EXCLUSIVE: A+ Members, Read a Generous Excerpt of Arkady Martine’s “A Desolation Called Peace” Here!

In Arkady Martine’s debut A Memory Called Empire, she brought us into a universe indelibly marked by imperialism where the contours of state and self are formed by language and memory. Inspired by the real-life Byzantine and Aztec empires, the Teixcalaanli Empire is dazzling in its complexity and hierarchy as well as its hunger to assimilate the rest of space into its borders. Mahit Dzmare, from the small outpost of Lsel Station outside the Empire’s control, is called to its capital to serve as ambassador under troubling circumstances. The universe of the Teixcalaan series unravels how our conceptions of self, community and nationality are inextricably tied to our language and to our sense of shared collective memory, whether that comes from the meticulously detailed historical art and poetry of the Teixcalaanli people or the fascinating imago technology of the Stationers of Lsel, linking each individual citizen with a dynasty of living memories of their predecessors.

In A Desolation Called Peace, Martine expands our world to the borders of the Teixcalaanli Empire, where Mahit Dzmare and Three Seagrass find themselves thrust in the middle of the grim machinations that sustain it — with millions of lives on the line. Readers of socially aware space opera with ambitious worldbuilding will find themselves totally absorbed in the Teixcalaan series, and fans of Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb trilogy or Samuel Delany’s Babel-17 will be thrilled to have 800+ new pages to dive into across both books.

We know this series will resonate with A+ members, who are a readymade audience for complex worldbuilding and smart, challenging queer scifi – we’re delighted to be able to share an exclusive EXTENDED excerpt of A Desolation Called Peace in honor of its launch. Enjoy the excerpt included here, and then grab your copies of both current titles in the Teixcalaan series today from Tor Books!