A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan #2) by Arkady Martine

A Hugo-nominated book. The second and apparently concluding part of the series. The main character is a former ambassador from a large, independent space station. He worked at a giant and very powerful Teixcalaanli Empire, which is a cultured place — so cultured that poetry is used for everyday letters. The ambassador, Mahit Dzmare, was supposed to have the memories of the older ambassador implanted in her mind, but due to the scheming of a government member of the space station, the memory capture was first badly outdated. And later when it was updated, the minds were not completely integrated.

So there are three minds in the head of Mahid. The aliens that were used by the stationers as a threat take the mind of the empire away their space stations are invading the parts of the empire and killing inhabitants on entire planets used for mining. The end products are stolen, and all people on the planet are eviscerated. The aliens use strange space ships which consist of three rotating rings, and they apparently can appear almost anywhere instantly.

The captured communication doesn’t seem to be proper language — it consists of a nauseating screeching sound that causes literal nausea for anyone hearing it. How could it be possible to communicate with that kind of enemy? Mahiot’s friend, Three Seagrass (All Teixcalaanli names follow that pattern: a number and a noun. Not always easy to keep track of different people), asks Mahiot to follow her to the frontlines of the battle to open communication and possibly have peace talks with the enemy.

An excellent book, which was better than the first part. The beginning of the book was fairly slow, just like in the previous one, and the style of names made it a bit hard to remember who was who. After I finished the book, it turned out there was a glossary of names and terms at the end, but it is kind of hard to notice something like that while reading an e-book. The multiple viewpoints were presented pretty well, and the precocious 11-year-old's clone of the former emperor was an especially interesting character. The writing was excellent, very literate, perhaps at places even a bit too complicated. A very good book and a solid contender for the award, but the competition is starting to look very stiff.

496 pp.