I'm so happy to have been given the chance to read Volatile Memory early. This novella has been on my radar for a while now, and it was exactly as cool as I'd hoped it would be. Short, punchy, cyberpunk, unapologetically queer, and deeply emotional, Wylla's and Sable's strange story reminded me of an animated film from the 80s, brimming with saturation, overflowing with anger and violence, and tied together with a on-the-nose message. Furious, although a little predictable. Beautifully written, despite a few weak character points. Overall, an easy five-star read for a weird as heck story with a very cool world, cooler main characters, and a bit of a cheeky, abrupt ending. The message here could've been refined and dialed back, but I understand the need for layin' it on thick.

Dark but hopeful, VOLATILE MEMORY is an amazing story of revenge and the ghosts that haunt us long after they're gone.

Seth Haddon’s sci-fi debut Volatile Memory (out July 22, 2025) is one of the best novellas I’ve read in a while. The book follows Wylla, a trans woman, as she tries to live her life as a scavenger. She, like other scavengers, goes after bounties and searches for important items to sell in order to earn credits. In this world, each person has at least one mask made by VisorForge that they wear that gives them some sort of ability associated with the animal the mask is based on. Wylla’s go-to mask is a Rabbit: good for finding hidden threats and for always being on the lookout. Other masks include Ox (for superior strength), Chameleon (for camouflage), and Rattlesnake (for poisonous attacks). When our story begins, Wylla has just received a summons, along with other scavengers, to some backwater planet for an unheard-of mask. It’s a fight to get to it, but what she finds on the body of a dead woman is a mask she calls Hawk. Wylla has never seen or heard of a mask like this before, and trying to keep it might just undo everything she has ever done to become the person she knows she is on the inside.

This novella is compared to This is How You Lose the Time War in its description, but I think a more accurate comparison would be A Memory Called Empire. Inside the Hawk mask is the consciousness—or the mimic of one—of a woman named Sable who died with the mask on her face and who sent out the communication that Wylla picked up. From the moment Wylla puts it on, she finds herself talking to Sable, and Sable makes a home inside Wylla’s head. Sable is to Wylla what Yskandr is to Mahit. Much like Yskandr and Mahit, Sable and Wylla try to piece together just what happened to Sable to kill her because Sable cannot remember. I adore A Memory Called Empire, so I knew from the first chapter that I was going to adore this too. There is something about the genre of weird science fiction where someone is stuck with another person’s voice in their head that I just love, and this is another story that I can safely put into that pile.

The point of view works great. It’s almost a first person/second person hybrid, kind of like Harrow the Ninth, where we’re getting Sable’s perspective of everything Wylla is going through. Sable alternates between using the “we,” “I,” and “you” pronouns to describe the events of the story, and the shifts in perspective work really well. I wasn’t sure how the romance was going to work, but Haddon does a spectacular job setting up who Sable is now and who Wylla has worked so hard to become; it’s basically meant to be. The world here is huge, but Haddon’s might be one of the only novellas I’ve read recently that benefits from the short length. This story could have been so much longer and so much bigger, but focusing on Sable and Wylla’s relationship and who they are as people more than anything made it feel like 133 pages was just right. I couldn’t put the book down. It’s everything I wanted it to be and more, and it’s so fast-paced that I finished it almost before I was ready. There is a big focus on revenge in this piece, and I was rooting for Sable and Wylla every step of the way as they worked so hard to achieve it. I really don’t have any critiques on it! This was a story made for me, and I adored every second of it. I hope Haddon writes more science fiction in the future.

Trigger warnings for: lots of death, underage marriage, assault, talk of fertility, gruesome murders, suicide, and some dysphoria.

3.5/5
This is my first book by Seth Hadden, and I liked the writing enough that I’d probably read another, but I have a lot of conflicting feelings about this one in particular
It’s well written, to be clear, though in a different style than I expected and it’s just not my favorite.
I liked Wylla, and really enjoyed the commentary on identity and corporation that runs throughout. Sable I liked as well, though I feel like we got less of a personality from her. I also don’t think I truly saw a romance, and not for the lack of instant connection they technically had. It just didn’t feel romantic to me.
The story was interesting, and it was very fast paced. That combined with the length made it an extremely quick read.
I’m not sure I believe there was time for both romance and plot in here, not for the space that either one deserved, and I think this might have been better as something more full length in the end. But it’s interesting and I’ll definitely read something else by this author

This was just stunning. If you like me love Murderbot and the Locked Tomb Series I think this will be right up your alley. Specifically if you loved Harrow the Ninth’s second person POV then I think you’ll like this. The exploration of what it means to be human through this sentient AI character was so interesting. I loved the connection between Hawk and Wylla. Their messy burn the world down attitude just felt raw and resonant. This book just gives you a lot of ideas to chew on; it’s a great addition to Tor’s collection of queer sci-fi stories.

CW: Murder, suicide, transphobia, and torture

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with a free e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

4.5 rounded up

I'm *living* for the weird and queer sci-fi novellas lately. I've followed Haddon for awhile but hadn't actually picked up any of his books until now. I'm glad I started with Volatile Memory!

This was a fascinating queer space adventure, filled with sapphic longing and rage and questions of identity and self. The world-building was quite unique - I really enjoyed the animalistic masks that Haddon created for this story. If you're a fan of "This is How You Lose the Time War" and Meg Smitherman's novellas, you'll enjoy this one!

Thank you to Tor and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Absolutely amazing. I'm still sifting through my emotions and layers of this book but it was everything I needed. A more detailed review to come!

CW: Existentialism, Transphobia, Body/Identity Dysmorphia

Haddon’s novella is both thrilling and thought provoking. I loved the set up of a world where people augment themselves with different masks that, in turn, give them different abilities. The world is also dystopian in its imposition of structure based on sex, fertility, gender, and class.

I loved the multi-pronged approach to investigating identity throughout the book. Both Wylla and HAWK have past selves pressed on them by the rigid, hierarchical, and technological system that underpins their world – but they also have built their identities, their bodies, and adjust and adapt to each of their new needs, defying and redefining what is “proper” around their best interests. Even RABBIT, Wylla’s Mask prior to Hawk, plays into that subversion and contributes to the themes. Just really smart, thoughtful, writing.

Wylla and Hawk are also just easy to love and easy to root for, so I wanted to see what they would do next and how they navigated each new development. I would highly recommend this novella.

This was such a surprisingly refreshing novella from an author whose fantasy work I had to DNF not long ago. I grabbed this based on the cover art and all the publishing buzzword comparisons to other SF works I've loved. However, I'm thrilled to report that I didn't think about or compare this to Gideon or Time War even once. This story is very much it's own unhinged and beautiful thing. A story about an AI tech riding around in your mind could've been full but there is so much action and mystery and subversive rage in this tale that feels so relevant to the current zeitgeist. This isn't a hopeful/escapist sci-fi but one that is very believable in how the problems we face today having direct descendants in a spacefaring version of human society. Corporate oligarchy, Othering and dehumanizing of trans people and women, unscrupulous colonization of minds, bodies and worlds...they aren't a thing of the past in this story and very much contributes to what drives Sable and Wylla. I wasn't fully into the romance angle of it, but it didn't bother me too much because it worked just as well as any other reason for these two to go around boiling some truly heinous brains. I imagine this would be an awesome audiobook and I can't wait to check that out upon release.
Thanks to Netgalley and Tor for the free advance copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC

This was so interesting! I love when sci fi gives me something new to chew on. Love the idea of wearing animal “masks” that gives you tech/body interface based on the animal characteristics. Super unique

I can absolutely see how this was likened to This is How You Lose the Time War. Similar vibes

Overall I really enjoyed this - blew through it in one night

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for a free arc in exchange for an honest review.

Volatile memory is a very refreshing read, full of vengeance, sci-fi tech, and queer themes. I really appreciated the themes of self acceptance and the feeling of alienation from your body. I’ve read some of Haddon’s previous work and thoroughly enjoyed it, though Volatile Memory definitely feels very different from his novels in the world of Reforged. However, I think the approach to worldbuilding is similar. Admittedly, I’m very new to the sci-fi genre, so I can’t confidently compare the worldbuilding in this book to the genre as a whole; however I do think Haddon gives the reader enough information about the world to be interested, without making the world itself the focus of the novel.

Additionally, I think telling this story from Sable’s perspective was a great choice that made the story much more interesting. There’s something about a story told largely in the second person that I just eat up every time.

Give me a story that tackles the metaphysical minefield that is defining identity and I am here for it. I loved the themes here, and the technology was incredibly fun. The writing as well was surprising and fresh—particularly the mix of 1st and 2nd person POV, which is hard to pull off. What was missing for me was… more book? I felt that there was more to explore, but we only got to graze the surface. And because of the length, certain things (no spoilers) came about very quickly, and they could have hit harder if they’d been allowed to marinate. What can I say; I prefer a slower burn.