This book easily had the best, most unique worldbuilding of any book I read in 2024. The Teixcalaanii Empire views itself as the entire world, and desires to bring more of the world into the, um, world. It’s a culture full of opulence and poetic brilliance, where poetry and essay competitions are how the elite gain notoriety. This book has some powerful things to say about imperialism and cultural superiority. It is, technically, science fiction. But the cultural world-building really is at second-world fantasy level.

The book opens with Ambassador Mahit Dzmare arriving at the planet to begin her tenure as an ambassador after the previous one died. Oh, and—she has some of the memories from a younger version of her predecessor stuffed in her brain. Tossed into an unfamiliar sea, Mahit’s goal is to not let her home world be annexed by the empire—while preferably staying alive.

I thoroughly enjoyed most of this book. The character’s voice was on point. I loved watching Mahit weave through this society that was unfamiliar even though she’d been training for this for years.

The book fell apart for me a bit at the end. Everything wrapped up a bit too quickly. There is a second installment in the series that I haven’t read yet, but even so, the climax of book 1 felt very sudden, and entirely out of the main character’s hands. I also deeply disagree on an ethical level with one of the final acts committed by a prominent figure in the climax, but it would be a spoiler, so I won’t say more about that.

The worldbuilding was deeply complex, yet there were a few aspects that fell short for me.

First, outsiders are considered not human, which was supposed to show that the culture is racist and looks down on others. But, to be honest, I was a bit unclear on whether all the thinking individuals in this book were of the same species. So while I agree the culture was definitely in the wrong for looking down on those outside their cultures, it seems a bit weird to want to call someone of a different species “human,” at least by the current definition of the word. Maybe we could call all thinking individuals “people” or something. I also might be misremembering some of the nuance here.

Also, I find some parts of the culture repugnant. I mean, the imperialism and racism is supposed to be perceived that way. But also, a young adult apparently falls in love with (and is deeply attracted to) an elderly man on his death bed? Gross. The sexual ethics in this book are basically: anything goes. Literally anything.

Content rating: a low R. There’s just enough gore for me to give it an R in violence. Similarly with sexual content. It’s not that explicit, but there are enough sexually charged scenes and thoughts and memories that I’d give it an R.

You can learn more here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37794149-a-memory-called-empire