I was totally enraptured by Arkady Martine’s first novel, A Memory Called Empire, which I read last year. She blew my mind by portraying the culture of the civilization with a depth and richness that I had never seen before in a sci-fi book.

A Desolation Called Peace, the sequel, was just as good… maybe better. It picked a few themes from the first book and ran with them, while bringing in new and interesting conceptual elements. The book is so creative and engrossing; Martine does a phenomenal job of building a complete world, and then creating totally compelling relationships (and political intrigue!) within that world.

The narrative structures—and relationship structures—of this book are an amplified mirror of the patterns in the first book, which aids the exploration of the themes of relationship, belonging, and purpose. It’s a delightful project, and one that’s hard to pull off, but Martine succeeds in expanding (not just recapitulating) her first novel.

I really hope this series keeps going… I will read these books for as long as they come out.