In Locus, Russell Letson appreciated the novel's 'absorbing and sometimes challenging blend of intrigue and anthropological imagination', as well as its sense of humor. In The Verge, Andrew Liptak praised the novel as a 'brilliant blend of cyberpunk, space opera, and political thriller', highlighting Martine's characterization and worldbuilding. Martine said that the book was in many respects a fictional version of her postdoctoral research on Byzantine imperialism on the frontier to Armenia in the 11th century, particularly the annexation of the Kingdom of Ani. Lsel ambassador Mahit Dzmare is sent to the imperial capital to prevent this, and finds herself embroiled in the empire's succession crisis.

It is set in a future where the Teixcalaanli empire governs most of human space, and is about to absorb Lsel, an independent mining station. Martine's first novel, A Memory Called Empire, published in 2019, is the beginning of her Teixcalaan series. Fiction writing Īs Arkady Martine, Weller has been publishing science fiction since 2012. She has published writings on the topic of Byzantine and medieval Armenian history.

Thomas University from 2014–15 and a postdoctoral researcher at Uppsala University from 2015–17. She was a visiting assistant professor of history at St. Her dissertation was titled 'Imagining Pre-Modern Empire: Byzantine Imperial Agents Outside the Metropole'. in medieval Byzantine, global, and comparative history at Rutgers University in 2014. Weller obtained a Bachelor of Arts in religious studies at the University of Chicago in 2007, a Master of Studies in classical Armenian studies at the University of Oxford in 2013, and a Ph.D. Her parents are classical musicians of Russian Jewish heritage: her mother is a professor of violin at Juilliard and her father played for the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera she has described herself as an 'assimilated American Jew' and noted that, in the 1930s, Jews who moved to the United States from Europe 'were basically playing classical music and inventing the Anglophone discipline of science fiction at the same time'. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her wife, the author Vivian Shaw.

Weller was born and grew up in New York City. Her first novels A Memory Called Empire (2019) and A Desolation Called Peace (2021), which form the Teixcalaan series, each won the Hugo Award for Best Novel. AnnaLinden Weller, better known under her pen name Arkady Martine (born Ap), is an American historian, city planner, and author of science fiction literature.

A memory called empire arkady martine