![]() ![]() “Colonialism in space” is neither new nor rare in science fiction, but my hearty recommendations of this book over the past year were sparked by the fact that Martine displays a rare understanding of an often-overlooked yet immensely important facet of colonialism: the aspiration to belong that it engenders in the bosoms of those it deems the out group. ![]() ![]() It is a classic piece of shenanigans in space - one of my greatest joys - but the real revelation of this book is Mahit’s emotional engagement with the empire she has been tasked to keep at a safe distance from the tiny space station she calls home. She must carefully navigate the political minefield she inherited from a capricious predecessor who not only died under mysterious circumstances in a foreign land, but in doing sodeprived Mahit of access to his precious memory bank, without which she is effectively hobbled from the get-go. In Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire (2019), Mahit, a young ambassador from an insignificant space station, arrives at the city of Teixcalaan, the very centre of a rapacious space empire. ![]()
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