Recommendations from our site
“This is one for fans of careful politics, although at the same time it’s a high-concept space adventure. Our hero Mahit is beginning her role as ambassador from tiny Lsel station to the interstellar empire Teixcalaan. Lsel are underdogs, but they have a technological advantage which they guard secretively: the imago-machine, which allows the memories of one person to be integrated in the mind of another” Read more...
“This is a pretty straight-up murder mystery, but the world-building in it is so compelling. Mahit Dzmare is an ambassador from Lsel station, which is a 30,000-person space station, and it’s independent. There’s a massive, massive Empire, the Teixcalaanli Empire. Lsel is constantly having defend itself – not with weapons, but with diplomacy – to try not to be annexed. The world-building is also just lovely. It’s interesting, because it gives the sense of being this really big, sprawling empire – but you’ve got a pretty small cast, and only a few locations that you actually go to. The culture is so rich that you can feel the rest of the galaxy.” Read more...
Mary Robinette Kowal, Novelist
“In terms of science fiction tropes, the ‘intergalactic empire’ is what we’re dealing with here. Once you’ve got a canvas as wide as the universe, anything goes—so what’s interesting about this, then, is that zero-ing in on the political detail, the protocol, and so on, rather than the intergalactic war. There’s nothing better in science fiction than that cosmic sweep with the idea that actually one person in the right place at the right time can make a difference.” Read more...
The Best Science Fiction of 2020
Tom Hunter, Journalist
