(Teixcalaan 1) A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
Narrator: Amy Landon, Thank you for your excellent performance.
I pre-reviewed this having finished 70+% of it. I had issues but this novel being a Hugo winner I assumed things would really turn around. Today, less than a week later I'm mildly recommended this 2020 Hugo Award winning novel! A 3.5 star science fiction/thriller/suspense novel.
With this one... what threw me off were two things. My glowing "pre-reviews", which are all scrapped. And reviews which I routinely try to ignore were all glowing with praise, excitement, maybe even some worship. I do try to ignore other reviews, but really, let's be honest. When we grossly disagree, do we really want to stir to pot, so to speak?
The things I wish I did straight up in every review is say, "good/bad" this genre, (fantasy, gnomes & vampires), sci-fi epic expansionists, or so forth. I recommend or not, maybe something I thought cool or that sucked. That way in a sentence or two you can largely make up your mind, if you trust me, to add it to a list or scrap it for later. Then I try to be consistent with babble, but fail miserably.
First thing I messed up on this novel was thinking "Hugos" mean something. I recall thinking J. D. Powers meant something then read some article where they were selling me that McDonald's was the best restaurant in the USA.
