🫶
♡𝐀𝐑𝐂 𝐑𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰♡
📚𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑴𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝑯𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓
𝐵𝑦 𝑀𝑖𝑎 𝑇𝑠𝑎𝑖
𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑫𝒂𝒕𝒆: 29𝑡ℎ 𝐽𝑢𝑙𝑦
𝑹𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈: 4★★★★

𝘙𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸:

Mia Tsai’s The Memory Hunters is a bold, post-apocalyptic sapphic fantasy that explores memory as power memory as faith, history, and political weapon. The world of fungal blood-magic and ancestral archives is fascinating, and the slow-burn romance between Key and Vale adds emotional depth. While the themes of cultural preservation and institutional control are compelling, the execution sometimes falters: the worldbuilding feels vague, pacing uneven, and characters especially Key can be frustrating. Still, it’s an ambitious, thought-provoking debut perfect for readers who enjoy morally complex fantasies with unique magic systems and emotional stakes.

Thank you to Kensington and Netgalley for sending me a copy of this book! All opinions are my own!

This is one of those books that has an absolutely wonderful concept, but the execution just falls short. I loved the idea and the world, but I felt like I didn't have a great grasp of the world itself or the magic. I felt lost most of the book.

The thing that saved it for me was the characters and their development. Even though I had trouble figuring things out, they were really relatable and easy to root for.

I will probably end up reading the next one, and it might be worth checking it out if you like the premise!

I thought this was very good and I will have to add this to the shop shelves. Thank you for the chance for us to review.

The Memory Hunters is the first book in the science fantasy series The Consecrated, written by Mia Tsai, published by Erewhon Books. A proposal that dives into several subgenres, built around an archaeologist-scholar, that works retrieving memories for a museum (the comparison with Indiana Jones is quite suitable) and her guardian, in a story that touches politics, academic intrigues, status quo and a really imaginative post-apocalyptic world with a dash of sapphic romance.

Key is a memory hunter for the museum, but due to her lineage, she's destined to become a spiritual leader at her family's temple; Vale, her guardian, who comes from a more humble origin, is tasked with protecting her during the fieldwork, making them a great duo. When Key collects a memory that differs from the official storyline, she's quickly dismissed by her mentor; but Key doesn't stop, getting obsessed with it, needing answers about it, being unusually affected by it, losing moments, hours and days.
As Vale is the only one she can trust, they get together entangled in Key's obsessive search for answers, leading to a discovery that threatens to change the status quo; but they will only take it to a good port if they remain to stay together.

Tsai gifts the reader with a powerful main character duo, with an emphasis on the difference of their origins: Key comes from a rich family, allowing her to be more reckless in her decisions, ignoring the consequences; Vale is mostly who suffers the consequences of them, as she needs the pay for her family. Said that, they complement each other pretty well, despite that difference; and the slowburn yearning and tension that grows between them is simply delicious.
The secondary cast is also well defined, especially making reference to how their role/status in this society defines their actions, trying to protect that even if that means a cost.

The worldbuilding is quite original, starting from the post-apocalyptic situation, to how mushrooms are used as conduits to access memories (only certain people), but also the piece memories have taken in the whole society; the loss of history and how it needs to be rewritten, pointing also at how certain interests can shape it, and even the class difference that is reflected in Key and Vale's backgrounds, how their worlds are different.
The pacing is well balanced, faster at the start, and slowing in the more complex parts; but always emphasizing the danger and the adventure our characters are living, even if sometimes is not as clear.

The Memory Hunters is an excellent science fantasy proposal, a novel that I totally recommend if your jam is intrigue and adventure mixed with a worldbuilding that is the perfect excuse for social commentary. Can't wait to see how Tsai shapes the second book in The Consecrated series.

Thank you Netgalley for providing an arc in exchange for an honest review.

Mia Tsai's second novel is a sapphic fantasy romance in the vein of apocalyptic Indiana Jones. As someone who enjoyed the cozy and fun dynamics that were present in her debut Bitter Medicine, I was hoping for the same level of enjoyment in this. Unfortunately this book didn't quite stick the landing I was hoping for. The worldbuilding felt interesting to a point, until it felt more like being dumped on in exchange for any actual plot development. There were a bit too many parts that dragged for me to feel completely engaged the whole way through. On a postiive note, I really enjoyed both characters and the romance between them felt genuine, fun, and meaningful.
While it didn't connect with me quite like her first novel, I'm still very interested into where Tsai will go with this story next.

I ended up DNF’ing The Memory Hunters by Mia Tsai. The premise really intrigued me, but unfortunately the main character just didn’t click for me and I found them too frustrating to keep going with. Ultimately, this one just wasn’t for me, though I can see others enjoying it more.

I read Mia Tsai’s debut after too long, but luckily it meant I didn’t have to wait to snag The Memory Hunters. This is extremely different from Bitter Medicine, but also an excellent story. I love a lot of what this does with generational memory and who has the right to culture and knowledge. It was a slow read, but as it built up and the tension ratcheted up, I found it harder to put down. This ended up being another excellent book from Tsai and I can’t wait to see what she’ll write next, and I can’t wait to see what’s next for Vale and Key.

This book's blurb sounded exactly up my alley (a museum of human memories! A romance between a memory hunter and her bodyguard!) so I obviously requested it as soon as I saw it was available. The story itself ended up less action adventure, more character study than I expected - with stylistic flourishes I appreciated, tackling some really interesting themes. I particularly enjoyed the discussion on what belongs in a museum, what should go on display, and who a culture belongs to. The setting was, as expected, very well done, with thoughtful world building and a unique concept. Overall, this was an enjoyable read, and I'll probably check out the sequel.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC - I read it in tandem with the audio book.

this book has such a unique premise (and a cool plot twist about halfway in), but ultimately it just fell flat for me. i'll say that i really loved the idea of mushrooms being a gateway to memory, i loved the idea of memory museums, and i thought the hunter/guardian relationship was a fun concept, especially with jing and cal.

however, i think key was too unlikable (classist, out of touch, took advantage of vale the whole time), jing's character was unnecessary (what did he exist to do?), and burdock's behaviour towards vale just wasn't consistent enough for me to understand why he did the various things he did. towards the end of the book especially, it felt like many characters' emotional states (especially vale) flip-flopped in unexplained and unrealistic ways to further the plot. the ending also felt very unsatisfying to me.

[i received a free copy from netgalley and kensington publishing in exchange for a review. thank you.]

Didn't love this as much as I thought I would. Interesting concept, but the main character was very unlikable. I'm hoping the second book focuses more on Vale! Vale was an intense character with an intriguing backstory!

I picked this up because, while I had mixed feelings about the author’s previous book, Bitter Medicine, it was her debut, andI liked it well enough to try again with this book. Howsomever, I’m left in exactly the same situation after finishing The Memory Hunters as I was at the end of Bitter Medicine, in that I have mixed feelings – which we’ll get to in a minute – but I liked it well enough to try again when her next book comes out.

The idea behind this one is fascinating. This post-apocalyptic world has developed a science, or perhaps it’s a pseudo-science as the way it all works is a bit handwavium, that allows memories to be harvested from just about anyone through a drop of blood – but only people with a special talent can do the harvesting as only their blood is capable of taking that memory and creating the drug tabs of mass production of the memory. (And if this concept sounds remotely familiar, you might be thinking of the Philip K. Dick story, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” or, and more likely, the movie made – and remade – from that story, Total Recall.)

The central characters in this drama are Key and Vale. Key is the memory hunter of the title, and Vale is her guardian, meaning in this situation, her bodyguard. They hunt memories for the Institute of Human Memory, rather like Indiana Jones hunts down artifacts and runs headlong into danger on his deep dives into the past. But Indy only digs in the ground, while Key digs virtually into the memories of the people who lived in that ground.

But the comparison to Indy only goes so far, because Indy, in spite of whatever his Dad might think, is an adult who is mostly adulting most of the time. Key and Vale, especially Key, not so much even though they are both in their 20s.

Vale is a scrappy fighter from an outlying area, a scholarship student at the Academy. Key, very much on the other hand, is the daughter of one of the highest ranking families in the entire country. She may WANT to be a memory hunter for the museum, she may be called to that career, she may think that is what the ancestors they all worship have given her as a mission, but Key’s family’s legacy is to essentially become the head of the religious hierarchy of the capital – and her mother is doing her damndest to shove Key into that legacy no matter what Key might want.

So Key has a history of defying orders and weaseling out of obligations because she’s privileged on all sides and has never faced any serious consequences for any of her actions. She’s always been right and she’s always pursued that rightness – or perhaps that’s righteousness – no matter what the cost might be because cost and price are things she’s never been forced to reckon with.

This is, essentially, the story of her reckoning, and all of the consequences that follow along with it. Consequences that break both her heart, her mind and very nearly her life – even as the much too loyal Vale sticks around and picks up Key’s pieces and deals with her own set of consequences and betrayals.

They belong together – and perhaps they’ve finally earned the right. But as the story closes that’s not certain and duty and obligation seem poised to snatch them up and tear them apart yet again.

Escape Rating B-: All of the ideas in this story, all of the concepts that sell the story in the blurb, sound utterly fascinating. And some of them even turn out to be. But the weakest link in taking this story from being mixedly OK to being really good is Key. Because in the first half of the story, or even a bit more, Key isn’t remotely likeable. It’s so obvious that she’s been so privileged that she’s never faced a consequence in her life, to the point where she rides roughshod over everyone around her. She desperately wants to work IN the museum but she doesn’t really want to work FOR the museum and the only way to impress the rules upon her at all is to visit their consequences on the people around her because she has the status and wealth to weasel out of anything.

Except getting around her mother. At first, it seemed like Key’s mother was going to be the ‘evil empress’ of this whole thing but the woman is just as stuck in the situation as her daughter. Mom is making the best of a not-that-great situation while Key is whining that it’s not fair and Vale, who can’t afford to miss even one paycheck because she’s sending nearly all her money back home to a family that keeps growing and a village that keeps getting flooded – is the one who suffers for Key’s high-handedness.

Key does eventually see that the whole entire world does not revolve around her, but I couldn’t help but wonder why Vale hung around for it.

The ‘tech’ or ‘tech-like’ or possibly ‘tech-lite’ behind the extraction and distribution of memories is never detailed, and that’s fine, although the story sits right on the border between SF and fantasy and it’s not a comfortable seat at all.

The extraction and distribution process, what we do know of it, particularly what we discover about the lies and corruption at the heart of it, bear a strong resemblance to the mess of monster-parts chemistry and ITS attendant corruption and political chicanery in The Tainted Cup and A Drop of Corruption by Robert Jackson Bennett, both of which I loved. However, the feel of this story with its blood and sacrifice of family lines and family memories – and the corruption wrapped around which memories get preserved and why – also smacked of Star Eater by Kerstin Hall, which is a book that keeps sticking in memory even though I didn’t really like it at all. The combination of those two books into this one is very much a part of my mixed feelings.

I could go on, but I think you probably get the picture by this point. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in here, the concept of the blood memories is wild, but the foundations of this world are a bit shortchanged to get at all the betrayals going on – and to reach the romance which I’m not 100% convinced was needed to explain the depth of Vale’s loyalty to a woman who abused that loyalty and trust for entirely too long. Which was really too bad because there’s certainly a discussion to be had about who ‘owns’ ancestral memories in the same way that there are negotiations about repatriating appropriated archaeological artifacts that deserved a bit more attention than it got.

This book is definitely a case where your reading mileage may vary. My reading mileage is still debating whether or not I’ll pick up the next book in the series.

La premisa en la que se basa The Memory Hunters es apasionante, estudios arqueológicos a través de la inmersión en las memorias de los antepasados mediante métodos fúngicos sonaba extremadamente atractivo. Sin embargo, me temo que el desarrollo de la historia en sí no está a la altura del principio.


Mi primera “decepción” es que el libro tiene mucho más hacia la fantasía que hacia la ciencia ficción, no sorprenderá a nadie de qué pie cojeo. Una vez superado este pequeño impedimento y con un comienzo bastante potente, el libro se va perdiendo en su propia mezcolanza de ideas. Las protagonistas, en especial Key, no se hacen querer para nada. Y la dualidad entre sus intereses particulares y lo que los demás esperan de ella, aunque parece la fuente de un gran conflicto no es más que el día a día de cualquier persona normal que no viene de una familia rica que le permite vivir en el privilegio.

El libro podría haber remontado algo cuando se vuelve imprescindible la intervención en las memorias de Key porque empieza a confundir la realidad actual con lo vivido, expresado de una forma algo confusa por parte del Mia Tsai, probablemente de forma consciente e incluso buscada (de ahí la referencia a Inception en la sinopsis). Pero tampoco alza el vuelo, lastrado por una relación romántica que no acaba de parecer creíble.

Me hubiera gustado que se hubiera profundizado algo más en el mundo, situado en un futuro en el que la Tierra ha sufrido algunas catástrofes naturales, o en la situación política cuando se puede acceder a las memorias de los antepasado y pueden llegar a influir en el desarrollo de los acontecimientos, pero la autora pasa muy de puntillas por estos temas.

La novela remonta un poco al final, cuando se van aclarando las distintas “traiciones” de la que son víctimas ambas protagonistas, pero esto llega un poco tarde para que la novela destaque entre el maremágnum de fantasía en el que estamos inmersos. En definitiva, una pequeña decepción tras las buenas vibraciones de Bitter Medicine y lo que prometía la sinopsis de la novela. Ni siquiera la encomiable narración de Channie Waites ha conseguido que entrara de lleno en la historia.

Liked the beginning, concept and set up, but the concept left a lot to wish for. The characters were inmature, the book as whole felt like it needed help with the pacing and narrative.

The first chapter of this novel is good. Unfortunately, the rest of the story doesn't hold a candle to the first chapter. The world-building is lacking, the characters are rather flat and the romance is a very slow burn. And I really didn't like the way some of the minor conflicts were resolved, or even ignored.

Furthermore the titular Memory Hunting only happened three times throughout the novel, and I am still uncertain what purpose the retrieved memories serve. Maybe the next book in the trilogy will shed some light on this.

I was so hopeful and excited for this one; unfortunately, it was a huge disappointment.

The worst thing about this book is that the first chapter is actually quite good, and it makes you genuinely believe you're about to have a great time, only for you to keep reading and realize that there will be no more good chapters, that was it.

The plot and world-building are nonexistent. The characters are flat, and their relationships made no sense to me. One of the characters has a boyfriend, but that ends up not mattering to the main romantic plotline? And cheating is just glossed over? And the way the storyline of the mentor and museum is resolved is deeply unsatisfying. I understand this is the first book in a series, but there still should've been a more satisfying conclusion.

DNF'd after 50%

I really, truly wanted to love this book. The concept is fresh, unique, and exciting; a potential future for us if we do not act appropriately towards climate change. Unfortunately, before I could hit halfway through the novel, I felt bogged down by petty disagreements, lack of character development, and attraction to only two characters, both of whom were sidekicks (I would have preferred this to be about Cal and Jing, honestly--they had much more chemistry).

My determination to DNF was not based on style. I think Mia Tsai does what Suzanne Collins does well in The Hunger Games: simplifying complicated subjects into digestible prose without droning on or waxing poetic. My problem was the plot and its execution. Halfway through a first novel, I feel as though I should have a comfortable understanding of where we're headed, why the characters are driven, and what their end game is. Unfortunately, I had very little grasp of the politics of the Museum, the religious components of Key's heritage, and why both the museum and religion are at odds in this story. The concept of Memory Hunters themselves isn't very clear, and I felt we spent so long on conversations revolving around personal "drama" and relationships rather than what is supposed to be an "Indiana Jones" style adventure. And finally, boiling down interpersonal discrepancies to "poor" vs. "rich" without really delving into the climate impacts (these are loosely thrown in as to "why" Vale is so angry without much else) felt lazy.

I also had a problem with the ancestor component of the plot. Again, the religion is not really fleshed out at all in the first half. I had very little grasp of what kind of religion--one that has connections to ancestors, obviously, but what else?--and how it plays its part intricately. It's definitely used as a reasoning as to why Key's life is so complicated, but it felt like I was supposed to "take this for what it is" rather than understanding it as a useful plot device or pillar of worldbuilding. I'm supposed to believe that Key's ancestors can directly speak to her, but are mostly silent unless they need something, but I'm not supposed to know the why and the how?

The final straw was the plot twist of her mother being ill and the subsequent trip to wipe Key's recent memory. We are supposed to understand that this strange mycelium illness is...bad...but we get absolutely nothing else before Key's memory is wiped. It was a great example of what could have been a strong moment, but it felt flat due to paper-thin interpersonal relationship pettiness and moving on to the next beat too quickly.

All in all, I may revisit this book, but as of now, it's a no. Thank you to Kensington Publishing/Erewhon Books via NetGalley for the eARC copy.

Sci-fi fantasy with a unique premise about Memory Hunters, people who can access the past through blood. Kiana is expected to lead the temple, but she’s too focused on the research for the Museum of Human Memory. She and her stubborn bodyguard, Valerian, stumble upon dangerous discoveries that threaten to upend their entire society.
While the world-building and character dynamics are fascinating, the story itself failed to grab me. I really enjoyed the messy relationships between the characters and the interesting plot, but I just couldn't connect with any of it on an emotional level. I feel like the pacing could have been different, focusing more on the relationships and the impact of the big revelation on society. It's a shame, because I'm sure that if I had read this at a different time in my life, I would have loved it.

Essentially, for me, Mia Tsai's Memory Hunters is speculative fiction that asks us to reevaluate something abstract (and immovable, or so we thought): memory, history, and identity.

Set in a world where memories are currency, capital, confession and crime, The Memory Hunters feels unnervingly prophetic and classically mythic. There are living saints who carry the burdens of others’ memories. There’s the Museum of Human Memory, a towering institution of curated pasts, curated truths. There’s a black market for memories. There are memory hunters. There are guardians. All of these circles the shimmering, uncomfortable question: Who owns the past? Mia Tsai doesn’t offer easy answers but instead orchestrates meditation on the ethics and violence of remembering and forgetting packaged in a sapphic, slow-burning romance. This novel reads like a hybrid between fantasy and religious text, a dream sequence shot through with political urgency, touching on the monopoly of memories and the revisionism of the past by the powerful institutions that reshape truth and call it preservation.

The writing is immersive and the world is strange and dense, yet it unfolds intuitively. I was with the characters, Key and Vale, even when I didn’t fully understand them. I was in this world, even though it is not mine.

Looking forward to the next book to find out what happens next.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of this book.

I genuinely have struggled so much to get through this so I am sadly DNFing at 40%. This is just extremely confusing to read, the story does not flow and it is difficult to connect with the characters. I feel this book is trying to tell too many stories at once and it feels overwhelming to read, so I will not be finishing.

This book had such an amazing premise! I loved the unique hierarchy and systems developed, and the world was lush and vivid.

The characters fell a little flat for me, their dynamics and motivations didn't quite make sense, and some of the plot points felt a little all over the place and confusing.