Published by Tor Books on March 2, 2021
Science fiction novels that emphasize diplomacy over war are less common than military science fiction, but they aren’t rare. C.J. Cherryh and Keith Laumer once dominated the field, but a new generation of writers has made diplomacy a strong theme in their work. Richard Baker’s Breaker of Empire series tends to give equal weight to fighting and negotiating, while Arkady Martine’s Tiexcalaan series tips that balance decidedly in favor of exploring political relationships. The series’ second entry, A Desolation Called Peace, moves the focus from the threat of war among humans to the fact of war with aliens whose behavior seems particularly ruthless. Why the aliens are attacking is difficult for humans to understand because, whenever the aliens make sounds that might be an attempt at communication, humans feel the urge to vomit.
As we learned in Arkady Martine’s excellent A Memory Called Empire, Mahit Dzmare is an ambassador to Tiexcalaan from Lsel Station. Mahit has been implanted with an imago that carries the memories of her predecessor. By the end of the first novel, Mahit has a second imago, the first having been sabotaged. Now she is up to date on the memories her predecessor formed before his death. Some of those memories reveal that her predecessor didn’t behave exactly as an ambassador should, or at least not as Lsel Station expected. Now Mahit is back on Lsel and is worried that the Councilor of Heritage will learn of the second implant and arrange for her to die on the operating table when it is disconnected from her brain.
While Mahit ponders her fate, Three Seagrass, a bureaucrat from Tiexcalaan whose job includes diplomacy, travels to Lsel on her way to the fleet flagship, where she has been tasked with establishing communications with aliens who have wiped out a Tiexcalaan colony. The aliens travel in ships that seem to appear from nowhere and ooze a substance that disintegrates opposing ships, which fleet pilots find particularly creepy. Their anxiety is magnified by a new technology that lets them communicate with other without a time lag, a technology that even the emperor doesn’t know about.
Three Seagrass decides to bring Mahit on her diplomatic mission because Mahit is good with languages, communication, and diplomacy. Besides, Three Seagrass kissed Mahit in the previous novel and would like to do it again, even if Mahit is regarded as a barbarian by polite society on Tiexcalaan. Who says barbarians can’t be sexy?
The problem with establishing communication with aliens is always interesting. Mahit and Three Seagrass approach the challenge in logical ways (using mime and drawings while trying to make sense of the vomit-inducing sounds), but their diplomacy often takes a back seat to other political issues that drive the story. Once is a conflict between Nine Hibiscus, who is prosecuting the war for the Emperor as the fleet captain, and the commander of one of the legions, Sixteen Moonrise, who is determined to take more aggressive action than Nine Hibiscus is willing to authorize.
Another conflict is unfolding on Tiexcalaan between the current emperor and Eight Antidote, a 90% clone of the former emperor who will one day inherit the title. At the moment he’s only eleven so he still has some growing to do, but he’s an exceptionally bright and mature kid. Eight Antidote is spying for the emperor and he isn’t happy with the emperor’s response to some of the information he’s acquired. He’s particularly unhappy about a plan to annihilate an alien world on the theory that boy, that’ll teach ‘em. Warmongers are just as troublesome in the future as they have always been.
The story moves in ways that are complex and fascinating. Martine makes it easy to suspend disbelief as she imagines aliens who are hostile only because they don’t understand humans any more than humans understand them. The story’s ending is satisfying while opening the door to the next chapter of the series.
Martine writes with a keen understanding of human nature, no doubt acquired during her alternate gig as an historian. She gives her characters full personalities. She builds tension as her characters take dangerous steps to avoid the dangers of war. And she writes with a sophisticated prose style of literary quality. More than that I can’t ask.
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