Paperback
Français language
Published March 1, 2021 by J'ai Lu.
Une force d’invasion alien se masse aux portes de l’espace teixcalaanli, muette et menaçante. La commandante Neuf Hibiscus n’a d’autre recours que l’option diplomatique, et c’est ainsi que Mahit Dzmare, l’ambassadrice de la station Lsel, et Trois Posidonie, son ex-chargée de liaison – encore sous le choc du récent soulèvement de l’Empire –, se retrouvent en première ligne, investies de la tâche impossible de communiquer avec cette entité hostile. Leur échec se traduirait par des millions de morts, leur succès garantirait la survie de l’Empire. À moins qu’il n’existe une troisième voie…
This book reminded me of the classic, creative sci-fi of the past, while being very interesting and entertaining. I liked this book more than the first one as it involved not just politics and intrigue, but a potential war with the unknown. It resolved in ways I was not expecting and thoroughly loved this story all the way through!
I read A Memory Called Empire earlier this year and really enjoyed it. In this sequel, I was curious to see how the author would handle the mysterious aliens, who we previously hadn’t seen on page.
We see this story from multiple points of view. While I liked getting different perspectives, they felt rather contrived in terms of answering questions raised by the previous PoV character. I also felt there was a lot of characters standing around being told (or overhearing) information by other characters. Sometimes I was put in mind of “messenger speeches” in Greek drama, where important events are recounted to the actors (and audience) by a messenger, rather than being played out on stage.
There was a sex scene which… felt unnecessary and didn’t (in my opinion) contribute in any way to the story, and I could have done without as much angst-y interactions. (Or perhaps, since …
I read A Memory Called Empire earlier this year and really enjoyed it. In this sequel, I was curious to see how the author would handle the mysterious aliens, who we previously hadn’t seen on page.
We see this story from multiple points of view. While I liked getting different perspectives, they felt rather contrived in terms of answering questions raised by the previous PoV character. I also felt there was a lot of characters standing around being told (or overhearing) information by other characters. Sometimes I was put in mind of “messenger speeches” in Greek drama, where important events are recounted to the actors (and audience) by a messenger, rather than being played out on stage.
There was a sex scene which… felt unnecessary and didn’t (in my opinion) contribute in any way to the story, and I could have done without as much angst-y interactions. (Or perhaps, since we all have angsty moments, not having them spelled out so explicitly).
That said, I enjoyed the read overall and the interweaving of the narrative viewpoints.
