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Arkady Martine

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AnnaLinden Weller
Born (1985-04-19) April 19, 1985 (age 39)
New York City, U.S.
Pen nameArkady Martine
Occupationauthor, historian
Education
GenreSpeculative fiction
Website
www.arkadymartine.net Edit this at Wikidata

AnnaLinden Weller, better known under her pen name Arkady Martine (born April 19, 1985[1]), is an American author of science fiction literature. 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.

Personal life

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Weller was born and grew up in New York City.[1] 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;[1] she has described herself as an "assimilated American Jew"[2][3] 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".[1]

She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her wife, author Vivian Shaw.[1]

Academic career

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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. in medieval Byzantine, global, and comparative history at Rutgers University in 2014.[1] Her dissertation was titled "Imagining Pre-Modern Empire: Byzantine Imperial Agents Outside the Metropole". She was a visiting assistant professor of history at St. Thomas University from 2014–15 and a postdoctoral researcher at Uppsala University from 2015–17. She has published writings on the topic of Byzantine and medieval Armenian history.[4]

Fiction writing

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As Arkady Martine, Weller has been publishing science fiction since 2012.[1][5]

A Memory Called Empire

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Martine's first novel, A Memory Called Empire, published in 2019, is the beginning of her Teixcalaan series.[1] It is set in a future where the Teixcalaanli empire governs most of human space, and is about to absorb Lsel (apparently from Armenian "lsel" translating to "listen"), an independent mining station. Lsel ambassador Mahit Dzmare is sent to the imperial capital to prevent this, and finds herself embroiled in the empire's succession crisis. 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.[2]

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.[6] 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.[7] Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews both gave the novel a starred review, noting the facility with which Martine brought the worlds of her "gorgeously crafted diplomatic space opera" to life,[8] and comparing Martine's novel to the works of Ann Leckie and Yoon Ha Lee.[9]

A Desolation Called Peace

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The second installment of the Teixcalaan series, A Desolation Called Peace was first published in 2021. It picks up several months after the events of Empire. Mahit is back on Lsel station, Three Seagrass is promoted-but-bored on Teixcalaan, and the new emperor is on the throne. Mahit is trying to process all of the events of the previous book when she is quickly thrown into a series of political intrigues that forces her to leave the station with Three Seagrass, who shows up on Lsel Station to take Mahit to an outlying area of space to try to communicate with a species of incomprehensible aliens and avert a war of total destruction. Back on Teixcalaan, political schemes are brewing, and the very young heir to the throne is in the middle of them.[10]

Awards and nominations

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Bibliography

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Teixcalaan series

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  • —— (2019). A Memory Called Empire. Tor Books. ISBN 9781250186430.
  • —— (2021). A Desolation Called Peace. Tor Books. ISBN 9781250186461.

Short fiction

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Novella

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Short stories

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  • "Lace Downstairs" (2012)
  • "Nothing Must Be Wasted" (2014)
  • "Adjuva" (2015)
  • "City of Salt" (2015)
  • "When the Fall Is All That's Left" (2015)
  • "How the God Auzh-Aravik Brought Order to the World Outside the World" (2016)
  • "'Contra Gravitatem (Vita Genevievis)'" (2016)
  • "All the Colors You Thought Were Kings" (2016)
  • "Ekphrasis" (2016)
  • "Ruin Marble" (2017)
  • "The Hydraulic Emperor" (2018)
  • "Object-Oriented" (2018)
  • "Just a Fire" (as by A. Martine) (2018)
  • "Faux Ami" (as by A. Martine) (2019)
  • "Labbatu Takes Command of the Flagship Heaven Dwells Within" (2019)
  • "Life and a Day" (as by A. Martine) (2019)
  • "A Desolation Called Peace" (excerpt) (2020)
  • "A Being Together Amongst Strangers" (2020)

Poetry

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  • "Cloud Wall" (2014)
  • "Abandon Normal Instruments" (2016)

Nonfiction

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  • "Everyone's World Is Ending All the Time: Notes on Becoming a Climate Resilience Planner at the Edge of the Anthropocene" (2019)

Reviews

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  • "Testament by Hal Duncan" (2015)
  • "Report from Planet Midnight by Nalo Hopkinson" (2016)
  • "The Djinn Falls in Love & Other Stories by Mahvesh Murad and Jared Shurin" (2017)
  • "The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander" (2018)

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Arkady Martine: Histories of Power". Locus. 20 January 2020. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
  2. ^ a b Phin, Vanessa Rose (25 February 2019). "An Interview with Arkady Martine". Strange Horizons. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
  3. ^ "the speech I gave at the 2020 Hugo Awards". Arkady Martine. 1 August 2020. Archived from the original on 7 June 2021. Retrieved 7 June 2021.
  4. ^ Weller, AnnaLinden. "Curriculum Vitae". Uppsala University. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
  5. ^ Arkady Martine at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
  6. ^ Liptak, Andrew (18 May 2019). "A Memory Called Empire is a brilliant blend of cyberpunk, space opera, and political thriller". The Verge. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
  7. ^ Russell, Letson (7 May 2019). "A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine". Locus. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
  8. ^ "A Memory Called Empire". Publishers Weekly. 19 November 2018. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
  9. ^ "A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine". Kirkus Reviews. 21 January 2019. Retrieved 23 June 2019.
  10. ^ "Adrienne Martini and Russell Letson Review A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine". Locus. 26 March 2021. Retrieved 21 April 2021.
  11. ^ "2022 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Awards. 7 April 2022. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  12. ^ "2022 Subjective Chaos Kind of Awards". File 770. 17 September 2022. Retrieved 6 August 2024.
  13. ^ "2021 Nebula Awards". The Nebula Awards. Science Fictions & Fantasy Writers Association. 21 May 2022. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  14. ^ locusmag (10 May 2022). "2022 Locus Awards Top Ten Finalists". Locus Online. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  15. ^ "BSFA Awards Longlist". www.bsfa.co.uk. Archived from the original on 27 June 2022. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  16. ^ "Announcing the 2020 Hugo Award Winners". Tor.com. 31 July 2020.
  17. ^ "2020 Hugo Awards". The Hugo Awards. 7 April 2020. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  18. ^ "BSFS's Compton Crook Award [Version DA-6]". www.bsfs.org. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  19. ^ "Announcing the 2020 Locus Awards Finalists". Tor.com. 29 May 2020. Retrieved 29 May 2020.
  20. ^ locusmag (27 June 2020). "2020 Locus Awards Winners". Locus Online. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
  21. ^ "Announcing the 2019 Nebula Awards Finalists". Tor.com. 20 February 2020. Retrieved 20 February 2020.
  22. ^ "2019 Nebula Awards". The Nebula Awards®. Archived from the original on 23 February 2020. Retrieved 13 June 2024.
  23. ^ "Serpell wins 2020 Arthur C Clarke Award for The Old Drift". Books+Publishing. 2 October 2020. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
  24. ^ locusmag (18 June 2020). "2020 Clarke Award Shortlist". Locus Online. Retrieved 17 June 2022.
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