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christopherlucas 's review for:
My first exposure to the universe of SCPs was a dizzying descent into the compelling idea of antimemes. This is a thrilling, twisted tangle of vignettes that hooked me with a barrage of reversals and reveals right from the jump.
Characters are constantly forgetting and remembering; aspects of reality are hiding, camouflaging, infecting, and rewriting themselves. This makes for a blistering existential rollercoaster that should become confusing and fatiguing but mostly succeeds in staying coherent and, above all, fun.
There comes a point, however, where the ideas outgrow the competence of the storytelling. It’s safe to say we jump the shark somewhere in the third act, once characters are phasing in and out of idea-heaven or wherever. It gets a little silly and hand-wavy while the stakes flatten and the win conditions become inscrutable. It’s safe to say that the horror is strongest at the start, where unknown unknowns lurk and classified threats remain hidden.
The terror of shattering your memory, of being erased, of the truth being torn from you without even knowing — those are the scares that will haunt me. While not a literary masterpiece, this short and dense read was mind-bending, highly original, and punches well above its weight with trippy concepts and sci-fi horror setpieces.
Characters are constantly forgetting and remembering; aspects of reality are hiding, camouflaging, infecting, and rewriting themselves. This makes for a blistering existential rollercoaster that should become confusing and fatiguing but mostly succeeds in staying coherent and, above all, fun.
There comes a point, however, where the ideas outgrow the competence of the storytelling. It’s safe to say we jump the shark somewhere in the third act, once characters are phasing in and out of idea-heaven or wherever. It gets a little silly and hand-wavy while the stakes flatten and the win conditions become inscrutable. It’s safe to say that the horror is strongest at the start, where unknown unknowns lurk and classified threats remain hidden.
The terror of shattering your memory, of being erased, of the truth being torn from you without even knowing — those are the scares that will haunt me. While not a literary masterpiece, this short and dense read was mind-bending, highly original, and punches well above its weight with trippy concepts and sci-fi horror setpieces.