Scattered Thoughts on the Teixcalaan Series

A Memory Called Empire:

I really love this series' motif of opening each chapter with a pair of in-universe media excerpts, usually one Teixcalaanli and one Stationer, commenting on each other and the chapter to come. It's a good worldbuilding touch and foreshadowing device, and disruptions to the style are genuinely jarring.

Imago-machines are such a good central conceit - amazing and terrifying, preserving vital institutional knowledge and tethering people to an inescapable weight of Culture. I love how much detail is given to the specific neurological symptoms of integration, and how much it messes with Mahit's sense of self and attraction. (Imago-machines also lend themelves well to fannish speculation, especially related to gender and sexuality - like, say, a trans person's imago given to a cis person of the same gender, who experiences a secondhand sense of utter delight at aspects of their body they've taken for granted.)

Yes, Thirty-Six All Terrain Tundra Vehicle has a funny name, but honestly "an outsider who dearly loves the all-consuming Empire but expresses it clumsily enough to be a punchline in the Imperial Core" is really darkly sad. (And it took me a long time to think of that angle, which just makes it hit harder.)

A Desolation Called Peace:

The shift to a multiple-POV frame is a good way to reflect the much bigger and more jumbled scope, and it’s interesting how it sometimes takes a few sentences to clarify exactly whose perspective we're seeing, depending on how disorienting the scene is.

I’m also interested in who doesn’t get POV segments, not even in interludes - especially Twenty Cicada, Nineteen Adze, and Sixteen Moonrise, all people that other characters have a great deal of opinions about but don’t get to showcase their own perspective. (Though at least Nineteen Adze gets heartbreaking excerpts from her private notes in the chapter headers.)

I'm in awe of how Darj Tarats' plan hinged on finding someone willing and able to seduce the Emperor Of All Teixcalaan.

I didn’t care that much about the bureaucratic rivalry plotline, which is a shame since Eight Antidode is the perfect character to explore some really great themes, especially his very particular version of “wanting very badly to join a culture you know will destroy you.”

However, I enjoyed the Nine Hibiscus/Sixteen Moonrise rivalry, probably because it feels less arcane and more narratively satisfying (and who doesn't love passive-aggressve formal dinners where everyone is seething with contempt?)

I love how one of the central female relationships is “contempt with a thin slice of respect, forced to collaborate for a vital goal” and another is “respect with a thin slice of contempt, forced to collaborate for a vital goal” - and the first one is between people in exactly the same Imperial faction and the second one is between an Imperial functionary and a “barbarian.”

Twenty Cicada is my favorite new character, and I wish he got the chance to have a long talk with Mahit about the different ways they leverage or hide their outsider-signifiers and how they make themselves necessary and beloved to compensate.

It's neat that Three Seagrass briefly wondered if Twenty Cicada was an AI, since he hits a lot of the same trope/narrative beats - omnipresent, perfectly informed, an advisor to rulers without holding final command himself, distinctly Weird but turning that into a source of strength.

I appreciate how Mahit and Three Seagrass get to sleep together and realize that long-term cohabitation would be a terrible idea. Their whole relationship is exactly the kind of weird, messy, beautiful-and-awful bond I love to see in queer characters.

Literary aliens exist on a spectrum from "existing to showcase the story's themes and motifs" and "existing to showcase the author's cool worldbuilding," and I think the fungal hivemind here skews a little too much towards the former. While I get that them being unknown and inscrutable is The Whole Point, they still feel fairly thinly-sketched, though maybe their details are being held in reserve for future books. (For starters, how does their substrate-host species feel? Are there resistant factions who refuse to become People?)

This is a setting where transit logistics are a fairly big deal, and even with a network of FTL "jumpgates," sending interstellar freight and messages can still be slow, cumbersome, and expensive. So, why isn't it a bigger deal that the Shard Technique and the fungal hivemind can apparently send signals faster than light? (Though again, this might be being held in reserve for a future book.)

I enjoy the development of one of the series' central themes, the beauty and horror of merging people together (whether socially or literally). It's beautiful - but still tinged with horror - when it's consensual and small-scale and doesn't overwrite the individals, and vice-versa. In addition to imago-lines and Imperial culture (and the horrific specter of combining them), we now have the Shard Technique, Amnardbat being even more of a fantastic villain, more elaboration on the Sunlit, and the fungal hivemind.