal
This information about A Desolation Called Peace was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Arkady Martine (she/her) is the Hugo Award-winning author of A Memory Called Empire. She is a speculative fiction writer and, as Dr. AnnaLinden Weller, a historian of the Byzantine Empire and a city planner. She is currently a policy advisor for the New Mexico Energy, Minerals, and Natural Resources Department, where she works on climate change mitigation, energy grid modernization, and resiliency planning. Under both names, she writes about border politics, rhetoric, propaganda, and the edges of the world. Arkady grew up in New York City and, after some time in Turkey, Canada, and Sweden, and Baltimore, lives in Santa Fe with her wife, the author Vivian Shaw.
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