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]
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, 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]
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]
