A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan #2)

A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan #2)
Arkady Martine, 2021

Hugo Winner - 2022

Premise: Sequel to A Memory Called Empire. Mahit tries to go home, but there is no turning back the clock on everything she's seen and done. Meanwhile, Teixcalaan goes to war against an unknown (possibly unknowable) threat.

I liked this book a lot, but not quite as much as the first one. The first book was almost entirely from Mahit's perspective, while this follows a large number of characters, switching off chapter to chapter. This makes a certain amount of sense given the structure of the climax and the themes around groups and perspective, but I didn't find the story as compelling that way. 

I did like following Three Seagrass and getting both her and Mahit's complex perspectives on their relationship (as friends/co-conspirators/coworkers/lovers/??). The other viewpoint characters were each interesting people, but spitting the focus watered down the emotional impact a bit for me. 

More Teixcalaan characters, however, also gave me more of their perspectives on the nature of their empire, and that was fascinating. 

I also felt the "reveal" of the nature of the alien threat was fairly obvious from the start, and I guess it was supposed to be. But that means that the plot was just "how will the characters finally find out and what will they do then" rather than "what is the nature of the mysterious threat, and how will the characters discover the situation and deal with it." Again, it's well done, just less compelling from my perspective. More creeping dread and dramatic irony (because the readers know and the characters don't) than mystery.

Those quibbles aside, it's still a great read. I still love the world and the characters. It's still an exciting adventure with complex thoughtful things to say. I just wasn't quite as blown away as I was by the first one.

4 Stars - A Very Good Book