The narrator is amazing, the premise is remarkable, but unfortunately the writing just did not stick the landing. I wanted so much from this story and it just fell short. The plot was a little too dense for me and I struggled to get through that thickness.

I was already a fan of Emma's first novel, Star Wars Visions: Ronin, so I went into this novel knowing I'd like it. I did not know how much I'd LOVE it. As a fan of adult scifi like Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice/Imperial Radch books, I was already interested in the topic of worlds with AI with multiple human bodies. And while those books delve into the political aspects that a society with ancillaries brings, The Archive Undying asks what it is like when the bodies connected to the AI, in this case called relics, are more a question of faith and spirituality. What does it mean, to love a god who has also taken your bodily autonomy? How does that inform your choices?

This book has a little something for everyone. The main character, Sunai, is loveable in the way that he so desperately does not want to be loveable and says it constantly, but you, the reader, much like his god Iterate Fractal, and everyone who meets him, cannot but help to love him. The worldbuilding, like the tendrils of Iterate Fractal into a relic's brain, takes some time to understand, and get used to, but you slowly begin to piece it together just as Sunai allows himself to realize certain truths.

And the prose? I LOVE Emma's style, so I may be biased, but in almost every chapter there is a line that just knocked me flat. It feels like reading epic poetry, but at the same time modern, relateable and hypercharacterized. Even some of the most mundane occurences are described in ways that are beautiful, which I think pairs so well with the theme of making the machine the divine. I read it as an audiobook, my preferred method, and I'm actually sad I did, despite it being a really good audiobook, because I wanted to catch all these lines and highlight them as they happened, which almost never happens for me. One such example:

“He wants to see that face as he’s seen in turn. What a fulsome whole they make together. He is consumed by the transcendence of union.”

One thing to note, is that this is adult scifi, and not a scifi capital R Romance novel, but there is a romance at the center of it, and it is BREATHTAKING. I think of them constantly. Yes, they are gay. So are most of the people around them. But they are also deeply flawed people rejecting connection despite wanting it dearly and the constant yearning is DELICIOUS. Fellas, is it gay to both worship and fear the same AI god together?

(Speaking on representation, yes, there's significant LGBTQ representation, but also very prominent characters are very explicitly neurodivergent, some might argue autistic, and several are physically disabled, and it's treated extremely well and normally. It feels very natural, and even factors into the world and character building for one character at one point.)

Like the AI god Iterate Fractal itself, this book left me hungry for more, of Sunai, and of this world. I immediately would pay any amount of money to see this as an adult animated series, maybe in the visual storytelling style of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It's a story about mechas and AI tech, but deeply rooted in the natural world, and the people of a city. It has huge and brutal action scenes, but the general vibe is quiet, and rooted in how the machine attempts to be a part of the natural world, from how it acts like vines, to how it uses bone and coral. I am almost upset I read this book as it is coming out, because then I cannot binge all the books in the upcoming series at once and have it piped into my brain directly as if I was a relic interfacing with an AI god myself.

I really enjoyed this immersive scifi/godpunk fantasy novel. I found the plot to be intriguing, and the characters semi-relatable. What really did it for me was the masterful world building! I had early access to the audiobook version and found myself getting lost in the story many times, instead of multitasking. I am very much looking forward to the next books in this series.

What a ride!! This is definitely an audiobook you need to pay close attention to! And it's confusing even when you do at times! This was definitely an experimental writing I can't really compare to anything else. I think the payoff is there for someone acquainted with the genre. Thank you so much to Macmillan Audio for the ALC of this one.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of this book! I did enjoy it, but was very confused at times- I had to just let it ride and hope things would make sense- and, sometimes, I did get some clarity! The concept was really cool, and while the worldbuilding (shape of the world specifically) wasn’t super deeply elaborated on, I did feel like I had a good grasp of who the players were.

Here I am, once again, blindly reading a book because I see the phrase giant mechs.

"The Archive Undying" by Emma Mieko Candon kicks off the Downworld Sequence. In this story these giant AI integrated with the land and people, until stuff went wrong. While some died off many went...feral. Now there are police states with their own robots, salvage groups with clunky Rigs, and creatures made from the mecha-gods just around now. But we follow Sunai, a person who knows a lot about these entities who wants to avoid that mess. Except he just woke up on a rig headed to check out an old temple to one after a bender and a hookup he shouldn't have had.

Then it gets weird...

Narrated by Yung-I Chang, unflappable in some of the strangest bits and then back on the sarcasm.

Thank you Macmillan Audio and Netgalley for the ARC!

Reasons to read:
-Big robots
-It gets weird in a way a recognized after I stopped thinking so much
-Decent bit of the story is the cast avoiding their problems for a really long time... Relatable
-Vastly different take on the mecha genre than expected
-More extreme version of the mental bleeding over from Drift in Pacific Rim
-All the machines have impressive names

Cons:
-It's a thinking person's mecha, which isn't a bad thing, Evangelion is good. But I saw Pacific Rim be bandied about by a lot of folks so that messed with my expectations of what would happen. Zone of the Enders: Second Runner might be more accurate, plot wise.

This is rather unexceptional. Sure it’s experimental, but I’ve read plenty of sci-fi that is enjoyable and sometimes amazing when doing such things. This book is boring, the main character is yawn inducing, though he should be cool.

Contemplative sci-fi
Al deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies. Seemed like it was going to be action packed but it was more of a character driven thought provoking look at corrupt AI, what it means to be alive and what it means to die.

I enjoyed it. It was a little slower than I expected with tangents and long prose but it was gorgeously written and o loved the narrator.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for an alc.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor for an ARC of this book for an honest review.

I was really looking forward to this book, the premise is great and unique but there are flaws. There is a big lack of world building, the pacing is confusing, and the characters dont have their own unique voices. Even more so with the audiobook.
Overall this leads to being very confused and not caring about the story. I thought it was just me, but I see a lot of other reviews that say the same thing. I almost DNF'd this one, but its going to be a series and I might want to pick up book #2 if the author/editor/publisher sees these reviews for Book 1 and fixes them for book 2.

There is a wonderful world, characters and concept here and I want to be able to understand it and explore it further.

Sadly this did not work for me. I found the beginning to be very confusing and have a weird sexual focus. As the book went on, things did get a bit more clear, but I was already not invested by that point. I think I was hoping for killer AIs, robots, epic sci fi. Instead, this is more philosophical with pretty writing and quirky MCs.

DNF

I couldn't get through this book. It was extremely confusing - I didn't know the why behind anything, but sometimes the author would tell me and I just...didn't understand? For a very intricate sci-fi book, I needed more explanation, more science, more WHY.

What a book! A complicated read, I hope this story will continue.
If you like scifi, post-apocalypse landscapes

I just reviewed The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon. #NetGalley

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with the audio for the Archive Undying. I enjoyed my time listening to this book and getting immersed into the world.

This is likely one of the hardest books to review.

1. The prose in this book is absolutely beautiful. There were definitely times that, had I had the ebook, I'd be highlighting like crazy.

2. The characters are very interesting.

3. The world-building is wild and engrossing.

However, this book is entirely confusing. There is so much going on that it's difficult to keep everything straight. It definitely kept my interest from start to finish, but I can't even tell you if there was a plot or what that plot was supposed to be. It's an adventure story but the adventure is full of these bits of reflection from the AIs (gods) of this world. The concepts are very cool. That's a large reason I kept reading. Much like A Memory Called Empire, I found myself intrigued by these things enough to keep going.

The ending is confusing and open ended, so I don't think people will like that much. However, it didn't really bother me, as I found most of the book a bit confusing.

*Thank you NetGalley for the advance reader digital copy of this audiobook

This book has such an interesting concept. It is rich with intricate details. The world is unique and Candon has a beautiful way of immersing the reader into it. I loved the concept, the cover art, and the description. However I do feel that this novel could have been better. I am giving it 3 stars because I enjoyed the characters and towards the end of the novel I began to make connections. Much of the narrative was difficult to follow, shifting points of view without any forewarning. I had to re-read several chapters so that I might begin to understand what was happening. I would certainly recommend this book however it could certainly be frustrating for some readers, I know I was quite confused throughout a good chunk of the book. The reader is expected to understand the mechanisms and the world without having been introduced to it or given any contextual information. The interfacing was certainly a huge confusion point for me when it was first introduced. I still don't exactly know what I read but I couldn't put it down.

I requested the audiobook because I was struggling to read the e-book. The audiobook and narrator's inflections clarified much of the novel for me and allowed me to enjoy it more. I found the narrative of the audiobook easier to follow. It is such a unique world and I love its concept, the audio allowed me to become more immersed into the story.

#thearchiveundying #NetGalley

Thank you to Netgalley and Macmillan Audio for sending me an early copy of this audiobook! All opinions are my own!

DNF at 57%

I really wanted to like this book. I tried so hard. It's queer, it's got disability representation, I really got attached to the main character right at the start. But that wasn't enough.

Even at 57%, I still didn't understand the world in the slightest. I still can't tell you what a relic is. There was never a point in the book that I could tell you what the overarching plot was. I could never tell you what the characters were trying to achieve or even where they were headed.

This book was far too confusing for me, but if you like sci-fi, you might enjoy this.

Thank you NetGalley for a chance to listen to this advanced listeners copy of The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon.
Wow. This was a brilliant ride. Similarly in the vein of one of my favorite reads Harrow the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir, I felt like I had missed something important during this experience, but I was greatly rewarded by just staying the course. This is a book where you have to trust the author to give you what you need, which she did. In this world where identity is greatly consumed by AI gods, Sunai is trying to figure out who he is. His God is dead and he, a subject, should be dead along with him. Sunai is a wonderful character who both knows who he is and doesn’t really have a clue. It sounds confusing, but it’s actually endearing as we watch him make choices that you have to ask if he really knows what’s best for him. This may be a challenging read for some due to the shifting perspectives, but I hope that if you chose to read this book that you stick with it. This story is both witty and smart. It is unconventional, but learning through Sunai’s outlook about the history and wonderful twists of science and spirituality in this world will make you take an even deeper look at your own flawed humanity.

This story is perfect for fans of Martha Wells, Ann Leckie, or Tamsyn Muir. Follows Sunai, a man harboring memories of a robotic god that destroyed almost everything in its city when it fell. Sunai was the only survivor and can't die, age, or forget. An intricate plot takes us through the stories of many human characters and other gods and artificial intelligences. Identities merge and separate in strange ways, and the stakes can be a little hard to follow. It's convoluted, but still a very good and worthwhile read. The audioboook narrator is fantastic.

"The Archive Undying" had an incredibly interesting premise and great cover. I liked the characters and found their personalities and relationships interesting. However, the worldbuilding is lacking here. It's difficult to follow the plot, and there's not enough information to make the world make sense. After 26.3%, I genuinely don't know what's happening or why. It's odd that this book is so long without clearly explaining anything.

DNF @47%

I'm bummed because this premise is really fascinating and I LOVE the cover. The Archive Undying is experimental science fiction with a lot of very cool ideas involving AI robots worshiped as gods, and people who share their consciousness with AI. I was really into the first part of the novel. I didn't know what was going on, but Sunai is a chaotically queer character who is pretty interesting and it is playing with perspectives too. The thing is, there are SO many unique elements to the world and names for things that are not really explained or described in a way that lets the reader conceptualize them. The prose itself is really lovely and it seems clear that the author knows exactly what they have in mind, but that isn't translated to the reader effectively enough.

I can be okay with feeling confused about parts of a world or plot, but I need something that grounds me and I just couldn't find that in this story. I read almost half of it and I could only tell you very vaguely what happens after the first 20%. It's a frustrating reading experience and based on the reviews, there's not even a big payoff where it all suddenly makes sense. For instance, Harrow the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir is a master class in an author keeping the reader disoriented and in the dark for the first half to 2/3 of the book, but then has a turning point where the pieces all fall into place. A fantastic example of experimental sci-fi that still really works for the reader. This just feels under-explained and from what other reviewers are saying, there's never a point at which things suddenly make sense. So unfortunately, I'm going to DNF this one. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.