Arkady Martine, when she’s not writing fiction is Dr. Wes: The author, Arkady Martine – and that’s a pen name and it’s an awesome pen name – This is a debut novel, it’s been nominated for a Nebula and a Locus award. I mean, not in every culture, but a lot of times, whereas we’re using real words when we’ve got the number and the noun. Is like names or are arbitrary sounds generally.

Oren: Yeah, I don’t remember what any of those other characters were called or who they were…Ĭhris: …. The Lsel Station characters, except for main character, Mahit Dzmare, and her imago and predecessor, Yskandr, I had to look up everybody else’s name on that station. Wes: Well, it’s kind of funny because the Teixcalaanli characters have this intricate, interesting kind of weird naming convention but it’s just a number and a normal noun. This one has at least two and they’re kind of complicated, but they’re fun, apparently. It was like: ‘no, I remember everyone.’Ĭhris: That’s really interesting, because we didn’t get into this when we were talking about Gideon the Ninth, but Gideon the Ninth has three names for every character and it is just confusing as hell. Wes: I know it was so funny, Chris, when I saw Oren’s note about it not being confusing, then I went back to my reading experience. I love the fantasy names and the fantasy nicknames of this book.Ĭhris: You weren’t confused by the fact that everyone has essentially two names? Oren: You have to understand how weird this is. Wes : So today we are talking about Arkady Martine’s novel, A Memory Called Empire, and the ‘empire’ of the book is called: ‘Teixcalaan’, and we introduced ourselves with our Teixcalaanli names, which usually follow the pattern of a number and a noun.

Wes: I can’t believe we got ‘String’ on the podcast, you guys! This is amazing! Wes: Coming to you live from Teixcalaan’s diplomatic station at the Mythcreants blog HQ, this is Twelve Jupiter, aka Berry, coming at you live. You’re listening to the Mythcreants Podcast with your hosts Oren Ashkenazi, Wes Matlock, and Chris Winkle.

A memory called empire book 2