Discussion: A Memory Called Empire (Arkady Martine)
I just finished A Memory Called Empire. I'm not going to do that whole thing where you start a long review and at the end it turns out it's 90% a summary of the whole thing. If you want to know what it's about, go to Storygraph or buy it at your preferred bookseller.
I really liked this book. It's quite slow-paced, but in my opinion not in a way that means it needs a thorough edit. The setting was interesting. I enjoyed the references to Mesoamerican culture - I rarely see that kind of thing handled well in SFF. Too often non-western cultural inspiration is shoved in your face to prove itself, and at that point only showing the clearer that the author is not a native of that culture. The characters were great and I love me a weird, but consistent naming tradition. I kinda need a cat named Two Mittens now.
If that wasn't enough praise from this fairly critical reader, the novel also deals with really interesting themes, which came at a very relevant moment in my life. The theme of Empire / colonialism is an obvious one which I'm not going to discuss further - I have Thoughts (TM), but I'm not knowledgeable enough on the topic to do it justice. Having said that, I personally found it interesting to make the comparison of the overwhelming presence of Teixcalaanli culture and the ubiquity of American (pop)culture, whether the author intended that or not.
The other obvious one is that of identity, and the things which shape it. I liked the literal and literary device of the imago-machine and how much it informs parts of one's identity, personality and definitely one's competence and skill-level. I think it's also one of the first times I've truly wished that sci-fi tech existed in real life. As someone who has made the switch from a university level education to a career in the trades, I'd fucking love an imago-machine. I am continually frustrated between needing more input at work and having too much to truly grasp the secrets of trade and physics.
It also made me wonder about how much I changed since I left uni. I am assuming that fairly large parts of how I am and appear in working life are directly inspired by my masters (which is a shit term in English, but 'teacher' doesn't really cover it either - in my own language the word I mean is a mashup of the two and that covers it best for me). As a person moving on from advanced-beginner-feminist to intermediate-feminist, simply by way of, you know, aging, it also makes me think a lot about good and toxic forms of masculinity, and now that I am typing this down, it also makes me realize that I don't spend nearly as much time thinking about femininity. Must correct that at some point, despite how sore of a topic it has been for me in the past. Growing up forced into a pick-me-girl-role will do that to you.
Anyway, shoutout to J. and P., alpha-men in the non-manosphere meaning of the word, for giving me enough respect to ask me to verify shit spouted by colleagues. Also a shoutout to F., A., M. and A., for being kind and decent men who are happy to teach a beginning lady in their field everything they know, with some goodly personal advice sprinkled in free of charge. Y'all are the real MVPs.
In a related vein, this theme of identity also makes me think about my own in relation to the level of education I have, the political opinions I hold, and the area I was born and bred in and still live in. I'm consistently oscillating violently between either identifying with the higher educated part of the populace and their progressive stance whilst eschewing the majority of my colleagues because I don't share their political and cultural tastes, or identifying with said colleagues because at least they have an actual skillset, a sense of pragmatism and down-to-earthness that is often absent in my uni peers. I have never quite managed to shape an identity embracing both of those parts of me, and that's a struggle I recognize in this work. Don't think I've ever actually managed to really identify myself with a main character this much, from the above themes to the (admittedly sparse) descriptions of her physical appearance.
