a memory called empire a texicalaan novel 1 arkady martine

And check out some highlights from the discussion below. Listen to the complete interview with Arkady Martine in Episode 425 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above). “Technology does not eliminate brutality, or the deeply personal nature of someone’s relationship with religion.” “I definitely do not see progress as linear, in any way,” she says. The idea of human sacrifice being practiced alongside starships, cloning, and memory transfer may seem like an odd juxtaposition, but Martine is confident that such a custom could persist in a technological future. “Not so much the actual dying-people-on-altars, but in terms of, ‘What are people willing to give up? And in what ways are those choices institutionalized and commended?’ So that became part of what I was working with.” “I’m interested in-this is one of those things that if I say, it is going to sound very weird-I’m interested in human sacrifice,” Martine says. Like the Aztecs, Teixcalaanli religion involves human sacrifice. “So those two are the big influences, plus there’s some Pax Mongolica things, and a hell of a lot of American imperialism.” “There’s a ton of influence from the Aztecs, and there is, in a weird way, a lot of influence from Sol Invictus, which is a Roman sun cult-if you advance Romans all the way up through Byzantium,” Martine says. The novel is set on the homeworld of the galaxy-spanning Teixcalaanli Empire, a civilization that idolizes poetry and worships the stars.

A memory called empire a texicalaan novel 1 arkady martine