By Dennis Fischman

To combine a science fiction novel with a mystery takes both skill and art. For the book to satisfy readers of both genres, it has to create a world that differs from the one we know, but in ways that make sense to us. Once we know the culture and the technology of the world we’re visiting between the covers of the book, we should be able to tell what’s normal there and what’s out of place, so we can play along with the detective.

Not many authors have written successful science fiction mysteries. Isaac Asimov pulled off the feat in his robot novel series, beginning with The Caves of Steel. They are very dated, however, both in science and especially in social attitudes. More recently, China Miéville wrote The City & the City, about two realities that overlap in the same place … and what happens when a crime committed in one has to be investigated in the other. It’s fascinating, and I recommend it. It’s not the final word, however.

A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine
Tor, 2019, 448 pages.

In A Memory Called Empire, Arkady Martine updates the science fiction mystery. The story begins with Ambassador Mahit Dzmare, from a small independent world, arrives on the capital planet of the interstellar Teixcalaanli Empire. The former ambassador has died. The circumstances are not clear. Mahit has to figure out what happened, who she can trust (if anyone) in the imperial court, and how to keep herself from becoming the next victim.

This is more than space whiz-bang. There’s identity politics as well as palace intrigue. There is poetry as well as romance (between people of various genders).

Is it a mystery, really? Someone in the Somerville Public Library Mystery Readers’ Book Club put this on our list, and I can see the logic to that. There is a murder, and an investigation, and continued attacks on witnesses and on the investigator herself. There is a sidekick, and an interfering police force: two more staples of the mystery genre.

Yet all that is ultimately just plot, and the book is about things like the clash of two worlds and cultures, the way narrative reveals and conceals reality, what it means to be a self, what it means to be mortal…the themes of great fiction.

I gave A Memory Called Empire my highest rating. When I finished it, I wanted to read #2 in this series. I wanted to read the books the author’s wife wrote about Dr. Van Helsing’s granddaughter. I want to read the scholarly work this author writes under the name AnnaLinden Weller! I was not ready to leave her orbit, even if I didn’t touch down on her world again for some time. The gravitational pull of the book is that strong.

Dennis Fischman is a member of the Somerville Public Library’s Mystery Book Club and an inveterate reader.