Name: A Memory Called Empire
ISBN: 9781250186447

A Memory Called Empire

Won the 2020 Hugo for Best Novel. Ambassador Mahit Dzmare is posted far from her mining station home, to the Empire's glorious capital. Yet when she arrives, she discovers her predecessor was murdered. But no-one will admit his death wasn't accidental - and she might be next. Mahit must navigate the capital's deadly halls of power, while hunting the killer. She must also somehow stop the Empire from annexing her fiercely independent colony. As she sinks deeper into this seductive yet unfamiliar culture, Mahit engages in intrigues of her own. For she's hiding an extraordinary technological secret, one which might destroy her station and its way of life.Or it might save them all from annihilation.

What Hacker News says

nozzlegearSep 2026

I'm reading A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine, it's the sequel to A Memory Called Empire. I'm enjoying it!

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cheese_vanMay 2026

I can recommend A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine. Heartily recommend in fact.

And if you're like me, always looking for a series to fill the time, I can recomend the Solar Clipper series by Nathan Lowell. It's nothing dramatic, just human interactions, which I found refreshing.

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btownMar 2026

I don't know what sales numbers look like, but from my perspective as a casual reader who's been trying to keep up with Hugo Award nominees of recent years... science fiction may not be trendy on BookTok, but it's far from dead.

Sure, fantasy has "corrupted" the Hugos, but there's plenty of hard science fiction, and science fiction that grapples with societal questions at large. Arkady Martine's Memory Called Empire and Desolation Called Peace, both Hugo winners, are incredibly thoughtful depictions of societies on the verge of disruption from new technology. Ryka Aoki's Light From Uncommon Stars, a 2022 Hugo nominee, while somewhat of a sci-fi-fantasy genre crossover, is both harrowing and exhilarating in its discussion of gender through a speculative lens (content warnings apply).

If you're looking for whether innovative science fiction is being adapted into popular media - the Three Body Problem (2015 Hugo winner) and the Murderbot series (won the Hugo most recently in 2021) are both being adapted. Andy Weir's post-Martian works continue to be hyped, if not quite adapted yet. The fanbase for Tamsyn Muir's Ninth series is rabid in the best possible way - and while ostensibly centered on necromancy, it's remarkably high in sci-fi hardness.

And outside of traditional publishing - democratized writing challenges like https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/, genre-crossing serial sci-fi like the works of Wildbow, and fanfiction in general (I continue to follow and adore the To The Stars, a Madoka fanfic which juxtaposes magic with a spacefaring future humanity, with masterful worldbuilding) continue to thrive.

Traditional publishing houses may indeed be in crisis, but contrary to the original article's assertion, there is no shortage of ideas.

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MezzoDelCamminDec 2025

Fiction (shortlist):

-Some Desperate Glory (Emily Tesh)

-A Memory called Empire (Arkady Martin) both of these are a fairly interesting take on scifi worldbuilding. Could be called "highbrow", but IMO pretty easy reads still.

-Piranesi (S. Clark) - well written fantasy and plenty of other stuff that I've seen in other comments (Dungeon Crawler Carl does stand out a bit, but it's really a guilty pleasure / escape kind of a read).

Non-Fiction

-Brakneck (Dan Wang) - slightly outdated (by ~2y, which seems really breakneck), but still interesting take on modern China

-Capitalism (Sven Beckert) - still halfway through this one, but it's shaping up to be my #1 for 2025 non fiction

-The Origins of Efficiency - from B. Potter, the author of Construction Physics blog. The blog is fairly information dense, but this basically reads like a textbook. Still a pretty good reference IMO for people working in manufacturing.

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jauntywundrkindDec 2024

I love when books keep making me think about the world we live in now, that keep feeling pertinent. To that, some of the #hopepunk / #solarpunk style books have been really fun. Malka Older's Infomocracy, Emry's A Half Built Garden.

I also loved being transported to the space-Byzantines in Arkady Martines's A Memory Called Empire; a reverberation of the past set far in the future. The interwoven Hives & world of Ada Palmer's Too Like The Lightning / Terra Ignota are an incredible backdrop for such a story of many powers of the intersecting and overlapping and coming against each other.

Or the rollicking fun and action, the oppressive decadent space elites & politicking and rebelling of young-adult+ Pierce Brown's Red Rising.

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kdamicaDec 2024

I’ve read most of the SF on this list so I’ll throw out my other recommendations:

I like Chambers’ Wayfarers series but IMO Closed and Common Orbit is the best one.

Another recent book that stuck with me is Tchaikovsky’s Elder Race, which is told from two perspectives as both a sci fi and a fantasy story. It’s great and a quick read.

I enjoyed All Systems Red but for whatever reason have no desire to read the sequels. Same with Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. Both good stories but something about the settings just didn’t pull me in.

And I can never help but plug the Vorkosigan saga, which started in the 80s but still has a few recent books. Anyone who hasn’t read them should start with the early books though.

A Memory Called Empire is another great one that I’m actually surprised isn’t on this list.

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