Core

**There Is No Antimemetics Division** by qntm

[lots of jokes about not remembering any of this book here etc etc etc ok anyway]

For the first half of this book I was having a grand time. Some of that was nostalgia for SCP, maybe, as someone who read a bunch of those when I was like 13, but all the same the structure of a loosely connected series of short stories centering around the Antimemetics Division worked really well for me. There's even hints of a myth arc being dropped here and there — and I do like 90s/00s TV.

Some of these MOTW TV shows jump the shark once they become overly concerned with their myth arc, and unfortunately this was one of them for me. The second half is much more of a traditional, linearly told novel, and it's... kind of boring! The threat that was cool and mysterious when in the background just ended up becoming a bunch of "spooky scary stuff" to me. New concepts get introduced at a slower rate, and the ones that do get introduced aren't as exciting (less "new", more "like that old idea but Bigger"). Ending stuff: ||The whole Jesus aspect of the ending fell totally flat to me, and did not feel like it particularly cohered thematically with the stuff earlier in the book. Also, while this obviously opens me up to accusations of "just not getting it", everything basically turns to mush in the end: our heroes are fighting evil ideas that are super evil and dangerous and must be defeated with Other Big Ideas, but we obviously can't know anything about what these ideas actually *are* (because then they'd affect the reader, right); as a result you're reading about characters doing indescribable things to other indescribable things through vague allusion and metaphor and it just ends up a little silly. That's a long way of saying the plot is basically resolved with technobabble, which kinda sucks!||

In terms of character there's not much to talk about here. Love that most of the book centers on a badass middle-aged lady, and her lack of character can be pretty easily excused by the fact that she's married to her job ||(which has eaten her memories)||. It's also not what the book is focused on, and I wouldn't really *want* it to focus on it either.

In short: great premise, really fun first half, but the second half is a bit of a letdown. One of those books where I think not tying up so many loose ends would have resulted in something I'd have loved more.

3/5 ⭐

(Note: I read the version that's up on AO3 through chapter 15. The print edition is unavailable at the moment and I have no idea how different it is. Probably not very!?!)/

The five stages of Dorley:

I wouldn't go to Dorley -> ok fine I would go to Dorley -> oh. I see. I already did go to Dorley -> wait was RLT worse than Dorley -> I should get a novelty mug that says "I was castrated and all I got was this novelty mug"

Dorley Hall ends up a surprisingly rich lens to view our experiences through. That's not all it is, obviously, but the trauma they share and bond over—it hits. The medical trauma is something I both appreciated and dread reading more of in future books (which I will be reading why yes I did jump straight into chapter 16 oooops!!).

Really curious where this treatment of gender is going! Their gender is coercively reassigned yet they embrace it; I'm chewing on it still but there is some parallel to be drawn with the Janice Raymond "medically constructed female" line of screed, maybe — after all, they really were moulded into women in an evil laboratory against their wills (initially, anyway). But of course I should emphasise the text doesn't buy into that, because it's actually written by someone who understands nuance and empathy (shocking!).

The easy answer is "well they were all basically eggs so they're happy with it in the end" but the text explicitly rejects this explanation (and rightfully so). Yet it obviously doesn't buy into John Money nonsense either—many do "wash out" of the "programme", never to be heard from again.

So what it leaves you with is a group of women who are emphatically women (mostly) who cannot be labelled cis/trans, who view their old selves as truly dead (with a heaping of trauma attached), whose genders were coercively assigned to them and yet they accepted them. I think what I like about this is that on one hand it *is* analogous to (a) transsexual experience, and you can read it simply qua analogy, but it's obviously not *just* that; there are many points where this analogy breaks down and it asks you to look past the analogy. I don't have a conclusion to this, yet, and I don't think the text will ever hand me one. But I'm excited to see yet more nuance added to this in the later books to make it even harder to read. I love this aspect, basically.

Suffice it to say the characters are also lots of fun and I want more of them; I'm excited for where the plot is going; and I'm dreading a bit that the pacing is already quite uneven, and since this is a web serial I just know it'll get worse. Oh well, I'm a Dorleypilled true believer in need of novelty mugs now, I'll read it anyway :)

The hottest new sport in the UK is Ranked Competitive Breast Growth, where cis men (and ONLY cis men) compete to see who can grow the biggest tatas in three years. Winner gets a million dollars. Obviously this sport would appeal to lots of cis guys, and no other demographic! But if you do get exposed to not be a cis guy you're instantly booted from the competition. (Despite this, orchiectomies are considered meta.)

This should be ridiculous, but somehow it manages to seem grounded by the end. The first half is a bit like an absurd trans sitcom: four roommates all participate, and hijinks ensue, all of them basically convinced they're the trans one going undercover in the competition who must keep their cover lest the others get them booted from the competition. However, the narrative doesn't shy away from what a hostile situation this is, and it's crystal clear about what drives them all to participate. (Surely there are no parallels to reality here, it's pure fiction I'm told.) For this reason the second half shifts to be less of a sitcom and more of a (sad) character study.

I'm beginning to think I don't treat my fellow trans girls very well.

This really worked for me! I would say I found the first half more fun, but the second half was what got me hooked.

It's not perfect — for example, there's a segment that basically goes on a long tangent to summarize one of Bhatt's essays. While it's a good essay I found it a bit grating; it does get weaved in afterwards in a way I liked, but in the moment it was still very clunky.

All in all though I'd recommend it as a fun read, at least if a transfeminist sitcom sounds appealing. Quite similar to Sisters of Dorley but also distinct enough to have its own things to say. If the next book was already out I'd be reading it immediately

Review to come, I think, but *The Third Sex* was utterly electrifying, edifying, rage-inducing. Excellent and essential work.

disappointed :(