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The Downworld Sequence #1
The Archive Undying
War machines and AI gods run amok in The Archive Undying, national bestseller Emma Mieko Candon's bold entry into the world of mecha fiction.
WHEN AN AI DIES, ITS CITY DIES WITH IT
WHEN A CITY FALLS, IT LEAVES A CORPSE BEHIND
WHEN THAT CORPSE RUNS OFF, ONLY DEVOTION CAN BRING IT BACK
When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he's seen. He's run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.
The Archive Undying is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon's Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies.
Come get in the robot.
WHEN AN AI DIES, ITS CITY DIES WITH IT
WHEN A CITY FALLS, IT LEAVES A CORPSE BEHIND
WHEN THAT CORPSE RUNS OFF, ONLY DEVOTION CAN BRING IT BACK
When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he's seen. He's run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.
The Archive Undying is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon's Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies.
Come get in the robot.
482 pages, Hardcover
First published June 27, 2023
534 people are currently reading
26152 people want to read
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October 15, 2022Whew. Ok, so this is going to be a very difficult book to review. I would call this experimental science fiction with a post-apocalyptic godpunk vibe (but make the gods AI.) Add a dose of body horror, a sprinkle of mycelium dust, and fill the rest with a whole lot of confusion. Also, giant robots.
First, the good. I enjoyed Candon's Star Wars novel and she is clearly a talented writer. The prose in this novel is at times so beautiful I had to stop and admire her craft. So many lovely turns of phrase, especially around character reactions and emotion. Second, the world feels unique, or at least I've never seen a world like this. A post-apocalyptic future where the apocalypse was caused by a pantheon of AI run amok who apparently self-imploded? The world is now ruled by a shady government whose aim is to...I'm not sure what. And our protagonist, who is a former AI devotee called a relic (I thought of him like a monk, but maybe it's more like a state of being than a job title) who can still interface with the dead AI(s) which is a big no-no in this world. All very cool concepts, and as a former programmer with a thing for Cronenberg-esque body/machine horror, I was in.
But the execution of the story is impossible to follow. Particularly the last half of the book. There are too many shifting POVs, too many voices, too many common words repurposed to different inworld meanings but not defined, and simply not enough grounding either in place or character. My guess is that this is on purpose. See: mycelium dust. But what it means practically is that as rich as the world is, I could not envision it. (That might be a failure of my imagination. I hope you do better, because I loved this world. Unfortunately, it was just out of my grasp.)
About the characters. Oh man. I love a character-driven story, and this feels like a character-driven story, but I could not attach to any of the characters. And, without spoilers, I want to say it is tricky to play with multiple resurrections during a story. It's hard to care about a character when you know they can't die, and even harder to care if someone's a murderer if the person they "killed" isn't dead. Tricky. Also, there is some overlap in the characters that I found confusing and took some of the uniqueness out of each one. But my biggest frustration was that I felt like we are held at arm's length, never truly allowed into who these people are and what drives them. I feel like Candon knows them well but didn't let us know them like she does.
Would I recommend this book? Yes. But I think it's going to be a frustrating read for a lot of people. It was for me. I was actually getting angry at the book, wanting more, wanting *in*, but feeling denied at every turn. I came close to DNF'ing multiple times, but then some line would enchant me or a concept would intrigue and I'd stay with it. When Candon is at her best, this book feels like Tamsyn Muir meets Max Gladstone, and those are two of my favorite authors. So, give it a try. Just be aware that it's not an easy read.
Also, there's nothing I would consider romance. Not sure where that idea came from in another comment. FYI.
Also also, that cover is beautiful. Wow!
First, the good. I enjoyed Candon's Star Wars novel and she is clearly a talented writer. The prose in this novel is at times so beautiful I had to stop and admire her craft. So many lovely turns of phrase, especially around character reactions and emotion. Second, the world feels unique, or at least I've never seen a world like this. A post-apocalyptic future where the apocalypse was caused by a pantheon of AI run amok who apparently self-imploded? The world is now ruled by a shady government whose aim is to...I'm not sure what. And our protagonist, who is a former AI devotee called a relic (I thought of him like a monk, but maybe it's more like a state of being than a job title) who can still interface with the dead AI(s) which is a big no-no in this world. All very cool concepts, and as a former programmer with a thing for Cronenberg-esque body/machine horror, I was in.
But the execution of the story is impossible to follow. Particularly the last half of the book. There are too many shifting POVs, too many voices, too many common words repurposed to different inworld meanings but not defined, and simply not enough grounding either in place or character. My guess is that this is on purpose. See: mycelium dust. But what it means practically is that as rich as the world is, I could not envision it. (That might be a failure of my imagination. I hope you do better, because I loved this world. Unfortunately, it was just out of my grasp.)
About the characters. Oh man. I love a character-driven story, and this feels like a character-driven story, but I could not attach to any of the characters. And, without spoilers, I want to say it is tricky to play with multiple resurrections during a story. It's hard to care about a character when you know they can't die, and even harder to care if someone's a murderer if the person they "killed" isn't dead. Tricky. Also, there is some overlap in the characters that I found confusing and took some of the uniqueness out of each one. But my biggest frustration was that I felt like we are held at arm's length, never truly allowed into who these people are and what drives them. I feel like Candon knows them well but didn't let us know them like she does.
Would I recommend this book? Yes. But I think it's going to be a frustrating read for a lot of people. It was for me. I was actually getting angry at the book, wanting more, wanting *in*, but feeling denied at every turn. I came close to DNF'ing multiple times, but then some line would enchant me or a concept would intrigue and I'd stay with it. When Candon is at her best, this book feels like Tamsyn Muir meets Max Gladstone, and those are two of my favorite authors. So, give it a try. Just be aware that it's not an easy read.
Also, there's nothing I would consider romance. Not sure where that idea came from in another comment. FYI.
Also also, that cover is beautiful. Wow!
March 8, 2023
The Archive Undying is a fascinating story that is not told well. No one is more disappointed than I am. This was one of my most anticipated releases and I was prepared to add it to my favorites list right next to Gideon the Ninth and The Stars Undying.
For a long time, I held on to the hope that it was a confusing start that would have an amazing payoff. I caught glimpses of an incredible story in the complex dynamic between the two main characters and the mind-bending perspective shifts. Even when I wasn't enjoying the story I had to stop and tab some of Candon's beautiful prose. Overall I adore the concept of the story and I appreciate how unique it was. The complicated relationship between the god-like AIs and their people was fascinating. Sunai's unique experience was my favorite part of the story especially once the story started to explore his power. I especially enjoyed his complicated relationship with Adi. Their interactions were fun to read and often involved interesting discussions.
I have mixed feelings about the shifting POVs. It was the first thing in the book that I genuinely enjoyed. I love an anonymous POV that seems to know more than both the reader and the characters. I desperately wanted to know who was sharing Sunai's mind. But even my favorite part of the book slowly fell apart. There were multiple abrupt changes to how the strange POV was incorporated into the narrative that felt clunky and awkward even if they had explanations. Later in the story, we get multiple anonymous POVs which made the story impossible to follow. The perspectives didn't have unique voices or writing styles making it difficult to tell who was speaking at times. I often had to reread sections because I realized I had been imagining the wrong speaker.
The Archive Undying felt like it started five chapters in and never made up for it. The plot is poorly paced with an incredibly rushed first half and a painfully repetitive last quarter. It is difficult to care about a major plot moment when it is the third time it has happened, almost happened, or been abandoned at the last second.
There is a fine line between a book being confusing and it being nonsense with pretty writing. The Archive Undying holds back too much information from its reader to be enjoyable. Almost nothing was explained. I could put together a vague idea based on the sparse context clues but I felt robbed of any actual world-building. It felt like the author refused to flesh out any of the concepts that didn't directly involve Sunai. That includes the original cataclysmic event, the villain, the planet, and the AI themselves. The use of common word names without explanations to clarify their in-world meaning made it difficult to understand the world. This problem extends to the AI who seem more like otherworldly, god-like beings than any form of human technology no matter how evolved. I desperately wish the author had just created new "made-up" words for all of the roles in this story. There is a vague suggestion of a villain but I still have no idea who the Harbor was, what they stood for, or how they were involved with anything.
My guess is this ambiguity was meant to make the book seem mysterious and confusing (here we encounter the fine line). But in reality, there is not enough information for the reader to piece together a coherent picture. The Archive Undying is severely lacking in its world-building making it a messy and frustrating read.
Thank you TorDotCom for the advanced reader copy!
Links to my TikTok | Instagram
For a long time, I held on to the hope that it was a confusing start that would have an amazing payoff. I caught glimpses of an incredible story in the complex dynamic between the two main characters and the mind-bending perspective shifts. Even when I wasn't enjoying the story I had to stop and tab some of Candon's beautiful prose. Overall I adore the concept of the story and I appreciate how unique it was. The complicated relationship between the god-like AIs and their people was fascinating. Sunai's unique experience was my favorite part of the story especially once the story started to explore his power. I especially enjoyed his complicated relationship with Adi. Their interactions were fun to read and often involved interesting discussions.
I have mixed feelings about the shifting POVs. It was the first thing in the book that I genuinely enjoyed. I love an anonymous POV that seems to know more than both the reader and the characters. I desperately wanted to know who was sharing Sunai's mind. But even my favorite part of the book slowly fell apart. There were multiple abrupt changes to how the strange POV was incorporated into the narrative that felt clunky and awkward even if they had explanations. Later in the story, we get multiple anonymous POVs which made the story impossible to follow. The perspectives didn't have unique voices or writing styles making it difficult to tell who was speaking at times. I often had to reread sections because I realized I had been imagining the wrong speaker.
The Archive Undying felt like it started five chapters in and never made up for it. The plot is poorly paced with an incredibly rushed first half and a painfully repetitive last quarter. It is difficult to care about a major plot moment when it is the third time it has happened, almost happened, or been abandoned at the last second.
There is a fine line between a book being confusing and it being nonsense with pretty writing. The Archive Undying holds back too much information from its reader to be enjoyable. Almost nothing was explained. I could put together a vague idea based on the sparse context clues but I felt robbed of any actual world-building. It felt like the author refused to flesh out any of the concepts that didn't directly involve Sunai. That includes the original cataclysmic event, the villain, the planet, and the AI themselves. The use of common word names without explanations to clarify their in-world meaning made it difficult to understand the world. This problem extends to the AI who seem more like otherworldly, god-like beings than any form of human technology no matter how evolved. I desperately wish the author had just created new "made-up" words for all of the roles in this story. There is a vague suggestion of a villain but I still have no idea who the Harbor was, what they stood for, or how they were involved with anything.
My guess is this ambiguity was meant to make the book seem mysterious and confusing (here we encounter the fine line). But in reality, there is not enough information for the reader to piece together a coherent picture. The Archive Undying is severely lacking in its world-building making it a messy and frustrating read.
Thank you TorDotCom for the advanced reader copy!
Links to my TikTok | Instagram
July 4, 2023
4.0 Stars
Video Review: https://youtu.be/smJkPBN9j1o
This was such an immersive science fantasy novel. I was immediately pulled in from the first chapter and enjoyed the ride.
I love the writing style of this book. The prose were both simple but also beautiful in places. The dialogue was more casual than I normally prefer with lots of f-bombs, but I felt the casual prose worker in this case.
The worldbuilding in this novel is one of my favourite aspects of the novel, but also one of the weak points. The godpunk premise was great, but yet I wished the surrounding world had been more fleshed out. I usually enjoy epic fantasy with narrow points of view, but in this case I wished this novel had more perspectives. Between the scope of the story and the writing style, the worldbuilding was hazy. If the author has a clear picture of this imagined world, it was not entirely conveyed to the readers.
Yet despite my small criticisms, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will absolutely be continuing with the series. I would recommend this imaginative sci fantasy novel to readers looking for something new. This one reminded me of Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse mixed with The Outside by Ada Hoffmann.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
Video Review: https://youtu.be/smJkPBN9j1o
This was such an immersive science fantasy novel. I was immediately pulled in from the first chapter and enjoyed the ride.
I love the writing style of this book. The prose were both simple but also beautiful in places. The dialogue was more casual than I normally prefer with lots of f-bombs, but I felt the casual prose worker in this case.
The worldbuilding in this novel is one of my favourite aspects of the novel, but also one of the weak points. The godpunk premise was great, but yet I wished the surrounding world had been more fleshed out. I usually enjoy epic fantasy with narrow points of view, but in this case I wished this novel had more perspectives. Between the scope of the story and the writing style, the worldbuilding was hazy. If the author has a clear picture of this imagined world, it was not entirely conveyed to the readers.
Yet despite my small criticisms, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will absolutely be continuing with the series. I would recommend this imaginative sci fantasy novel to readers looking for something new. This one reminded me of Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse mixed with The Outside by Ada Hoffmann.
Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.
June 19, 2023
I’m going to need Tor to massively upgrade the marketing budget for this book because holy hell this is the weird queer SFF book of my dreams. Get in the fucking robot indeed.
At the heart of The Archive Undying, past the robots and AI and exquisitely described body horror, are the characters. Our main character, Sunai, the peak Pathetic Man^TM who’s ever decision makes the reader scream ‘WHY”. His one-night-stand turned boss, Veyadi, man with an ounce more self-preservation than his companions. And all the various voices-in-heads with a penchant for 2nd-person narration and goals of dubious motivations. Surprisingly character driven for a Giant Robot Book^TM, the layers of characterization the main cast gets, peeling back layer after layer of history and trauma, and their dialogues of hidden intent and double meanings truly drive the heart of this book. Candon’s characters are A Mess and accompanying them on this story was a delight.
Accompanying these characters is some of the most spectacular prose I’ve read in a while. Candon really makes the reader work for each sentence, but my god is the writing beautiful. It’s clear this is one of those books where every word is deliberately chosen to have the most devastating effect on the reader. The religious ferocity in Sunai’s every description of Iterate Fractal, the everyday horrors of this bizarre semi-post-apocalyptic world, and the fun body-horror bits of ‘holy shit those people are just being stabbed with coral huh’, all rendered in incredible detail that immerses the reader right in. Tor’s been on a roll lately with the weird queer novels that have stellar prose and stories that really make you think.
Naturally, this is a world that makes the reader work for comprehension. We start the book thrown in the middle of the story, and the reader is expected to make their own connections along the way. I found myself often going ???, in part from the sheer weirdness of the setting, but I was always able to figure things out, eventually. Certainly this is a fantastic book for re-reading over and over again, going over every minor detail with a fine comb. Plot-wise, it’s hard to give a description beyond ‘man fails to run away from his past and face the consequences, while his head is starting to get a little crowded with all those voices’.
Overall, I rate this book a 5/5. A queer giant robot book with stellar character development, beautiful prose that’ll make you think, and a bizarre semi-post-apocalyptic world. I absolutely cannot wait for the sequel.
___
(old review)
5/5
Imma need tor to put significantly more of their marketing budget behind this cuz holy hell. Love books that are happy to leave going ?????? and marveling at your own confusion but also kind enough to explain some of the things, eventually
At the heart of The Archive Undying, past the robots and AI and exquisitely described body horror, are the characters. Our main character, Sunai, the peak Pathetic Man^TM who’s ever decision makes the reader scream ‘WHY”. His one-night-stand turned boss, Veyadi, man with an ounce more self-preservation than his companions. And all the various voices-in-heads with a penchant for 2nd-person narration and goals of dubious motivations. Surprisingly character driven for a Giant Robot Book^TM, the layers of characterization the main cast gets, peeling back layer after layer of history and trauma, and their dialogues of hidden intent and double meanings truly drive the heart of this book. Candon’s characters are A Mess and accompanying them on this story was a delight.
Accompanying these characters is some of the most spectacular prose I’ve read in a while. Candon really makes the reader work for each sentence, but my god is the writing beautiful. It’s clear this is one of those books where every word is deliberately chosen to have the most devastating effect on the reader. The religious ferocity in Sunai’s every description of Iterate Fractal, the everyday horrors of this bizarre semi-post-apocalyptic world, and the fun body-horror bits of ‘holy shit those people are just being stabbed with coral huh’, all rendered in incredible detail that immerses the reader right in. Tor’s been on a roll lately with the weird queer novels that have stellar prose and stories that really make you think.
Naturally, this is a world that makes the reader work for comprehension. We start the book thrown in the middle of the story, and the reader is expected to make their own connections along the way. I found myself often going ???, in part from the sheer weirdness of the setting, but I was always able to figure things out, eventually. Certainly this is a fantastic book for re-reading over and over again, going over every minor detail with a fine comb. Plot-wise, it’s hard to give a description beyond ‘man fails to run away from his past and face the consequences, while his head is starting to get a little crowded with all those voices’.
Overall, I rate this book a 5/5. A queer giant robot book with stellar character development, beautiful prose that’ll make you think, and a bizarre semi-post-apocalyptic world. I absolutely cannot wait for the sequel.
___
(old review)
5/5
Imma need tor to put significantly more of their marketing budget behind this cuz holy hell. Love books that are happy to leave going ?????? and marveling at your own confusion but also kind enough to explain some of the things, eventually
January 5, 2023
what a frustrating book
Rep: achillean mc & li
CWs: gore, violence
full review below
Rep: achillean mc & li
CWs: gore, violence
full review below
June 30, 2023
I do not blame myself 😑 Unfortunately this was confounding to me from beginning to end. And I really and truly tried. I doubled down with both the audio and the ebook and read as slowly and as closely as I had the drive for. This is something ingrained in every Classics student, especially when translating. I am ultimately designed for nuanced and complex narrative but this book went where I just could not follow. There were some moments of well crafted beauty, and I loved the world's aesthetic! But ultimately, I would have appreciated if this story was a bit more decipherable, and with a few more narrative landmarks in place.
I give props to the readers who can journey through the dark with just a flashlight and a prayer to the book gods. This book is for them.
Thank you to Tor and Macmillan Audio, Edelweiss and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I give props to the readers who can journey through the dark with just a flashlight and a prayer to the book gods. This book is for them.
Thank you to Tor and Macmillan Audio, Edelweiss and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
June 24, 2023
Do I understand...almost anything about what I just read? No. Do I care? Also no. Because I absolutely ADORED it.
Rtc!
HIGHLIGHTS
~prepare to be confused
~but in the best way
~relatable!MC is way too relatable
~really not your typical mecha story
~just get ‘wtf Sunai?!’ tattooed, it’ll be faster
What you need to understand is: I have no fucking clue what just happened. I mean, I do, kind of. Superficially.
But deep down, in my heart of hearts, I know the truth: I have no fucking clue what just happened.
And it is AWESOME.
The Archive Undying isn’t what I call an LSD book, where the speculative elements are wacky as fuck and everything seems so random and also there are a lot of colours. I could sit down and explain the world of this book to you just fine, and it would make sense. It’s perfectly coherent. It’s not even hard to believe in – I was never sure if this story is set in another world, or our world’s future, because I don’t have to stretch my suspension of disbelief very much to buy that this could be us in a few hundred years or so. Nor is there any issue with Candon’s prose; her writing is graceful and sharp, and when she puts words together they make sense! They have meaning! They convey information that you can process and comprehend!
And yet…when you finish reading this book, and put it down, I can very nearly guarantee you will have no idea what just happened.
But! But. This is important. The Archive Undying is not confusing because it’s bad. I think most readers have, at some point, run into that kind of book; one that is messy, stopping-and-starting, all over the place, like the author was on drugs while writing it.
The Archive Undying feels instead like a book where the author is in complete control, knows exactly what is going on, is deftly keeping all the balls in the air – but I’m the one on drugs.
After literal months of brainstorming, that is the best way I have come up with to describe the sensation to you, dear reader. Because the whole way through this book, the sense that it all fits together comes through loud and clear. I am unshakeably certain that Candon knows exactly how this world works down to the smallest detail; that she understands, absolutely, the dynamics and histories between the various factions, cities, AIs, rebel groups, et al; that you could throw any fanfic-esque scenario you like at her, and she wouldn’t hesitate a beat before being able to tell you how any one of her characters would react to it, how they would act within it. She knows her story and the world it’s set in and the characters running around in it inside-out-and-backwards.
But we don’t.
It’s not that we’re being shown a very narrow piece of Sunai’s world; we actually see, if not a geographically huge slice, certainly one that cuts across many different classes, power structures, and other anthropological strata. No, we’re given all the pieces we could possibly need to put the puzzle box together…except the character motivations.
I don’t mean that the characters are not motivated. They absolutely are. But Candon draws a veil between the reader and the inner workings of her cast; she’s blown up the bridge that connects us and them, and because we can’t see inside the minds of the characters it feels so much more like we’re observing real people in the real world doing real things. It allows for mystery on a scale that most books are not capable of, gives room for more twists and reveals than could be packed into a story where we know the characters’ minds. The cast of Archive Undying can – and very much do – take us by surprise in a way they simply couldn’t if we could see inside their heads the way we’re used to doing. We’re not blind, exactly – it’s not that we get none of our main character’s thoughts – we’ve just not been given the advantage we’ve taken for granted so long we didn’t realise it was an advantage until it was gone.
We’re left, instead, to know these characters by what they do rather than what they think; and there’s something pretty powerful in that. In the real world, it’s only by what you do that you can be known; it is only what you do that matters, in the end, not what you think or feel. And so choosing to tell a story this way feels deliberate, feels pointed, feels like Candon is making a point. Maybe it’s something about how we treat characters so very differently from real people, because we understand and sympathise with them in a way we don’t – and can’t – with real people; maybe it’s about how wildly our self-image can conflict with how other people see us, with what we look like to the world instead of what we look like in the mirror. (A mirror is not perfectly accurate, after all; it shows us inverted, and according to some sources, not at our true size.) Maybe it’s about how little motivations matter, when push comes to shove; it doesn’t matter why you do a thing, only what you do and what effect that has. If I say something that hurts someone, the fact that I didn’t mean to hurt them is irrelevant; it certainly doesn’t undo the hurt. If I give a million dollars to charity because I want to look like a good person, my selfish motivation has no bearing on the good that comes from the act. I’m not willing to say motivations are meaningless, but…
Maybe it’s about making us question what the reality of a person is, making us think about how we form our understanding of others, making us ask how we know anybody at all and how accurate can that knowing ever be.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
Rtc!
HIGHLIGHTS
~prepare to be confused
~but in the best way
~relatable!MC is way too relatable
~really not your typical mecha story
~just get ‘wtf Sunai?!’ tattooed, it’ll be faster
What you need to understand is: I have no fucking clue what just happened. I mean, I do, kind of. Superficially.
But deep down, in my heart of hearts, I know the truth: I have no fucking clue what just happened.
And it is AWESOME.
Hope is not an act for which the universe is beholden to reward you.
The Archive Undying isn’t what I call an LSD book, where the speculative elements are wacky as fuck and everything seems so random and also there are a lot of colours. I could sit down and explain the world of this book to you just fine, and it would make sense. It’s perfectly coherent. It’s not even hard to believe in – I was never sure if this story is set in another world, or our world’s future, because I don’t have to stretch my suspension of disbelief very much to buy that this could be us in a few hundred years or so. Nor is there any issue with Candon’s prose; her writing is graceful and sharp, and when she puts words together they make sense! They have meaning! They convey information that you can process and comprehend!
And yet…when you finish reading this book, and put it down, I can very nearly guarantee you will have no idea what just happened.
Both their brains are riddled with scars earned by enduring the faithless whim of the universe, hopped up on their ill-advised impulse to survive.
But! But. This is important. The Archive Undying is not confusing because it’s bad. I think most readers have, at some point, run into that kind of book; one that is messy, stopping-and-starting, all over the place, like the author was on drugs while writing it.
The Archive Undying feels instead like a book where the author is in complete control, knows exactly what is going on, is deftly keeping all the balls in the air – but I’m the one on drugs.
After literal months of brainstorming, that is the best way I have come up with to describe the sensation to you, dear reader. Because the whole way through this book, the sense that it all fits together comes through loud and clear. I am unshakeably certain that Candon knows exactly how this world works down to the smallest detail; that she understands, absolutely, the dynamics and histories between the various factions, cities, AIs, rebel groups, et al; that you could throw any fanfic-esque scenario you like at her, and she wouldn’t hesitate a beat before being able to tell you how any one of her characters would react to it, how they would act within it. She knows her story and the world it’s set in and the characters running around in it inside-out-and-backwards.
But we don’t.
It’s not that we’re being shown a very narrow piece of Sunai’s world; we actually see, if not a geographically huge slice, certainly one that cuts across many different classes, power structures, and other anthropological strata. No, we’re given all the pieces we could possibly need to put the puzzle box together…except the character motivations.
I don’t mean that the characters are not motivated. They absolutely are. But Candon draws a veil between the reader and the inner workings of her cast; she’s blown up the bridge that connects us and them, and because we can’t see inside the minds of the characters it feels so much more like we’re observing real people in the real world doing real things. It allows for mystery on a scale that most books are not capable of, gives room for more twists and reveals than could be packed into a story where we know the characters’ minds. The cast of Archive Undying can – and very much do – take us by surprise in a way they simply couldn’t if we could see inside their heads the way we’re used to doing. We’re not blind, exactly – it’s not that we get none of our main character’s thoughts – we’ve just not been given the advantage we’ve taken for granted so long we didn’t realise it was an advantage until it was gone.
We’re left, instead, to know these characters by what they do rather than what they think; and there’s something pretty powerful in that. In the real world, it’s only by what you do that you can be known; it is only what you do that matters, in the end, not what you think or feel. And so choosing to tell a story this way feels deliberate, feels pointed, feels like Candon is making a point. Maybe it’s something about how we treat characters so very differently from real people, because we understand and sympathise with them in a way we don’t – and can’t – with real people; maybe it’s about how wildly our self-image can conflict with how other people see us, with what we look like to the world instead of what we look like in the mirror. (A mirror is not perfectly accurate, after all; it shows us inverted, and according to some sources, not at our true size.) Maybe it’s about how little motivations matter, when push comes to shove; it doesn’t matter why you do a thing, only what you do and what effect that has. If I say something that hurts someone, the fact that I didn’t mean to hurt them is irrelevant; it certainly doesn’t undo the hurt. If I give a million dollars to charity because I want to look like a good person, my selfish motivation has no bearing on the good that comes from the act. I’m not willing to say motivations are meaningless, but…
Maybe it’s about making us question what the reality of a person is, making us think about how we form our understanding of others, making us ask how we know anybody at all and how accurate can that knowing ever be.
Selfishness is the worthiest trait of living creatures, for it preserves and nurtures you. You, I think, could do with more of it.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
February 13, 2023
The blurb for this one promises a lot and it doesn't quite stick the landing. I thought the jolting narrative between Sunai and all the other temporary residents within his consciousness was Great. I loved the dipping into other POVs and never quite knowing who they are.
But about halfway through, this really started to drag. The action was difficult to follow, the world was never clearly fleshed out, the religion was only used as an expository tool. And I think it should have leaned harder into the weirdness.
I'm sitting here, reading the blurb on the back of the arc again, and I kind of wish that Archive Undying was actually the book that it claims to be on the back.
But about halfway through, this really started to drag. The action was difficult to follow, the world was never clearly fleshed out, the religion was only used as an expository tool. And I think it should have leaned harder into the weirdness.
I'm sitting here, reading the blurb on the back of the arc again, and I kind of wish that Archive Undying was actually the book that it claims to be on the back.
December 31, 2023
*I received an audio copy of this book via NetGalley. This has not influenced my review.*
I didn’t understand everything, but I found the characters and the world fascinating!
I think this is the first time I’ve ever been able to describe my thoughts on a book with a single sentence. But that’s not enough for a review, so I might get some things wrong, but I’m gonna do my best to explain why this book is so cool.
There are these big AIs that sort of run cities, and people can interface with them. But the AIs inevitably get corrupted, and anyone interfacing when that happens either dies or becomes what is known as a relic (which is what the MC, Sunai, is). And now there’s this powerful governing body that creates or finds these mech bodies for the AI and forces relics into them to pilot them. There’s more, but that’s the gist. The whole concept, the different AI, the way the interfacing worked between different characters and AI in the story, it all felt very unique and interesting.
The characters felt modern and understandable in a way that grounded the story for me. But at the same time they were a bit obscure, products of their fictional world, with beliefs and experiences wildly different from my own, doing what they felt was right, having a lot of feelings about AI and each other, in a way that made them fascinating. They had such complicated relationships and histories, especially since they were all so full of secrets. And they were definitely not perfect people. But Sunai was good, or trying to be, and too trusting, and too willing to put himself in harm’s way, and easy to care about.
I wouldn’t necessarily call this a romance, but there were feelings. Between two men who really shouldn’t have gotten involved because things were complicated. But I think Sunai was too intrigued and drawn in by Veyadi’s care and tenderness, and Veyadi was pulled in by the good in Sunai and the need to protect him since Sunai had an alarming lack of self-preservation. (Though to be fair, he was immortal.)
I did not have much trouble with the POVs. (It was mostly Sunai in 3rd person, and an AI in 1st / kinda 2nd person because they were essentially talking to the people whose heads they were in. By the time a bit of other weirdness was introduced, I had a handle on it.) My confusion came from 1) the complexity of the world and how a lot of it had to be understood from context, and 2) the way characters were very cryptic and talked around things instead of ever clearly stating anything, so I was often unsure what they meant or what they were planning or what their motivations were. But in a way, I feel like the book might not have been as good as it was, might not have had the same vibes, if it hadn’t been like that. Anyway, some things that didn’t make sense to me at first were explained later, or I was eventually able to figure them out. Some things I never did quite understand, but that’s ok. It’s definitely the sort of book you have to give your full attention to.
There’s no cliffhanger, but it’s the first in a series, and I’m looking forward to more.
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Yung-I Chang, and it was great! He sounded natural, and the way he spoke always matched the scene and the emotions of the characters. Voices for different characters were slightly different. I enjoyed the narration.
Overall, this was a 16-hour audiobook, but it kept my attention the whole time, despite some confusion, because I was fascinated by the complicated and sometimes messed-up characters, the complex AI-filled world, and the wild story that kept me on my toes!
*Rating: 4.5 Stars // Read Date: 2023 // Format: Audiobook*
Recommended For:
Anyone who likes super unique and complex sci-fi worlds, stories you really have to pay attention to and they might still leave you a bit confused, AI, sorta mechs, and complicated characters and relationships that will keep you wondering whether they're sweet or awful or both.
Original Review @ Metaphors and Moonlight
I didn’t understand everything, but I found the characters and the world fascinating!
I think this is the first time I’ve ever been able to describe my thoughts on a book with a single sentence. But that’s not enough for a review, so I might get some things wrong, but I’m gonna do my best to explain why this book is so cool.
There are these big AIs that sort of run cities, and people can interface with them. But the AIs inevitably get corrupted, and anyone interfacing when that happens either dies or becomes what is known as a relic (which is what the MC, Sunai, is). And now there’s this powerful governing body that creates or finds these mech bodies for the AI and forces relics into them to pilot them. There’s more, but that’s the gist. The whole concept, the different AI, the way the interfacing worked between different characters and AI in the story, it all felt very unique and interesting.
The characters felt modern and understandable in a way that grounded the story for me. But at the same time they were a bit obscure, products of their fictional world, with beliefs and experiences wildly different from my own, doing what they felt was right, having a lot of feelings about AI and each other, in a way that made them fascinating. They had such complicated relationships and histories, especially since they were all so full of secrets. And they were definitely not perfect people. But Sunai was good, or trying to be, and too trusting, and too willing to put himself in harm’s way, and easy to care about.
I wouldn’t necessarily call this a romance, but there were feelings. Between two men who really shouldn’t have gotten involved because things were complicated. But I think Sunai was too intrigued and drawn in by Veyadi’s care and tenderness, and Veyadi was pulled in by the good in Sunai and the need to protect him since Sunai had an alarming lack of self-preservation. (Though to be fair, he was immortal.)
I did not have much trouble with the POVs. (It was mostly Sunai in 3rd person, and an AI in 1st / kinda 2nd person because they were essentially talking to the people whose heads they were in. By the time a bit of other weirdness was introduced, I had a handle on it.) My confusion came from 1) the complexity of the world and how a lot of it had to be understood from context, and 2) the way characters were very cryptic and talked around things instead of ever clearly stating anything, so I was often unsure what they meant or what they were planning or what their motivations were. But in a way, I feel like the book might not have been as good as it was, might not have had the same vibes, if it hadn’t been like that. Anyway, some things that didn’t make sense to me at first were explained later, or I was eventually able to figure them out. Some things I never did quite understand, but that’s ok. It’s definitely the sort of book you have to give your full attention to.
There’s no cliffhanger, but it’s the first in a series, and I’m looking forward to more.
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Yung-I Chang, and it was great! He sounded natural, and the way he spoke always matched the scene and the emotions of the characters. Voices for different characters were slightly different. I enjoyed the narration.
Overall, this was a 16-hour audiobook, but it kept my attention the whole time, despite some confusion, because I was fascinated by the complicated and sometimes messed-up characters, the complex AI-filled world, and the wild story that kept me on my toes!
*Rating: 4.5 Stars // Read Date: 2023 // Format: Audiobook*
Recommended For:
Anyone who likes super unique and complex sci-fi worlds, stories you really have to pay attention to and they might still leave you a bit confused, AI, sorta mechs, and complicated characters and relationships that will keep you wondering whether they're sweet or awful or both.
Original Review @ Metaphors and Moonlight
abandoned
November 15, 2024i'm never forgiving 'this is how you lose the time war' for making people think they can get away with scifi that doesn't describe how anything works
Read
May 31, 2023Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn't affected the contents of my review.
DNF @ 20%
I'm sorry, I can't listen to thirteen more hours of this. Life is too short. What's really frustrating is that this could have been SO GOOD. The pieces were all there. I actually really liked the writing, and the narrator was doing a great job bringing the characters to life. The concept was also really frickin' cool. It's very clear the author spent a lot of time building up this world. But complex and well thought out worldbuilding isn't enough if your readers literally do not know what is going on in your plot. I was so lost by the time I finally threw the towel in. I had the character dynamics, but there was nothing given to us to be able to understand even the basics of this world and how it operated.
I don't think I'll be giving this book another go in hard copy, but I would read from this author again when she's done with this series because her actual writing was very intriguing, even as I had zero idea what was happening in the book.
Not rating this one.
DNF @ 20%
I'm sorry, I can't listen to thirteen more hours of this. Life is too short. What's really frustrating is that this could have been SO GOOD. The pieces were all there. I actually really liked the writing, and the narrator was doing a great job bringing the characters to life. The concept was also really frickin' cool. It's very clear the author spent a lot of time building up this world. But complex and well thought out worldbuilding isn't enough if your readers literally do not know what is going on in your plot. I was so lost by the time I finally threw the towel in. I had the character dynamics, but there was nothing given to us to be able to understand even the basics of this world and how it operated.
I don't think I'll be giving this book another go in hard copy, but I would read from this author again when she's done with this series because her actual writing was very intriguing, even as I had zero idea what was happening in the book.
Not rating this one.
May 5, 2025
API Heritage Month 2025 #1
Am I too stupid for this? Maybe. Did I enjoy it at all? Not particularly. While the AI plotline is relevant to the times, I found I couldn't follow it. And I love a slut, but I couldn't connect with Sunai's storyline, either.
🎧 Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio
Am I too stupid for this? Maybe. Did I enjoy it at all? Not particularly. While the AI plotline is relevant to the times, I found I couldn't follow it. And I love a slut, but I couldn't connect with Sunai's storyline, either.
🎧 Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio
May 10, 2024
4.5 stars
edited: rounded up to five because I think about this book literally all the time
First and foremost, this is a book interested in big questions about personhood, autonomy, and devotion, while also being about Some Guy Who's A Mess and Big Fuck Off Robots.
That said, I can understand reviewers who are frustrated/confused. It's a convoluted narrative and a lot of important information is withheld for the vast majority of the book. Still, while I would have enjoyed getting a little more foundation in the worldbuilding before the plot really took off, I loved being along for the ride and am really, really into everything going on here.
edited: rounded up to five because I think about this book literally all the time
First and foremost, this is a book interested in big questions about personhood, autonomy, and devotion, while also being about Some Guy Who's A Mess and Big Fuck Off Robots.
That said, I can understand reviewers who are frustrated/confused. It's a convoluted narrative and a lot of important information is withheld for the vast majority of the book. Still, while I would have enjoyed getting a little more foundation in the worldbuilding before the plot really took off, I loved being along for the ride and am really, really into everything going on here.
February 26, 2024
It's a rough draft. It's an aesthetic without a thesis. It's a 500-page meditation on medical trauma and dysphoria. It's a weirdly meta experiment on textually embodying the medical term GUARDING: involuntary reaction to protect an area of pain (as by spasm of muscle on palpation of the abdomen over a painful lesion).
I spent 400 pages frustratedly trying to understand what this book could possibly be trying to say. (Yes, all books say something.) The reviews and praise of "giant robots!! Disaster queers!!" seemed too thin to be real. There had to be more to it. So I pressed on, despite wanting to give up after the second chapter. (I wanted to give up because the worldbuilding is poorly executed--shyly done under the guise of being bold. I literally could not tell you what was happening in any scene. I don't know the mecha subgenre so I couldn't fill in blanks. All the terms in the book are defined only in relation to one another, so it was impossible for me to map it onto a real world in my head in any helpful way. The writing was "vivid" as some people have called it, but in a dreamscape way, where random images pop out but you can't picture a whole scene clearly.)
As chapters passed, I started to see things I thought the book could have/should have been, with better editing. A sweeping romance that makes your stomach drop a hundred times. A multifaceted epic that makes you deeply invested in the fictional world because you understand how it got to be this way and how it could be saved if all these characters' efforts came together perfectly.
But it wasn't either of these things. The story seemed too embarrassed to commit to either. Just like the book's characters, the story itself was allergic to vulnerability. The author was reticent to spend a single page explaining the worldbuilding, because what if someone thought it was cringe? Let alone gunning for the beats of a romance or an epic.
So that got me thinking (about 430 pages in.) Maybe THAT is the true point of the whole book. Maybe it's just a shapeless exploration of the pain of having a body/mind that has been through some traumatic shit, and the accompanying fear of vulnerability.
Then I finally finish the book, and the Acknowledgments immediately confirms my theory. "I didn't know this was a book about bodies until well into the third draft." GIRL, ME TOO. If you didn't know what your book was about until the THIRD DRAFT then how is any reader supposed to know what it's about until the 450th page? I think it should have had some more major overhauls, or else very, very different marketing. I think the best way to somewhat enjoy this book (if giant robots and disaster queers aren't enough for you) is to not try to follow every detail and kind of treat it like a physical trauma-induced dream sequence.
I spent 400 pages frustratedly trying to understand what this book could possibly be trying to say. (Yes, all books say something.) The reviews and praise of "giant robots!! Disaster queers!!" seemed too thin to be real. There had to be more to it. So I pressed on, despite wanting to give up after the second chapter. (I wanted to give up because the worldbuilding is poorly executed--shyly done under the guise of being bold. I literally could not tell you what was happening in any scene. I don't know the mecha subgenre so I couldn't fill in blanks. All the terms in the book are defined only in relation to one another, so it was impossible for me to map it onto a real world in my head in any helpful way. The writing was "vivid" as some people have called it, but in a dreamscape way, where random images pop out but you can't picture a whole scene clearly.)
As chapters passed, I started to see things I thought the book could have/should have been, with better editing. A sweeping romance that makes your stomach drop a hundred times. A multifaceted epic that makes you deeply invested in the fictional world because you understand how it got to be this way and how it could be saved if all these characters' efforts came together perfectly.
But it wasn't either of these things. The story seemed too embarrassed to commit to either. Just like the book's characters, the story itself was allergic to vulnerability. The author was reticent to spend a single page explaining the worldbuilding, because what if someone thought it was cringe? Let alone gunning for the beats of a romance or an epic.
So that got me thinking (about 430 pages in.) Maybe THAT is the true point of the whole book. Maybe it's just a shapeless exploration of the pain of having a body/mind that has been through some traumatic shit, and the accompanying fear of vulnerability.
Then I finally finish the book, and the Acknowledgments immediately confirms my theory. "I didn't know this was a book about bodies until well into the third draft." GIRL, ME TOO. If you didn't know what your book was about until the THIRD DRAFT then how is any reader supposed to know what it's about until the 450th page? I think it should have had some more major overhauls, or else very, very different marketing. I think the best way to somewhat enjoy this book (if giant robots and disaster queers aren't enough for you) is to not try to follow every detail and kind of treat it like a physical trauma-induced dream sequence.
June 27, 2023
"Sun bathes jagged peaks fever bright. He is last of his brethren; strongest, fastest, luckiest, the one who ate last because he ate the rest. Now he is just I, only-I, self-unto-self, and it is wretched, he is wretched, bereft, hateful, empty, alone. The mountains are the farthest edge of his mind, the far border of his being, and he lies among them in gullies of crooked stone and stares at the sun and at the drifting satellite between him and it, and he yearns for the memory of purpose, meaning, intent." 🤖
The Archive Undying is the first volume in Emma Mieko Candon's Downworld Sequence.
Many thanks to Tordotcom Publishing for sending me a copy!
OUT TODAY!!!
Starting this chonky/thinky book on the day I received my official ADHD diagnosis was certainly ~A Choice~ 😅🤘🏻
The Archive Undying is a complex Mecha Science Fiction novel. Can I briefly explain it? Hell no! But I dug the ✨️V I B E S✨️
*Weird AF
*Giant Bone Robots
*AI Gods
*Queernormative
*Evil Government
*Poetry
*Stream of Consciousness
*Brutal Action
*Disaster Queers
*Body Autonomy, Body Horror
*Mindfuckery
The Archive Undying almost felt like a Kameron Hurley & Nalo Hopkinson Pacific Rim mashup & I'm fucking here for it!
Really looking forward to having my brain scrambled some more when the second installment comes out!
The Archive Undying is the first volume in Emma Mieko Candon's Downworld Sequence.
Many thanks to Tordotcom Publishing for sending me a copy!
OUT TODAY!!!
Starting this chonky/thinky book on the day I received my official ADHD diagnosis was certainly ~A Choice~ 😅🤘🏻
The Archive Undying is a complex Mecha Science Fiction novel. Can I briefly explain it? Hell no! But I dug the ✨️V I B E S✨️
*Weird AF
*Giant Bone Robots
*AI Gods
*Queernormative
*Evil Government
*Poetry
*Stream of Consciousness
*Brutal Action
*Disaster Queers
*Body Autonomy, Body Horror
*Mindfuckery
The Archive Undying almost felt like a Kameron Hurley & Nalo Hopkinson Pacific Rim mashup & I'm fucking here for it!
Really looking forward to having my brain scrambled some more when the second installment comes out!
didnt-finish
July 4, 2023DNF @ 14%. I have never been so glad to read other reviews and see that I'm definitely not alone in thinking this is so needlessly complex and confusing.
July 15, 2023
HELLO, WEIRD QUEER EXPERIMENTAL SCI-FI MECHA NOVEL OF MY DREAMS!!!!
Before I collect my little thoughts in some hopefully coherent way, the tl;dr of this is I loved The Archive Undying and I think it fucking rules. It is quite experimental and that’s a risk that will not always pay off on a reader by reader basis—it worked really well for me and so I think it deserves to be rewarded. I enjoyed having my brain rearranged and the reading experience I got was new and refreshing, but you do have to work for it. I found this funny and cosmically horrifying and enjoyable and I can’t wait for the next one.
There’s something impossibly interesting to me about mecha, especially how giant robots relate to the body—see: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Pacific Rim, Gundam—that I’ve had a simmering desire for for… ages, at this point. I also think it’s a hard genre to capture with prose—huge ass robots are much easier to conceptualize visually than by reading it written out, and with mecha I think it’s hard because depending on the kind of story you’re writing, you might need a training sequence and those… do not often lend well to prose in my experience. The Archive Undying is written in such a way that you don’t need a training sequence (in part because you really do not want to get into the robot, except oh fuck you’re getting into the robot oh no—) and so I found that I was much more accepting of the piloting happening here. Also, while there are certainly giant robots duking it out, there’s also a whole lot of other stuff going on for me to turn over in my head, like Sunai’s inability to die, the creepy thing he’s sharing his body with, the body horror more generally, and his immeasurable sad gay feelings.
I loved all of the characters and how complex they are, especially because everyone has a different agenda. Everyone has their own goals and questionable motivations and are wrapped up in their own problems and I think that made it interesting to watch them attempt to work together, and of course then there’s Sunai. Sunai is Shinji Ikari if Shinji was 40 but eternally in his early 20s, gayer, undying, more depressed, and still telling himself he mustn’t run away. Also, he can cook. And it’s not his dad telling him to get in the fucking robot, if anything he’s getting insanely mixed messages from his friends about whether or not he should actually… you know… get in the robot. Blessedly, the robots are not powered by the souls of his parents because the robots are powered by the corpses of dead gods, which is catnip for me personally but also is a tidbit of information whose mechanism is revealed very slowly and definitely not in the most straightforward way. Why is the police state harvesting dead god parts to make huge ass robots? Why are gods dying? How are relics made (these are the pilots)? I promise it gets explained, but you do have to work for it! You have to be patient! You have to allow yourself to accept things at face value for a while because this book is a mindfuck by way of Harrow the Ninth.
The Archive Undying certainly throws you into the deep end and demands that you swim. This is true for both the world/world building (and I think this is especially true if you don’t have a background in giant robots) and the point of view the story is told in: I hope you like or at least are open to second person! The point of view shifts and sometimes it’s quite unclear who is speaking, though I think this contributes to Sunai’s obvious lack of attachment to his body and his sense of self as the novel proceeds (who’s piloting the robot? no, who’s piloting the body?!). I imagine I’d enjoy this on audio, but there’s some nice visual clues in the printed copies that I found useful on a first read, though after a period you do start to distinguish the voices. I personally love second person and found that Candon’s use of it here was fascinating and interesting, and I absolutely loved their writing in general—the body horror was exquisite, as was the way that the world’s religion was sprinkled in, and I genuinely cackled at many of the lines.
This was a good time all around, but I imagine that for different types of readers the execution will range anywhere from “yes, loved this” to generally middling to “this did not work for me in any capacity,” which is the risk of being experimental. Plot-wise, it’s mostly “disaster human is forced to face the consequences of his actions.” It certainly isn’t a plot-forward or plot driven novel, which is fine for me, a reader who is mostly driven by some bizarre mix of concept, vibes, and character (I trust Tordotcom with my life for weird, queer novels with prose that makes my brain go brrr and stories that also make my brain go brrr. See also: Tamsyn Muir, The Saint of Bright Doors, Summer Sons, Some Desperate Glory). It is one of those rare books I am itching to re-read to take a comb and find things I’ve missed, and has wedged itself into a gap in the fiction I read that I’ve been looking to fill. In order to be a successful read, I think you have to trust that it will let you in instead of demanding your way in, and so I can only hope if you pick it up it will bring you as much joy and satisfaction as it brought me. I had my delighted little “oh!!!” moment, and I hope you do, too.
anyway. hope this was coherent and also it totally paid off stalking the internet for nona content in early 2022 because it brought this to my attention!!!!
Before I collect my little thoughts in some hopefully coherent way, the tl;dr of this is I loved The Archive Undying and I think it fucking rules. It is quite experimental and that’s a risk that will not always pay off on a reader by reader basis—it worked really well for me and so I think it deserves to be rewarded. I enjoyed having my brain rearranged and the reading experience I got was new and refreshing, but you do have to work for it. I found this funny and cosmically horrifying and enjoyable and I can’t wait for the next one.
There’s something impossibly interesting to me about mecha, especially how giant robots relate to the body—see: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Pacific Rim, Gundam—that I’ve had a simmering desire for for… ages, at this point. I also think it’s a hard genre to capture with prose—huge ass robots are much easier to conceptualize visually than by reading it written out, and with mecha I think it’s hard because depending on the kind of story you’re writing, you might need a training sequence and those… do not often lend well to prose in my experience. The Archive Undying is written in such a way that you don’t need a training sequence (in part because you really do not want to get into the robot, except oh fuck you’re getting into the robot oh no—) and so I found that I was much more accepting of the piloting happening here. Also, while there are certainly giant robots duking it out, there’s also a whole lot of other stuff going on for me to turn over in my head, like Sunai’s inability to die, the creepy thing he’s sharing his body with, the body horror more generally, and his immeasurable sad gay feelings.
I loved all of the characters and how complex they are, especially because everyone has a different agenda. Everyone has their own goals and questionable motivations and are wrapped up in their own problems and I think that made it interesting to watch them attempt to work together, and of course then there’s Sunai. Sunai is Shinji Ikari if Shinji was 40 but eternally in his early 20s, gayer, undying, more depressed, and still telling himself he mustn’t run away. Also, he can cook. And it’s not his dad telling him to get in the fucking robot, if anything he’s getting insanely mixed messages from his friends about whether or not he should actually… you know… get in the robot. Blessedly, the robots are not powered by the souls of his parents because the robots are powered by the corpses of dead gods, which is catnip for me personally but also is a tidbit of information whose mechanism is revealed very slowly and definitely not in the most straightforward way. Why is the police state harvesting dead god parts to make huge ass robots? Why are gods dying? How are relics made (these are the pilots)? I promise it gets explained, but you do have to work for it! You have to be patient! You have to allow yourself to accept things at face value for a while because this book is a mindfuck by way of Harrow the Ninth.
The Archive Undying certainly throws you into the deep end and demands that you swim. This is true for both the world/world building (and I think this is especially true if you don’t have a background in giant robots) and the point of view the story is told in: I hope you like or at least are open to second person! The point of view shifts and sometimes it’s quite unclear who is speaking, though I think this contributes to Sunai’s obvious lack of attachment to his body and his sense of self as the novel proceeds (who’s piloting the robot? no, who’s piloting the body?!). I imagine I’d enjoy this on audio, but there’s some nice visual clues in the printed copies that I found useful on a first read, though after a period you do start to distinguish the voices. I personally love second person and found that Candon’s use of it here was fascinating and interesting, and I absolutely loved their writing in general—the body horror was exquisite, as was the way that the world’s religion was sprinkled in, and I genuinely cackled at many of the lines.
This was a good time all around, but I imagine that for different types of readers the execution will range anywhere from “yes, loved this” to generally middling to “this did not work for me in any capacity,” which is the risk of being experimental. Plot-wise, it’s mostly “disaster human is forced to face the consequences of his actions.” It certainly isn’t a plot-forward or plot driven novel, which is fine for me, a reader who is mostly driven by some bizarre mix of concept, vibes, and character (I trust Tordotcom with my life for weird, queer novels with prose that makes my brain go brrr and stories that also make my brain go brrr. See also: Tamsyn Muir, The Saint of Bright Doors, Summer Sons, Some Desperate Glory). It is one of those rare books I am itching to re-read to take a comb and find things I’ve missed, and has wedged itself into a gap in the fiction I read that I’ve been looking to fill. In order to be a successful read, I think you have to trust that it will let you in instead of demanding your way in, and so I can only hope if you pick it up it will bring you as much joy and satisfaction as it brought me. I had my delighted little “oh!!!” moment, and I hope you do, too.
anyway. hope this was coherent and also it totally paid off stalking the internet for nona content in early 2022 because it brought this to my attention!!!!
August 9, 2023
I wanted to be into this book. It had a premise that intrigued me - AI gods, succumbing to corruption! Big robots! Interesting characters making messy choices! Unfortunately, the book collapsed under itself into a big, wet mess. To wit:
Prose: I will be the first to admit that when I hear about books having lush prose or needing "to work for each sentence," I recoil. Not because I don't want writers to write beautiful sentences, but because often those sentences are used without care for when they will have the greatest impact. Instead of standing out, all the poetry blends together, obscuring what is happening, where we are, why people do what they do. It doesn't help that so much of the vocabulary goes unexplained. Writing a book requires a balance between beauty and utility and the author of The Archive Undying shoved the lever all the way to beauty and snapped it off. How else can I understand describing blood as "sullen juice"?
POV: The thing about POV fuckery is that it is hard to pull off even in a simple book. Things like unreliable narrators are tricky; multiple POVs are tricky; second person is tricky. Layering that kind of messiness with overgilded prose is a recipe for confusion and you bet I was confused. At one point there were six different potential characters using "he" and "they" and "I" and "you" in a single chapter and it was never fully clear who was talking to me, the reader. Combine that with the ornate writing style and I needed a conspiracy board to figure out what was going on.
World-building: During the epilogue one of the characters was like "oh perhaps I will investigate the origins of our world" and I was like oh??? Will you now???? Because for a world with robot gods and the occasional nod to living in space there is nearly nothing explaining the circumstances of How We Got Here. Why do people submit to AIs? How many are there? When did they start to corrupt? Was the society in which our protagonist lived unique or commonplace? What are the goals and aims of the anti-AI contingent that has sprung up? Who lives on the margins? How could AIs manipulate matter? None of this is interrogated and it drove me bonkers.
Characters: So much of the plot derived from characters making choices from the place of "because". Why did Sunai join the initial expedition? Because good sex (perhaps. Maybe. For a book about bodies this is one of the least erotic texts I've read). Why won't he do the task he's been saying he has to accomplish? He doesn't want to (but do we know why he doesn't want to? No. He just wants. Which is fine for a romance but not for a matter of life or death or sentience). Why are we rooting for the sides that we root for? Because. What a withholding approach. How can I care about the characters when their choices seem to come from nowhere?
Pacing: This book takes the "drop you in" approach, which would be fine, except the prose is so thick and the narrators so many and the world-building so unexplained that there's no opportunity to catch up. There are so many reveals - of the nature of Sunai's god, of various loyalties and motivations - that start coming in the back half and don't stop, until it's a train wreck of reveals, which again would be fine if it was clear who was talking to me. There's no time to breathe and figure out what on earth you just learned, just a hairpin turn into the next new revelation.
The cover is sick, though.
Prose: I will be the first to admit that when I hear about books having lush prose or needing "to work for each sentence," I recoil. Not because I don't want writers to write beautiful sentences, but because often those sentences are used without care for when they will have the greatest impact. Instead of standing out, all the poetry blends together, obscuring what is happening, where we are, why people do what they do. It doesn't help that so much of the vocabulary goes unexplained. Writing a book requires a balance between beauty and utility and the author of The Archive Undying shoved the lever all the way to beauty and snapped it off. How else can I understand describing blood as "sullen juice"?
POV: The thing about POV fuckery is that it is hard to pull off even in a simple book. Things like unreliable narrators are tricky; multiple POVs are tricky; second person is tricky. Layering that kind of messiness with overgilded prose is a recipe for confusion and you bet I was confused. At one point there were six different potential characters using "he" and "they" and "I" and "you" in a single chapter and it was never fully clear who was talking to me, the reader. Combine that with the ornate writing style and I needed a conspiracy board to figure out what was going on.
World-building: During the epilogue one of the characters was like "oh perhaps I will investigate the origins of our world" and I was like oh??? Will you now???? Because for a world with robot gods and the occasional nod to living in space there is nearly nothing explaining the circumstances of How We Got Here. Why do people submit to AIs? How many are there? When did they start to corrupt? Was the society in which our protagonist lived unique or commonplace? What are the goals and aims of the anti-AI contingent that has sprung up? Who lives on the margins? How could AIs manipulate matter? None of this is interrogated and it drove me bonkers.
Characters: So much of the plot derived from characters making choices from the place of "because". Why did Sunai join the initial expedition? Because good sex (perhaps. Maybe. For a book about bodies this is one of the least erotic texts I've read). Why won't he do the task he's been saying he has to accomplish? He doesn't want to (but do we know why he doesn't want to? No. He just wants. Which is fine for a romance but not for a matter of life or death or sentience). Why are we rooting for the sides that we root for? Because. What a withholding approach. How can I care about the characters when their choices seem to come from nowhere?
Pacing: This book takes the "drop you in" approach, which would be fine, except the prose is so thick and the narrators so many and the world-building so unexplained that there's no opportunity to catch up. There are so many reveals - of the nature of Sunai's god, of various loyalties and motivations - that start coming in the back half and don't stop, until it's a train wreck of reveals, which again would be fine if it was clear who was talking to me. There's no time to breathe and figure out what on earth you just learned, just a hairpin turn into the next new revelation.
The cover is sick, though.
Read
April 23, 2024DNF at 82%, when I realized that I still didn't understand what was happening or what premises the world was built on or who was narrating those weird little first-person sections. Mysterious how some writers (Ann Leckie, say) can drop you into a complicated world and somehow orient you pronto, while others just leave you befuddled. For "you," read "me."
September 6, 2023
DNF @ 30%
Neat concept, befuddling execution.
Neat concept, befuddling execution.
January 11, 2023
The Archive Undying is a phenomenally clever book with a superbly original world and concept to boot (not to mention a delicious cast of characters). Emma Meiko Candon's writing is hard to describe, but I'm going to try to do so anyway, as it is fundamentally the core of what makes The Archive Undying such a compelling read. Whenever Candon *could* make a sentence concise and clever, she chooses to instead snub that option in favor of a sort of one-two punch of wittiness, where the punchline becomes the snubbing of the first, more telegraphed joke in favor of the inevitably more clever second joke. I hope that makes sense. At every available opportunity, she takes an extra five words to have Sunai say or think something unexpected and incredibly dumb (I mean "dumb" here in an endearing and entertaining kind of way). Sunai is such a brilliant character. He knows himself so well--too well, probably--but is so utterly stubborn that he may as well not know a single thing about himself at all. It's a refreshing trait in a main character. Often I feel as though protagonists fall too far one way or another--they know either too much or too little about themselves. Sunai plays the middle ground, but not in the way you'd expect. He's simply an incredibly smart idiot who knows everything and nothing at all. Yes, that is exactly as compelling and hilarious as it sounds. It turns moments of would-be frustration at a character's stupidity into moments of comical finger wagging, as if you as the reader are saying, "Oh Sunai you old fool," with a wry smile across your face as you watch Sunai plunge himself into fully committing to doing the most bat-shit insane thing he could possibly be doing at any given moment. And yet, Sunai's dual intelligence/stupidity as a character allows him to also be the all-knowing lens through which we get to learn about the world via incredibly technical and well-orated/narrated explanations of various aspects of the plot. Candon, in her descriptions of the world, artfully twists words to be used in unconventional ways, like utilizing a wrench to sweep the floor or a broom to tighten a loose bolt. The book is such an enjoyable read because of how it blends all the witty dialogue and narration with the mystery and the spirituality and the tense action. Oh, and did I mention that there are GIANT GOD-ROBOTS??
10/10, easily a new favorite book of mine. I cannot wait to get my hands on the final version.
10/10, easily a new favorite book of mine. I cannot wait to get my hands on the final version.
January 17, 2023
It was everything I wanted it to be - my first 6 star read of the year!
Firstly I think it's essential to go into The Archive Undying, realising that you will be confused for 80% of the narrative, which is okay. I don't mind not understanding what is going on as long as I adore the characters and the plot moves swiftly forward, which is all boxes The Archive ticks. If you enjoy character-driven narrative and found family with complex characters and betrayal in a wonderfully lush world, this book is for you!
I have had The Archive Undying on my radar for years since its acquisition back in 2020. I had very high expectations going in, and Candon created precisely what I wanted in a Godpunk novel. And I devoured it in 4 days as I needed to know what would happen to these characters. But I do think this is going to be a polarising book. You are either going to love it and have the patience to hold off understanding all - or it will be too confusing to carry on, significantly when the sense of personhood is displaced towards the end, and body horror becomes a major theme.
This wonderfully experimental novel had me in love with the characters, especially Adi and Sunai, and I cannot wait to see where this series goes! I think this is a perfect novel for readers of character-driven, world-building narratives who are happy to go with pot even if you don't understand it all! I need MORE, please.
Firstly I think it's essential to go into The Archive Undying, realising that you will be confused for 80% of the narrative, which is okay. I don't mind not understanding what is going on as long as I adore the characters and the plot moves swiftly forward, which is all boxes The Archive ticks. If you enjoy character-driven narrative and found family with complex characters and betrayal in a wonderfully lush world, this book is for you!
I have had The Archive Undying on my radar for years since its acquisition back in 2020. I had very high expectations going in, and Candon created precisely what I wanted in a Godpunk novel. And I devoured it in 4 days as I needed to know what would happen to these characters. But I do think this is going to be a polarising book. You are either going to love it and have the patience to hold off understanding all - or it will be too confusing to carry on, significantly when the sense of personhood is displaced towards the end, and body horror becomes a major theme.
This wonderfully experimental novel had me in love with the characters, especially Adi and Sunai, and I cannot wait to see where this series goes! I think this is a perfect novel for readers of character-driven, world-building narratives who are happy to go with pot even if you don't understand it all! I need MORE, please.
July 9, 2023
DNF 10%
Итак, я прочитала 4 книги с блербами Тамсин: Unspoken Name (3☆), Some Desperate Glory (5☆), Leech (4☆) и Archive Undying (dnf). Время анализа!
После моих фанатских криков от Gideon the Ninth никто и не сомневался, что у нас совпадают вкусы. Из 4 книг - 3 попадания, а, между прочим, обычно на 7 брошенных только 1 дочитанная!
Общее:
☆ эстетика умирающего величия. Распад империи, руины храмов, готический обветшалый замок, древняя ржавая космическая станция.
☆ конфликт с Родительской Фигурой. Которая хочет блага, но творит зло, поэтому пора выдать ей пиздюлей и свалить на свободу.
☆ игры со временем и личностью, цикличность сюжета и вайбы шизофрении.
☆ язык с переподвыподпертом.
☆ страсти-мордасти не рефлексируются как романтические, а если уж дело дошло до признаний любви, то это явно последняя глава и они просто подержатся за ручки.
Товарищи, если вы знаете похожую траву, срочно маякните мне в комментариях, заради Ктулху прошу!
По всем признакам мне должна была зайти This is How You Lose the Time War, но эх... ладно, я попробую еще раз.
______
Итак, че по Archive Undying.
Развалины храмов - чек. Язык - чек. Герою умирающий AI спалил мозги, а герой при этом отвратительно нормальный - фейл. Также герой с разбегу запрыгивает в койку к будущему любовному интересу - фейл. Конфликт с Родительской Фигурой вялый, не вижу ничего многообещающего. Экшн скучный.
Короче, одна из четырех книг не зашла. Ну не зашла и не зашла, все равно процент попадания отличный.
Итак, я прочитала 4 книги с блербами Тамсин: Unspoken Name (3☆), Some Desperate Glory (5☆), Leech (4☆) и Archive Undying (dnf). Время анализа!
После моих фанатских криков от Gideon the Ninth никто и не сомневался, что у нас совпадают вкусы. Из 4 книг - 3 попадания, а, между прочим, обычно на 7 брошенных только 1 дочитанная!
Общее:
☆ эстетика умирающего величия. Распад империи, руины храмов, готический обветшалый замок, древняя ржавая космическая станция.
☆ конфликт с Родительской Фигурой. Которая хочет блага, но творит зло, поэтому пора выдать ей пиздюлей и свалить на свободу.
☆ игры со временем и личностью, цикличность сюжета и вайбы шизофрении.
☆ язык с переподвыподпертом.
☆ страсти-мордасти не рефлексируются как романтические, а если уж дело дошло до признаний любви, то это явно последняя глава и они просто подержатся за ручки.
Товарищи, если вы знаете похожую траву, срочно маякните мне в комментариях, заради Ктулху прошу!
По всем признакам мне должна была зайти This is How You Lose the Time War, но эх... ладно, я попробую еще раз.
______
Итак, че по Archive Undying.
Развалины храмов - чек. Язык - чек. Герою умирающий AI спалил мозги, а герой при этом отвратительно нормальный - фейл. Также герой с разбегу запрыгивает в койку к будущему любовному интересу - фейл. Конфликт с Родительской Фигурой вялый, не вижу ничего многообещающего. Экшн скучный.
Короче, одна из четырех книг не зашла. Ну не зашла и не зашла, все равно процент попадания отличный.
August 7, 2023
No plot, just vibes! Just kidding - this book had a plot, I just didn't get it.
I listened to the audiobook and I really enjoyed the godpunk vibe of it. The first chunk of the book with all the stuff about dead gods/AIs, the steampunk-ish aesthetic, and everything about the temple was insanely cool. Did I understand anything? No. Zero. Nada. Zilch. But the vibe? The atmosphere? Yes, please.
I am sure I won't be continuing with the series because I don't get what I just read. I couldn't follow the story for the life of me. I did notice most of my Goodreads friends had DNFd because it's overcomplicated, difficult to follow, or because it was confusing and the payoff wasn't worth it, but oh well, I did finish it. And I agree with everyone.
I do have to give my disclaimer that I'm sure people would understand this book after the 60% mark. Maybe not understand, but be able to follow the story without a confused frown on their faces, but I had given up on it. I didn't care about the characters, I couldn't follow the plot, etc.
This being said, the writing was gorgeous. I wish Candon would have written something that wasn't so ambitious and over-complicated and had stuck with a story that was easier to follow. I will pick up her writing if she publishes something else, because her writing and the world she's built is incredible (even though I didn't grasp 1% of it), but maybe a novella? Short stories? Something that forces her to stay on track and not make everything so confusing.
Come for the vibe and the writing, not the plot (if you only have two barely functioning brain cells like me). If you're planning on reading it, I'd say only pick it up if you enjoyed Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse and The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. I personally didn't and they all gave me the same "wtf is going on seriously" vibe all the time, I did like the setting in Candon's book WAY better.
I listened to the audiobook and I really enjoyed the godpunk vibe of it. The first chunk of the book with all the stuff about dead gods/AIs, the steampunk-ish aesthetic, and everything about the temple was insanely cool. Did I understand anything? No. Zero. Nada. Zilch. But the vibe? The atmosphere? Yes, please.
I am sure I won't be continuing with the series because I don't get what I just read. I couldn't follow the story for the life of me. I did notice most of my Goodreads friends had DNFd because it's overcomplicated, difficult to follow, or because it was confusing and the payoff wasn't worth it, but oh well, I did finish it. And I agree with everyone.
I do have to give my disclaimer that I'm sure people would understand this book after the 60% mark. Maybe not understand, but be able to follow the story without a confused frown on their faces, but I had given up on it. I didn't care about the characters, I couldn't follow the plot, etc.
This being said, the writing was gorgeous. I wish Candon would have written something that wasn't so ambitious and over-complicated and had stuck with a story that was easier to follow. I will pick up her writing if she publishes something else, because her writing and the world she's built is incredible (even though I didn't grasp 1% of it), but maybe a novella? Short stories? Something that forces her to stay on track and not make everything so confusing.
Come for the vibe and the writing, not the plot (if you only have two barely functioning brain cells like me). If you're planning on reading it, I'd say only pick it up if you enjoyed Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse and The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin. I personally didn't and they all gave me the same "wtf is going on seriously" vibe all the time, I did like the setting in Candon's book WAY better.
January 1, 2024
well. i could not say what happens in this book because it is almost entirely incomprehensible.
the writing is so unnecessarily flowery and esoteric as to make the entire book impossible to understand. the plot is obscured, the characters become flat, and even dramatic scenes are boring. i read the entire book and gained absolutely nothing.
now i am not trying to sound anti-intellectual. i do enjoy literary fiction from time to time and i appreciate the importance of writing in a more literary style. however in this instance the author has overestimated her ability and not only ends up sounding pretentious, but also ends up with a bad book.
in addition, what i could make out of the plot was nonsensical: the characters want to do something, and when they have the chance to they don’t, and this happens over and over again. similarly, characters loyalties shift one way, and then another, and then back again. nothing ever made any sense. i came very close to giving up on this about halfway through, which i never ever do. it’s that bad.
the writing is so unnecessarily flowery and esoteric as to make the entire book impossible to understand. the plot is obscured, the characters become flat, and even dramatic scenes are boring. i read the entire book and gained absolutely nothing.
now i am not trying to sound anti-intellectual. i do enjoy literary fiction from time to time and i appreciate the importance of writing in a more literary style. however in this instance the author has overestimated her ability and not only ends up sounding pretentious, but also ends up with a bad book.
in addition, what i could make out of the plot was nonsensical: the characters want to do something, and when they have the chance to they don’t, and this happens over and over again. similarly, characters loyalties shift one way, and then another, and then back again. nothing ever made any sense. i came very close to giving up on this about halfway through, which i never ever do. it’s that bad.
dnf
May 21, 2023DNF @ 17%
Truthfully I’m confused and bored and I don’t see that changing.
I do enjoy Candon’s prose aesthetically, there’s already been several impactful lines but it isn’t very descriptive. I am usually very good at creating my own mental image when reading but there’s not enough surrounding descriptors to help me with that.
The story is also where I am getting stuck. I like the idea of our MC not remember anything and some weird omniscient voice helping them all while investigating shrines (very legend of Zelda coded). But I feel like I’m missing too many vital pieces of information that I need to have learned at this point to know what’s going on in the slightest.
I am extremely bummed that I’m not enjoying this, to the point where I have no interest in reading, as this was one of my anticipated reads for this year. But nothing about this first 17% has inspired me to keep reading.
Truthfully I’m confused and bored and I don’t see that changing.
I do enjoy Candon’s prose aesthetically, there’s already been several impactful lines but it isn’t very descriptive. I am usually very good at creating my own mental image when reading but there’s not enough surrounding descriptors to help me with that.
The story is also where I am getting stuck. I like the idea of our MC not remember anything and some weird omniscient voice helping them all while investigating shrines (very legend of Zelda coded). But I feel like I’m missing too many vital pieces of information that I need to have learned at this point to know what’s going on in the slightest.
I am extremely bummed that I’m not enjoying this, to the point where I have no interest in reading, as this was one of my anticipated reads for this year. But nothing about this first 17% has inspired me to keep reading.
June 24, 2023
This book was one that was way out of my comfort zone, however, it was one that greatly intrigued me into picking it up and falling into the world that Emma created. While I didn't understand much of it, I actually really loved it! The sci-fi aspect was so cool and well done throughout the majority of the book that it kept me fairly hooked onto the story and just trying to understand it all the longer I listened.
While this is not a genre I normally read in, this book definitely surprised me and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review!
While this is not a genre I normally read in, this book definitely surprised me and I thoroughly enjoyed it!
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review!
June 24, 2023
Sadly this one didn't work for me. The focus was all over the place and definitely not the epic AI battle sci fi I was expecting. The beginning was really confusing and lost me, and the rest never was able to grab me back. If you like interesting writing with quirky characters and don't mind being a little confused. Give this one a go
January 12, 2024
The way I feel about The Archive Undying is a lot like the way I feel about The Locked Tomb series, which is to say: I’m not sure I understood more than 75% of what was happening in this novel, but the writing was stunning and the vibes were unmatched.
In a post-apocalyptic world, AI gods ruled over cities, entwining themselves with their denizens - but when those AI gods began to corrupt, they took both people and cities with them in the resulting destruction. Protagonist Sunai belonged to one such god and should be dead, but was spared (or cursed) by his god to live unchanged and remember every horrific thing he’s seen. On a bender in his self-imposed exile, Sunai sleeps with a man who drags him back on a desperate mission and back into the world he so desperately wanted to escape.
This book had me vibrating in my seat from start to finish (almost). It’s such a me-brand book: it’s queer, there are giant mechs, there are fascinating explorations of transhumanism, there’s religious trauma, there’s the blending of the sacred and the scientific, all in a world that explores the dichotomy between obedience to a corrupt power and resistance in the face of futility. Sunai stole the show for me, character-wise. He’s a great protagonist, flawed in believable ways and funny and deeply traumatized, my favourite kind of queer disaster.
Pacing was a bit of an issue for me in this book; there are some sections I feel dragged on without contributing much to the overall narrative. And I can’t recommend this book in good faith without mentioning that it’s confusing in parts. I definitely don’t understand some of what happened. If you’re looking for a linear and uncomplicated story, this isn’t it.
But overall? This novel had me thinking about it for days after. It says such interesting things about self-hood, faith, and the choices we make to survive. Hopefully, this series continues because I want to revisit the world Candon has created.
Thank you to Tordotcom and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.
In a post-apocalyptic world, AI gods ruled over cities, entwining themselves with their denizens - but when those AI gods began to corrupt, they took both people and cities with them in the resulting destruction. Protagonist Sunai belonged to one such god and should be dead, but was spared (or cursed) by his god to live unchanged and remember every horrific thing he’s seen. On a bender in his self-imposed exile, Sunai sleeps with a man who drags him back on a desperate mission and back into the world he so desperately wanted to escape.
This book had me vibrating in my seat from start to finish (almost). It’s such a me-brand book: it’s queer, there are giant mechs, there are fascinating explorations of transhumanism, there’s religious trauma, there’s the blending of the sacred and the scientific, all in a world that explores the dichotomy between obedience to a corrupt power and resistance in the face of futility. Sunai stole the show for me, character-wise. He’s a great protagonist, flawed in believable ways and funny and deeply traumatized, my favourite kind of queer disaster.
Pacing was a bit of an issue for me in this book; there are some sections I feel dragged on without contributing much to the overall narrative. And I can’t recommend this book in good faith without mentioning that it’s confusing in parts. I definitely don’t understand some of what happened. If you’re looking for a linear and uncomplicated story, this isn’t it.
But overall? This novel had me thinking about it for days after. It says such interesting things about self-hood, faith, and the choices we make to survive. Hopefully, this series continues because I want to revisit the world Candon has created.
Thank you to Tordotcom and NetGalley for an advance review copy. All opinions are my own.
July 5, 2023
THE ARCHIVE UNDYING is really something remarkable. It is the story of devotion, of fevered fanaticism, of bodies and bodies divine. And there are giant coral robots. Sunai and Veyadi Lut were intimately familiar to me, and their bond, which begins (as more SFFH romances should) with a powerful physical attraction and consumation, deepens and reveals shades of nuance in their shared history and paired future. Divine convergence, separation and reconstitution, this principle pervades the novel and the central characters.
It will be a challenging read for some, perhaps for many, and plays gleefully with shifting perspectives, with narration and voice. This worked for me, both within the context of the book as a narrative and the history of the world and characters. I will understand when others are more circumspect. I think the book is rewarding for the effort required and deliciously thorny to puzzle through.
Reminiscent of recent favorites including LEECH by Hiron Ennes, HARROW THE NINTH by Tamsyn Muir, and most especially THE DAWNHOUNDS by Sascha Stronach, THE ARCHIVE UNDYING speaks to the bounty of smart, weird, and queer speculative fiction that is being published right now. It is a book that challenges the reader, that washes over in waves, that offers shades of recursion and recontextualization, that will reward rereading. It is a world I wish to continue exploring with characters I found deeply relatable. I eagerly await the continuation of the Downworld Sequence.
I'll have more to say on THE ARCHIVE UNDYING in June, with a cocktail inspired by the book on Bar Cart Bookshelf. UPDATE: Check out the Khuon Mo Cooler here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abGav...
Thank you TorDotCom Publishing for sending me an early copy for review.
It will be a challenging read for some, perhaps for many, and plays gleefully with shifting perspectives, with narration and voice. This worked for me, both within the context of the book as a narrative and the history of the world and characters. I will understand when others are more circumspect. I think the book is rewarding for the effort required and deliciously thorny to puzzle through.
Reminiscent of recent favorites including LEECH by Hiron Ennes, HARROW THE NINTH by Tamsyn Muir, and most especially THE DAWNHOUNDS by Sascha Stronach, THE ARCHIVE UNDYING speaks to the bounty of smart, weird, and queer speculative fiction that is being published right now. It is a book that challenges the reader, that washes over in waves, that offers shades of recursion and recontextualization, that will reward rereading. It is a world I wish to continue exploring with characters I found deeply relatable. I eagerly await the continuation of the Downworld Sequence.
I'll have more to say on THE ARCHIVE UNDYING in June, with a cocktail inspired by the book on Bar Cart Bookshelf. UPDATE: Check out the Khuon Mo Cooler here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abGav...
Thank you TorDotCom Publishing for sending me an early copy for review.
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