Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC. It hasn’t affected the contents of my review.
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Firstly, here’s the extremely intriguing synopsis from Goodreads:
“War machines and AI gods run amok in The Archive Undying , national bestseller Emma Mieko Candon’s bold entry into the world of mecha fiction.
WHEN AN AI DIES, ITS CITY DIES WITH IT
WHEN A CITY FALLS, IT LEAVES A CORPSE BEHIND
WHEN THAT CORPSE RUNS OFF, ONLY DEVOTION CAN BRING IT BACK
When the robotic god of Khuon Mo went mad, it destroyed everything it touched. It killed its priests, its city, and all its wondrous works. But in its final death throes, the god brought one thing back to its favorite child, Sunai. For the seventeen years since, Sunai has walked the land like a ghost, unable to die, unable to age, and unable to forget the horrors he’s seen. He’s run as far as he can from the wreckage of his faith, drowning himself in drink, drugs, and men. But when Sunai wakes up in the bed of the one man he never should have slept with, he finds himself on a path straight back into the world of gods and machines.
The Archive Undying is the first volume of Emma Mieko Candon’s Downworld Sequence, a sci-fi series where AI deities and brutal police states clash, wielding giant robots steered by pilot-priests with corrupted bodies.
Come get in the robot.”
Secondly, my frustrated thoughts.
DNF @ 20%
I’m sorry, I can’t listen to thirteen more hours of this. Life is too short. What’s really frustrating is that this could have been SO GOOD. The pieces were all there. I actually really liked the writing, and the narrator was doing a great job bringing the characters to life. The concept was also really frickin’ cool. It’s very clear the author spent a lot of time building up this world. But complex and well thought out worldbuilding isn’t enough if your readers literally do not know what is going on in your plot (or in anything, really). I was so lost by the time I finally threw the towel in. I had the character dynamics, but there was nothing given to us to be able to understand even the basics of this world and how it operated.
I don’t think I’ll be giving this book another go in hard copy, but I would read from this author again when she’s done with this series because her actual writing was very intriguing, even as I had zero idea what was happening in the book.
Not rating this one.
[Rebecca Roanhorse actually has a more comprehensive review that accurately portrays my experience with the book, although she finished it.]
CBR BINGO: Asia/Oceania (The author is Japanese American.)
