A few months ago I was asking around for recommendations of sci-fi romance books without graphic sex scenes, and a friend from my writing group suggested A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine.
I gave the audiobook a shot, and it turns out this novel is definitely NOT a romance. But it IS an incredible work of science fiction that’s packed with interesting relationship dynamics, and it’s won tons of acclaim including the 2020 Hugo award for best novel.
If you usually go for 99 cent alien romances, don’t let the hoity-toity accolades intimidate you. A Memory Called Empire’s fast-paced plot and focus on the experience of the female main character make it an easily accessible bridge into space opera for a reader who usually enjoys romance. It even contains a small F/F romantic subplot.
The main plot of this book, though, revolves around an intriguing sci-fi concept. Mahit has grown up in a unique space station culture where people have memory recording devices called “imago machines” implanted in their brains. When they die, the device is implanted in the brain of a successor, equipping the young person with generations of experience.
And a second “person” living inside their brain.
Under normal circumstances, Mahit and her imago would have had months of therapy to become used to each other and meld into one cohesive consciousness. But the ambassador she’s supposed to replace hasn’t returned to his space station home in fifteen years, and no one knows if he’s alive or dead. Mahit must leave immediately with no time to form a bond with her fifteen-years-out-of-date imago, who’s now essentially a second personality living inside her brain.
At least her imago equips Mahit with cultural knowledge of the empire to which she’s now ambassador. But either Mahit’s imago machine has been tampered with, or her brain has rejected the partnership, because when Mahit arrives on the imperial homeworld to find her predecessor’s corpse in the morgue, said predecessor’s imago-self has an emotional melt down and goes silent in Mahit’s mind.
Mahit is left with only scraps of feelings and half-remembered glimpses to go on as she navigates an unfamiliar culture on the verge of political catastrophe, investigating her predecessor’s apparent murder and working to keep her space station from being swallowed up by imperial expansion.
Science fiction is at its best when it uses technological possibilities to explore timeless truths, and the concept of imago machines allows A Memory Called Empire to do that on so many levels. The story explores a multifaceted landscape of intriguing philosophical questions. Can technology truly allow a person to live forever? What, besides our memories, makes us who we are? And who are we when technology makes us more than ourselves?
The novel also explores Mahit’s emotional experience living as a foreigner in a culture that views itself as superior. Seeing through Mahit’s eyes gives the reader a sense of what it would have been like to be a member of one of the tiny, less-powerful nations living in the shadow of the glory of Rome and struggling to keep its cultural identity while at the same experiencing the lure of Rome’s brilliantly polished shine.
I get the sense Arkady Martine may have a more contemporary message for Americans, too.
The thing that makes A Memory Called Empire stand out relationship-wise, though, is how this cultural dynamic plays out in Mahit’s interactions with the citizens of the empire. It especially creates a tense and relatable romantic subplot as Mahit and her love interest navigate the seemingly inescapable sense of other-ness that both separates and attracts them to one another.
I won’t give away whether these two get an HEA ending or whether their cross-cultural relationship is doomed. You’ll have to grab the book yourself to find out.
If you enjoy exploring new cultures through their poetry, art, architecture and linguistic nuances, A Memory Called Empire is well worth your time. It’s an immersive dive into a world with an aesthetic so vivid and full of the universally human that when you finally set your ereader down you’ll feel the same bittersweet pang you do when you return home from real travels abroad.
