After devouring the first book in the series, I have now finished book 2 of Arkady Martine's Teixcalaan series: A Desolation Called Peace.
The sequel was good! It offers a bit more cerebral sci-fi than the first book, with much deeper investigation into language, memory, and the concept of what it means to be a person -- all themes present in the first book, but brought front and centre in the second now that the worldbuilding has been established.
On paper this book is better on all fronts. The politics, the stakes, the philosophy, the drama -- without the need to explain how things work there was more room for meat. That said, I did find it a a little less engaging than the first book -- partly because I like the world building (there's still some here, but not as much!), and partly because so much of the action was happening away from the city we spent the whole first book learning about. I would have loved to see more in-city politics that what we got in the sequel!
I really enjoyed some of the new characters, and the relationship between Nine Hibiscus and Twenty Cicada was fabulously done. Developments for pretty much every other returning character were also interesting -- with the exception of the main protagonist, Mahit, who I found myself disliking more and more over the course of the novel (philosophical differences, I think).
The ending of the novel left room for more of the series without necessitating it, and I think the bulk of the story the author planned to tell has now been told. That said, with 2 Hugo awards in a row it would be a shame not to get read more stories from within in the Teixcalaan Empire.