A Desolation Called Peace

Every bit as good as "A Memory Called Empire", and together with it, complete a masterful binary composition. One piece of advice that I would submit to prospective readers of this novel is to read both books back to back If you can. I waited almost two years in between reading them and it took me a good hundred pages or so before I finally remembered all of the necessary details from the first book. Martine has a wonderfully refreshing style and her use of auxiliary snipits at the beginning of each chapter is a lot of fun. They serve as bewildering clues that eventually trigger "ah ha!" moments when you discover how they're applicable to that chapter's events.