This review is just a plot synopsis. There are no quotes from the book to give me a sense of the quality of the writing. The review feels targeted at somebody who is already bought into the premise, not somebody from the outside who wants to know if "There Is No Antimemetics Division" is a good book or not. In that sense, it totally fails as a book review.
doug_durham 35 minutes ago [-]
I have never read a review and got a true notion of whether the prose is good or not. Is that really why you read reviews? I thought this was a great review because it very concisely described what is an unorthodox book. If you want to see if the prose is any good, read the book. It is a good book by the way.
throw4847285 27 minutes ago [-]
Yes, I read reviews to learn if a book is good or not. Quotes from the book that are carefully selected often help to showcase what the author is capable of, on top of a clear description of their writing style. I want the reviewer to sell me on what moved them about the book.
This is different than whether or not the reviewer was compelled by the ideas in the book. If the reviewer is a good writer, then I've learned something. Then, I know that somebody who is a good writer thought the ideas in a book were interesting, which by the transitive property, implies the author being reviewed is also a good writer. In this case, I don't think the reviewer is a very interesting writer, so I'm not convinced that they are a good judge of interesting writing.
throwaway27448 28 minutes ago [-]
It sounds like you're describing a summary (which does not deal with quality$ rather than a review (which necessarily deals with quality). The posted writing seems to fall somewhere in between.
cws 2 hours ago [-]
This article says “Book Review:” but then doesn’t provide the title of a book. I’m confused.
Why would you disagree with the parent post and then fail to provide the title of the book in your own response? Just give the name of the book, please.
zelias 27 minutes ago [-]
What book? There is no book discussed in this article
donquichotte 12 minutes ago [-]
What article?
33 minutes ago [-]
swanson 28 minutes ago [-]
I tried making this joke to the author when the book was released ("I purchased the book, but the link just took me to an empty page") and, unfortunately, they didn't get it and tried to give me customer support
There is also the rough draft. I've only read the wiki and the first draft of book
Oddly I gifted the actual book away before reading it (I can buy it again, I thought)
mjburgess 54 minutes ago [-]
I dislike the ending, at least of v2. In it, the author basically gives a fleshed out (christian, neoplatonist) metaphysics to the world he's created which basically amounts to: heaven exists, humans win against the devil, etc. And the ending itself is a self-conscious version of an ascension narrative. It's a very 90deg turn ending to a book otherwise more interested in a world in which heaven is never accessible.
Insanity 9 minutes ago [-]
The last 2 chapters made me not want to recommend the book. I’m so divided about it because the book started of incredibly strong.
mpalmer 50 minutes ago [-]
It's the strongest possible memetic weapon humans would have - I think it's entirely consistent with the meta-nature of the book, especially the self-conscious part.
mjburgess 44 minutes ago [-]
If the take is religion is itself the weapon and the depiction given is mere evidence of that, OK, that's at least avoids the ending being totally awful. HOWEVER
The book spends much of its time saying the transcendent cannot even be represented, to people, to us the read -- then just represents it, and in a tawdry christian way.
I think the violation of that norm, as well as the ending being played straight -- with literally a long paragraph explaining with ideaspace is... that's a fourth-wall break into christianity imv
Which makes the whole book read as, "the issue with humans is our physical bodies in a fallen world which are limited. just die, go to heaven, then you can know/represent/understand everything. Yay! Death!"
OK. Just kinda naff.
It reads as a religious person who accidentally wrote a good sci-fi book then hurridly, at the end, reminds us all that its really a parable with a Noble Message that in Death all things are trascended.
doug_durham 33 minutes ago [-]
I read the book and at no time did I think "Christianity". It seems like motivated reasoning on your part. At no time did the book ever preach, or was even moralistic.
mjburgess 20 minutes ago [-]
I'm referring to the ending of the published version, which is quite different than v1, which ends abburptly, in particular the sections before and after:
> “She steps back from him. She flexes what could be wings.”
> “In ideatic space everything is possible and everything is real and every metaphor is apt. She sees a galaxy of shining points: people, all the people who have ever existed, packed almost densely enough to form a continuum, living and dead, real and fictional and borderline. Similar people, who think in similar ways and who stand for similar things, are closer together. Significant people, the famous and iconic, are brighter. There are stars for inanimate entities, too, and events and abstracts: countries, homes, works of art, births and first steps and words, shocks and dramas, archetypes, numbers and equations, long arcs of stories, grand mythologies, philosophies, politics, tropes. Every truth and lie is here. Ideatic space itself—the human conception of it, at least—is here too, a fixed point embedded inside itself. The idea of the Unknown Organization is here. The idea of Adam Quinn is here. Marie, rising, waking, is here. And occupying the same space as the first brilliant spiral is a second, its counterpart, a galaxy whose points are relationships between the points of the first: what each person means to each other person. Loves, mutual and unrequited; admirations, aspirations, intimidations, fears, and revulsions. Conceptions and misconceptions. There is Adam’s shining link with Marie, and Marie’s link back to Adam. And Marie’s link to the Organization. And at the core of the whole dazzling ecosystem is an ultimate singular point, to which every other point is connected: humanity.
> And the whole thing, the entirety of human ideatic space, is being torn apart. U-3125 hangs above it, a monumental, blinding new presence, a singular entity more massive and luminous than both spirals combined. Its malevolent gravity drags humanity and all human ideas into its orbit, warping them beyond recognition. Beneath it, within its context, everything becomes corrupted into the worst version of itself. It takes joy and turns it into vindictive glee; it takes self-reliance and turns it into solipsistic psychosis; it turns love into smothering assault, pride into humiliation, families into traps, safety into paranoia, peace into discontent. It turns people into people who do not see people as people. And civilizations, ultimately, into abominations.
> U-3125 is titanic in its structure, brain-breaking in its topology. It comes from another part of ideatic space, a place where ideas exist on a scale entirely beyond those of humans. Its wrongness and[…]”
> “She sets a course. Outbound, to the deepest limit of ideatic space.”
Etc. The references to U3125 incarnating, and it being The Adversary. And the explicit ascention narrative with Mary getting wings, flying thru clouds of Ideas -- which are actually animate and incarnated in this world, ie., they are souls. I mean, it's terribly misjudged ending
munificent 1 hours ago [-]
I liked this one a lot. If you like weird fiction and enjoyed Jeff Vandermeer's Annhilation, there's a good chance you'll like this.
If you don't like weird fiction, odds are you'll bounce off it.
scrumbledober 2 hours ago [-]
It's surely not a great book and if you are someone who reads a book every few months i wouldn't recommend it. It's very weird and different and fun, though. I suggest it for people who read a lot of sci-fi and are looking for something that doesn't feel the same as 10 other books they've already read.
tshaddox 1 hours ago [-]
I'm smack dab in that "reads a book every few months" demographic, and also in that "people who work with formal systems for a living" demographic mentioned in this book review.
I would absolutely recommend it for people in the vicinity of these two demographics. It's worth it for the originality. Both the plot and the storytelling format are very weird and very original.
chis 54 minutes ago [-]
Yeah my take is the exact opposite. It's such a page turner that the book has become one of my default recommendations for people looking to get back into reading. Of course you have to be a certain type of nerd to appreciate it.
30 minutes ago [-]
EliRivers 1 hours ago [-]
The core conceit lent itself so well to a (subverted) introductory "As you know" chapter that I didn't even notice it until I'd read it. Bravo for that alone.
That said, from the review: "open source maintainership as cosmic horror." Genuine laugh.
AnotherGoodName 3 hours ago [-]
I wonder if this is for the rewrite or the first version.
I read the first version and thought the first half was good and that the second half felt clunky. To the point where i don’t recommend it to anyone (not a huge negative, there’s just better books out there).
Philpax 2 hours ago [-]
It seems to be for the first version, judging by the use of the original names, which is odd because the review's from this year.
The rewrite definitely improves on the ending and its delivery, but it's still largely the same plot, so it may not address all of your issues.
chroma 3 hours ago [-]
The author’s other stories like Ra and Fine Structure have the same issue, in my opinion. He has interesting ideas, but cannot seem to write an ending.
mentalpagefault 2 hours ago [-]
This review appears to be of the first version despite the recent date. (The rewrite filed the serial numbers off the SCP references and changed character names both for copyright reasons and to provide a degree of separation from the original.)
I read both versions and agree that the second half of the first version was very abstract and difficult to follow. While I would consider the first half of the new version more edited than rewritten, the second half got a significant overhaul which fixed almost all of my issues with it and made for (in my opinion) a much more satisfying ending. I would recommend giving the new version another chance, though those who read the first version may find the new character names distracting. (Most didn't bother me, but Marion Wheeler -> Marie Quinn never felt quite right.)
FabHK 1 hours ago [-]
The article says:
"And at the top of the food chain sits SCP-3125 (renamed in the published edition, but the designation is so perfect I am using it anyway) ..."
awestroke 3 hours ago [-]
The rewrite is excellent
threethirtytwo 3 hours ago [-]
I had the opposite reaction. The second half was garbage, but the first half was so good and original I'd recommend it just for that.
Insanity 3 hours ago [-]
Same!
I just finished the book a few days ago. The first half is really good, a cool premise and interesting story. The second half just got a bit too weird for me and by the final chapter I was happy it was finished lol.
k__ 2 hours ago [-]
I liked piecing the story together in the SCP wiki.
Later I read the first version of the book and it was okay, but the vibes were a bit lost.
The new version of the book I didn't even finish.
yellottyellott 3 hours ago [-]
> the first half was good and that the second half felt clunky
> The second half was garbage, but the first half was so good
so you had the same reaction?
cwillu 2 hours ago [-]
> To the point where i don’t recommend it to anyone
> but the first half was so good and original I'd recommend it just for that
Attension span so short you couldn't even make it to the second half of the sentence before dismissing it
moss_dog 1 hours ago [-]
I think this comment is unnecessarily harsh.
To anyone confused (like me), the commenters above had opposite recommendations despite having similar opinions of the book.
cwillu 3 minutes ago [-]
They were being snarky about a comment when they literally didn't read the entire sentences they were being snarky about. No, I don't think I was unnecessarily harsh.
thinkingtoilet 3 hours ago [-]
The first few chapters of that book are some of the coolest I've ever read. I agree it really drops off in the second half, but would still recommend it to people.
The book was good but I struggled to finish it. You as a reader are encouraged to read because the ideas are so good but then it becomes hard to endure through to whatever resolution was waiting. For those unfamiliar, it will feel something like Momento - you start to feel yourself changing as you work through it. Worth a go for anyone looking for something different.
HardwareLust 3 hours ago [-]
Good timing, the Kindle version is $1.99 right now.
mooxie 2 hours ago [-]
I think the dynamic pricing algo is on to us - I see $13.99 at Amazon and clicked on a Google Play Books link for $1.99 that then became $13.99 magically, same for Apple Books.
maximinus_thrax 3 hours ago [-]
Please don't 'buy' digital items from Amazon, because you won't actually own them. Pay extra, support your local bookshop and get a physical copy which you will actually own.
layer8 47 minutes ago [-]
I really appreciate that sentiment, but on the other hand 98% of the books I buy I won’t read a second time (because reading a new book will almost always trump rereading an old one), so I’m actually fine with not owning most of them, especially at $1.99 prices. The few that I deeply care about I buy a physical copy of.
tantalor 2 hours ago [-]
I borrowed it from the library.
Support your local library!
root_axis 2 hours ago [-]
I basically always start with digital, if the book is good I always buy a physical copy for my shelf.
Insanity 2 hours ago [-]
I do something similar - but I'm quite picky with books I buy due to limited physical space.
hectdev 3 hours ago [-]
This disregards the benefit of a single device that is easy to carry. Love where this is come from so maybe do both if you can.
caconym_ 2 hours ago [-]
It's a trade-off. I love the convenience of ebooks, but not owning my books is just categorically unacceptable to me. I want my daughter and anyone else coming after me to have free access to them, not to have to jump through Amazon's hoops (if such hoops even exist) for access.
I have a Kobo that I use to read the non-DRM ebooks I'm able to acquire. One such source is downloads from the Kobo store, when publishers make the non-DRM file available.
shimman 2 hours ago [-]
I use a kindle but I have never bought a book on the kindle store ever (been using it for 10 years). Totally doable and not hard to avoid... especially since the smaller stores not only have better sales but the author typically gets more money too.
sublinear 3 hours ago [-]
Amazon allows EPUB downloads for publishers that have chosen to go DRM-free.
presbyterian 2 hours ago [-]
They used to allow downloads of all books, which you could then rip the DRM from, but they got rid of that last year. Huge disappointment, and is why I don't buy books on Kindle anymore.
Semaphor 2 hours ago [-]
First I'm hearing of that, is there an easy way to tell that's available?
> At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Not sure how universal that is, but I've seen similar language on several other books.
Semaphor 2 hours ago [-]
Oh wow, that's hidden. Thanks.
Wait, OMW book 7? Wtf? Thank you even more! That'll be up next after my Hyperion re-read (RIP Dan)
gh02t 1 hours ago [-]
It's an enjoyable read, hopefully it's the start of a whole new arc in the series with more to come. My only real complaint is it's short and I want more. If you never read his other Interdependency series, it's also great.
Semaphor 59 minutes ago [-]
I think I read all of his series, yeah. Interdependency was great.
renewiltord 3 hours ago [-]
I'm more interested in rewarding utility because that gives me better things.
gmuslera 46 minutes ago [-]
It was a great book, but this review of it have its own value.
SendItUp 3 hours ago [-]
Loved this book. Definitely a mind trip
1 hours ago [-]
jmgimeno 2 hours ago [-]
Couldn't finish it. I suppose it was not for me.
Schmerika 3 hours ago [-]
Nice review; covers all the best points of the book, and its place in the world, without too many spoilers.
dinkleberg 3 hours ago [-]
It’s a fun book. Definitely worth a read.
yakattak 3 hours ago [-]
Crazy timing. My copy of this is being delivered today from the local bookshop. Great review.
gostsamo 3 hours ago [-]
TBH, the ending of Ra was a big letdown for me and though I like the small stories, I have the feeling that the author has issue building larger arcs. Still curious about this one and might read it just for the premise.
k__ 2 hours ago [-]
Writing good endings is hard.
I liked Ra, but I liked Fine Structures more.
aaroninsf 1 hours ago [-]
I read this.
It's got some provocative ideas, which Stephen foregrounds.
It's got a great hook, and like most writing incubated under circumstances like this, it leans hard into polished sharp introduction into a well-considered world with a very specific flavor.
It's also—no better way to put it—crappy as a novel.
It's not because the author can't string sentences together.
It's because that's not what makes a novel function as a novel.
Epic opening and premise establishment: 10/10
Nice "plot twist", predictable in its inevitability if not its specifics; conforms to genre: 7/10
Narrative arc: 2/10
Ability to sustain meaningful tension and interest while working through the de rigeur mechanics of filling hundreds of pages: 1/10
I get that there is a new readership with different expectations and styles of reading. (Looking at you tiktok; looking at you Dungeon Crawler Carl; looking at most successful YA fiction especially that which gets SPICEY and is released in 8-book series with a new volume every 11 months)
If you're silverback and relish long-form fiction as previously conceived: set expectations accordingly.
doug_durham 29 minutes ago [-]
I am a "silverback" and have read all of the classics of the SciFi genre and I loved this novel. An unconventional topic like this isn't going to fit all of the norms of writing. I thought it was well written and I love his dialog. I'm looking forward to future work.
measurablefunc 37 minutes ago [-]
Written by AI.
mynamemh 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
endgame 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
frankfrank13 3 hours ago [-]
I have not read this book. I've been avoiding it for a while for the dumbest possible reason, which is that I only associate this book with SWE's.
Rendered at 17:50:38 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
This is different than whether or not the reviewer was compelled by the ideas in the book. If the reviewer is a good writer, then I've learned something. Then, I know that somebody who is a good writer thought the ideas in a book were interesting, which by the transitive property, implies the author being reviewed is also a good writer. In this case, I don't think the reviewer is a very interesting writer, so I'm not convinced that they are a good judge of interesting writing.
:)
There is also the rough draft. I've only read the wiki and the first draft of book
Oddly I gifted the actual book away before reading it (I can buy it again, I thought)
The book spends much of its time saying the transcendent cannot even be represented, to people, to us the read -- then just represents it, and in a tawdry christian way.
I think the violation of that norm, as well as the ending being played straight -- with literally a long paragraph explaining with ideaspace is... that's a fourth-wall break into christianity imv
Which makes the whole book read as, "the issue with humans is our physical bodies in a fallen world which are limited. just die, go to heaven, then you can know/represent/understand everything. Yay! Death!"
OK. Just kinda naff.
It reads as a religious person who accidentally wrote a good sci-fi book then hurridly, at the end, reminds us all that its really a parable with a Noble Message that in Death all things are trascended.
> “She steps back from him. She flexes what could be wings.”
> “In ideatic space everything is possible and everything is real and every metaphor is apt. She sees a galaxy of shining points: people, all the people who have ever existed, packed almost densely enough to form a continuum, living and dead, real and fictional and borderline. Similar people, who think in similar ways and who stand for similar things, are closer together. Significant people, the famous and iconic, are brighter. There are stars for inanimate entities, too, and events and abstracts: countries, homes, works of art, births and first steps and words, shocks and dramas, archetypes, numbers and equations, long arcs of stories, grand mythologies, philosophies, politics, tropes. Every truth and lie is here. Ideatic space itself—the human conception of it, at least—is here too, a fixed point embedded inside itself. The idea of the Unknown Organization is here. The idea of Adam Quinn is here. Marie, rising, waking, is here. And occupying the same space as the first brilliant spiral is a second, its counterpart, a galaxy whose points are relationships between the points of the first: what each person means to each other person. Loves, mutual and unrequited; admirations, aspirations, intimidations, fears, and revulsions. Conceptions and misconceptions. There is Adam’s shining link with Marie, and Marie’s link back to Adam. And Marie’s link to the Organization. And at the core of the whole dazzling ecosystem is an ultimate singular point, to which every other point is connected: humanity.
> And the whole thing, the entirety of human ideatic space, is being torn apart. U-3125 hangs above it, a monumental, blinding new presence, a singular entity more massive and luminous than both spirals combined. Its malevolent gravity drags humanity and all human ideas into its orbit, warping them beyond recognition. Beneath it, within its context, everything becomes corrupted into the worst version of itself. It takes joy and turns it into vindictive glee; it takes self-reliance and turns it into solipsistic psychosis; it turns love into smothering assault, pride into humiliation, families into traps, safety into paranoia, peace into discontent. It turns people into people who do not see people as people. And civilizations, ultimately, into abominations.
> U-3125 is titanic in its structure, brain-breaking in its topology. It comes from another part of ideatic space, a place where ideas exist on a scale entirely beyond those of humans. Its wrongness and[…]”
> “She sets a course. Outbound, to the deepest limit of ideatic space.”
Etc. The references to U3125 incarnating, and it being The Adversary. And the explicit ascention narrative with Mary getting wings, flying thru clouds of Ideas -- which are actually animate and incarnated in this world, ie., they are souls. I mean, it's terribly misjudged ending
If you don't like weird fiction, odds are you'll bounce off it.
I would absolutely recommend it for people in the vicinity of these two demographics. It's worth it for the originality. Both the plot and the storytelling format are very weird and very original.
That said, from the review: "open source maintainership as cosmic horror." Genuine laugh.
I read the first version and thought the first half was good and that the second half felt clunky. To the point where i don’t recommend it to anyone (not a huge negative, there’s just better books out there).
The rewrite definitely improves on the ending and its delivery, but it's still largely the same plot, so it may not address all of your issues.
I read both versions and agree that the second half of the first version was very abstract and difficult to follow. While I would consider the first half of the new version more edited than rewritten, the second half got a significant overhaul which fixed almost all of my issues with it and made for (in my opinion) a much more satisfying ending. I would recommend giving the new version another chance, though those who read the first version may find the new character names distracting. (Most didn't bother me, but Marion Wheeler -> Marie Quinn never felt quite right.)
"And at the top of the food chain sits SCP-3125 (renamed in the published edition, but the designation is so perfect I am using it anyway) ..."
Later I read the first version of the book and it was okay, but the vibes were a bit lost.
The new version of the book I didn't even finish.
> The second half was garbage, but the first half was so good
so you had the same reaction?
> but the first half was so good and original I'd recommend it just for that
Attension span so short you couldn't even make it to the second half of the sentence before dismissing it
To anyone confused (like me), the commenters above had opposite recommendations despite having similar opinions of the book.
I haven't seen the short film, so cannot compare.
Support your local library!
I have a Kobo that I use to read the non-DRM ebooks I'm able to acquire. One such source is downloads from the Kobo store, when publishers make the non-DRM file available.
> At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Not sure how universal that is, but I've seen similar language on several other books.
Wait, OMW book 7? Wtf? Thank you even more! That'll be up next after my Hyperion re-read (RIP Dan)
I liked Ra, but I liked Fine Structures more.
It's got some provocative ideas, which Stephen foregrounds.
It's got a great hook, and like most writing incubated under circumstances like this, it leans hard into polished sharp introduction into a well-considered world with a very specific flavor.
It's also—no better way to put it—crappy as a novel.
It's not because the author can't string sentences together.
It's because that's not what makes a novel function as a novel.
Epic opening and premise establishment: 10/10
Nice "plot twist", predictable in its inevitability if not its specifics; conforms to genre: 7/10
Narrative arc: 2/10
Ability to sustain meaningful tension and interest while working through the de rigeur mechanics of filling hundreds of pages: 1/10
I get that there is a new readership with different expectations and styles of reading. (Looking at you tiktok; looking at you Dungeon Crawler Carl; looking at most successful YA fiction especially that which gets SPICEY and is released in 8-book series with a new volume every 11 months)
If you're silverback and relish long-form fiction as previously conceived: set expectations accordingly.