A review by woolerys
The Archive Undying by Emma Mieko Candon

adventurous emotional mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Writing - 2/5 
Plot - 3/5 
Characters - 3/5 
World-building - 2/5 
Personal tastes - 3/5 
TOTAL: 2.6 
 
I had a frustrating reading experience with this one, mostly because I did not understand the nature of the AI gods, their mechanical bodies, and their relationships to humans, all of which is pretty core to the plot. The whole structure is only explained in bits and pieces, which, fine, but I struggled to remember the pieces and put them together as I read. The characters are pretty good but the number of betrayals gave me whiplash and lost some impact through sheer volume. 

In the end, I felt Candon had good ideas but the execution didn’t work for me. This book was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for speculative fiction, though, so clearly it did work for some people! 
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