 Hello everyone and welcome back. I'm Philip Magnus and I love love love sci-fi. Science fiction is one of my favorite ever genres to read. What I love and treasure most in the genre are those novels which are rich in ideas. Today we're talking about just one such book, a desolation called Peace by Akali Martin. It is a special novel and it means a lot to me. I hope that as you watch on, you will discover why. So let's get on with it, shall we? A desolation called Peace makes half and more of the sci-fi works I've read over the last few years seem woefully incompetent. Akali Martin's second book is the sequel to the hero award winning A Memory Called Empire. Memory introduced as readers to Martin's masterfully crafted culture of takes Calan, which draws from many real-world empires and people to create something fresh and unique. Central concepts of the takes Calan-lit slim, such as civilized people versus barbarians and the political importance of poetry are borrowed from the Roman and Byzantine empires. The naming conventions of takes Calan's citizens is drawn from the Mixtec people of Orksaka and the cultural dominance of this empire should be familiar to anyone who has experienced American cultural imperialism, so everyone. I'm not 100% certain and my copy of empire is back home so I can check, but one aspect in which desolation breaks the mould said by its predecessor is it has four very different and well-defined points of view characters rather than a single one and the four unique sets of circumstances show varying elements of takes Calan-lit culture. Mahit and Tri-Sigras are our main characters returning from memory and the two of them continue the conversation about cultural colonization, civilization versus barbarism, personhood. By the nature of the relationship defined throughout empire their perspectives are entwined. Now the most important thing you need to know about those two characters is I ship them eternally and if you don't you're a bad person, bad, bad, bad. Mahit is still that outsider looking in, in love with the culture of the empire and horrified by that love, hungry to be accepted as equal to the takes Calan-lit slim. Boy that's a difficult one to pronounce for me, yet disdaining of the notion that she is any less of a person for her belonging to an outgroup. Wiser and with a thicker skin thanks to the events in memory Mahit nonetheless exhibits a raw vulnerability that left me speechless and at times in tatters. Tri-Sigras whose nickname is Reed cracked me up. Together with Mahit the two of them are like Sol Peter and Sulphur. All they lack is a little charcoal and Martin offers them plenty in the face of a first contact scenario that's as heavy on politics, linguistics and tension as memory was, yet offering plenty of levity to laugh out moments that are true to these characters and evisceratingly hilarious. Every conversation between Mahit and Reed is heavy with implication, heady with sexual tension weighed by secrets and hidden meaning. Plenty to laugh about these two, the envoy and her pet, the poet and the ambassador as they take on this first contact scenario that will demand every effort from the both of them. The poetry of Tase Calan takes a backseat as we are given a glimpse of the empire's warriors. Facing an invisible foe, Jartlek 9 Hibiscus leaves a legion of six flagships against this enemy of the empires. The title of Jartlek is a sort of admiral or supreme navy commander. At any rate, six flagships are an entirely lackluster force against this nebulous alien threat from the depths of unknown space. In 9 Hibiscus we see once more that takes Calanly obsession with the past. In the perfect figure she strikes, in the loyalty she awakens, in the way she thrives whenever she is in charge of a crisis. Her second is 20 Cicada, nicknamed Swarm, an unusual name for an unusual character and a member of a minority religion within the empire. Keep an eye out for him, he is a special one. Imperial heir, 8 Antidote is our last POV character and he is an absolute treat. An 11 year old who feels fully the weight of expectations resting on him, Cure as he is called by one of his teachers, has the perfect vantage point to offer an unguarded glimpse at the inner workings of empire at the highest level. So much of his point of view section was heartfelt and funny and intriguing, takes Calan and the jewel of the world are seen through another lens entirely. The absolute highlights for me were the conversations Cure had with 19 Adze and the Minister of War Tree Azimut. These interactions serve to shape Antidote's moral identity, which is a pretty nifty thing to have as far as future emperors are concerned. I would go remiss if I didn't speak of the personal importance of this book and its predecessor to me. Like Mahit, I am a student of a culture that is not my own. The distance is not as great of course, but it is there nonetheless. I'm not English, I'm not American, and yet I think in English more than I think in my own native Bulgarian. I know dozens of poems by Keats and Blake and Milton, but I barely remember the last time I cracked open a book of poetry in Bulgarian. In my apartment in Sweden I do auto on a single paperback in my own language. And if not for Arkady Martin's books, this might not have even occurred to me as strange. But the truth of the matter is, I have been colonized. Every single one of my friends, people I slip into conversation in fluent English with. What does that speak of but just this type of cultural colonization? The values of our culture have been overtaken, misplaced by the values of a more dominating one. And that it is something to grieve to quote Martin. Propaganda is fascinating when it's inside your own mind, or even... Mochette taught in Texcananli, an imperial-style metaphor and over-determination. She'd had this whole conversation in their language. Deliberately she taught in station there. We're not free. And in that same language Iskander agreed. There's no such fucking thing. More than any other work, more than any other thing in my life really, this series has inspired me to pursue a master's degree in cultural studies. Fingers crossed I'll be accepted this here. By the end of the novel, traditions, central tenets of the Texcanani culture no less, will be uprooted. Deferring visions of empire will violently clash against one another, revealing both rot and things worth preserving. You will be endlessly surprised, as I was, when I read memory, and again, when I read this one. Desolation is a novel without villains, without clearly demarcated good guys and bad guys, merely people with differing ideologies, modes of communication, conceptions of selfhood and personhood. Those same questions of conflicting loyalties and of civilization are once again on the fore of Martin's narrative, but a turn to the exploration of different angles of belonging and cultural dissemination. Granted when I say there are no villains, I separate between narrative and my own strong dislike of certain characters. I won't give away much, but I will say Dino Fire, old man! A few funny tidbits added familiarity to what can at times be a distant speculative world, in particular the binging. The Texcanani civilization has as much a sweet toot as we do about binging content, so their strict preferences lie in the way of period dramas. Hello, of course they do, they come from a culture obsessed with the glories of the past, and in capturing those glories in poetic and literal repetition. The cultural, all the cultural capital is aimed towards capturing this recreation, recontextualization even, and it's done brilliantly well, might I add. A note before I conclude this. I have 16 pages of notes in my journal, half of them illegible because I stayed up until three, four in the morning reading this, and the other half consists of, ugh, my head didn't read, please don't fight, make up, make out instead. I love those two. I can't recommend this enough. If you're ever looking for something more cerebral, hence enrich on those questions of cultural heterogeneity that is so interesting from the view of someone whose own culture has been displaced, skewed more than half way out of orbit in a significant way by an all-pervasive domineering culture. I think it is one of the most important works of science fiction that I have read in recent years, and to be sure it is well worth talking about. And this is why Academy Martins, a desolation called peace, is very much worth looking into, very much worth reading. As is a memory called Emperor, in case you haven't read that one, I have a review of it. You are welcome to peruse the link down below in the description to go and read it. Of course if you enjoyed this video please like it, share it with your friends, don't forget to leave a comment down below and ring that bell button for notifications. While else is there left to say, but I'll see you next time. We're either talking about some Mark Lawrence, one word kill shenanigans, or having another short, who knows? I know I don't. Until next time, bye!