#70 in Science fiction
A Memory Called Empire
- 464
- Pages
- about 9 h
- Reading time
- Hugo Award for Best Novel
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Our view
“A Memory Called Empire” is a debut built on court intrigue more than action. A new ambassador arrives in the heart of an empire and must work out how her predecessor died and what unsettles the society around her. Its appeal lies in the politics and the culture she must decode; some readers find the pace so slow that the opening two hundred pages seem to go nowhere. Choose it for patient, political science fiction.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
A Memory Called Empire is a 2019 science fiction novel, the debut novel by Arkady Martine. It follows Mahit Dzmare, the ambassador from Lsel Station to the Teixcalaanli Empire, as she investigates the death of her predecessor and the instabilities that underpin that society. The book won the 2020 Compton Crook Award and the 2020 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Reading order · Teixcalaan
Full order & progress →- A Memory Called EmpireThis book
8.38.3 / 10 - A Desolation Called Peace
8.48.4 / 10
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.3 across 899 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 86% of the weight and the score stays at 8.3 — the Science fiction average of 7.8 barely moves it. A further +0.10 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.2 | 38 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 8.3 | 861 | 96% |
Frequently asked
How long is A Memory Called Empire?
It has 464 pages — longer than 56% of the ranked books in Science fiction.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
The same shelf — Science fiction — and a score of 8.3, the closest to this book.
