Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Archive Undying

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The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon

10 reviews

theelizabethjoy's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

This was so very difficult for me to comprehend at times, I had to go back through and reread some of it because I would finish a chapter and just go "huh". With that said, it was very good, ended much happier than I anticipated. Definitely a good story but be prepared.

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librarianmage's review

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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kal517's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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rei_reads's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I don’t know how to rate this one. On one hand, I really enjoyed reading it. I liked the characters and narrative voice, and was invested in what was happening.

On the other hand, I was often confused and I’m not sure I could summarize exactly what happened, even by the end of the book. Between pretty complex world building and all the AI stuff, shifting narrative voices, and characters who constantly don’t want to admit things to themselves or say things out loud, plus an element of mystery or at least the unknown, it’s sometimes hard to grasp exactly what’s going on. I think it’s a credit to the author that I enjoyed it as much as I did in spite of being confused. I wish it was all clearer though.

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erosabsens's review against another edition

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dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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royalraspberry's review

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective relaxing tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I'd love to give this book even more stars - one of the best books I've read in years. The prose is absolutely enchanting, and the world building is phenomenal, this sits up there with Leckie and Wells with the greats of the current scifi era. The characters are memorable and instantly likeable (mostly), the story line is intriguing, and I am absolutely OBSESSED with the world buidling - an entire civilization built on the wreckage of corrupt, fallen AI gods. I got this through a library loan and it's one I'll buy so I can read it over and over again.

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booksthatburn's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

THE ARCHIVE UNDYING by Emma Mieko Candon hits my brain like an achillean version of THE TIGER FLU by Larissa Lai or THE ALL-CONSUMING WORLD by Cassandra Khaw, combining viscera and technology to create liminal immortality in an ongoing negotiation, tenuous and vital.

I love stories with worldbuilding that is immersive, not waiting for the reader to catch up, but just letting the story unfold; only explaining things that someone in the world would need stated, more explicitly. THE ARCHIVE UNDYING provides explanations late, intertwined with regret.

As I’ve said before and will doubtless say again, I specifically love books which include mental transformations of nominally the same character, such that they understand some thing very differently than they did before, or have an entirely new state of mind. My particular favorite is when they are so different as to be a discrete person by the time the changes are done. THE ARCHIVE UNDYING is full of this, first with a narrator whose identity takes a long time to be known, and then with of variety of technologically assisted mental connections and transformative clashes of mind, such that even if everyone nominally remains afterward as entities, they are changed by those meetings.

Reading this is an audiobook definitely helped to let the story roll over me, enjoying the flow of the words even if I didn’t always understand why something was happening. A few pretty significant changes happen towards the end which reframe and contextualize the actions of some secondary characters. It’s the kind of book where I know I will reread it, if only to experience the shift in perspective that comes with knowing characters, backstories, and ulterior motives from the start.

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kalchainein's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

When I cracked open The Archive Undying, I read the first chapter and then said to my wife, “I bet you anything this person’s written fanfic.”

Dear reader, I was correct.

According to Candon’s Tumblr, The Archive Undying in fact has its roots in a Pacific Rim AU. I am not, in and of itself, opposed to the filing off of serial numbers. And this isn’t even really a case of that: the storylines and characters are far removed from much that could be considered Pacific Rim-ish, other than the big ol’ robots and a neurotic scientist-type.

No, my issue with TAU’s fanfiction roots are that it, like fanfiction, is built on a scaffolding of prior knowledge that the reader is presumed to have. Unfortunately, unlike with fanfic, the new reader of TAU has none of that background information, so tromping through its multitude of locales and terminology ends up leaving one with a sense that they SHOULD know some specific tidbit of canon in order to figure out what the hell is going on, but no way to access it. Some people like this, or at least don’t mind it. Me, not so much.

TAU’s characters also suffer because of this assumed familiarity: you get a gist of character archetypes and relationships, but at a remove, and without ever fully getting to know them as anything beyond diverse moving pieces skittering across an admittedly fascinating landscape.

One could argue that books that reveal themselves fully only after a reread are more rewarding, but if one finds the book a slog the first time because of its indecipherability, how inspired to reread are they going to be?

Also, perhaps a petty complaint, but there were far less giant mecha than I was led to believe. Despite the Evangelion joke in the summary, there was very little of ~~Shinji~~ Sunai getting in the actual robot.

Bomb-ass writing though. Lovely stuff.

Unfortunately, pretty words can only carry you so far. Two-point-five slightly disappointed stars.

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rowanbg's review

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challenging tense

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

more friends at the table fans should write books

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library_rift's review

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adventurous challenging emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Thank you to Tor for the ARC of this book I received in May.

This book was heavy - at least to me - and one of the reasons why it receives the rating it does. Because while this book is a great read, the fact that it took me so long to get through it when it normally doesn’t take me this long to read a book this size, really frustrated me.

The learning curve isn’t steep, it’s probably easier if you read a lot of sci-fi with a similar type of world building, but it certainly took me some time to get an understanding of what was what. The author does a really good job of gradually fleshing their world building out, revealing the relationships between things/terms and what that means to the overall world and Sunai in particular.

The prose is excellent, and sometimes poetic. The balance Candon has to maintain between technological mumbo-jumbo, a dysfunctional universe, and an incredibly dysfunctional main character who refuses to acknowledge what’s right in front of him until someone else forces him to - and to make me still enjoy reading, really worked for me.

I wouldn't necessarily say I loved any of the characters, as they're all dysfunctional in ways that are brought to the forefront, but they are likable, diverse, and interesting. They are characters I want to read about in future books.

Definitely something for anyone to consider reading, especially if you like your books to have blends of other genres mixed in.

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