The Archive Undying

I'm sad that I have to DNF (30-40%) and give this a lower rating.

The cover, the concept, that first damn chapter!! I was so freaking hooked and couldn't understand why it had a lower rating. I thought it deserved higher, and I was determined to prove everyone wrong!

Iterate Fractal has corrupted, and it is dying, and in it's divine death, it has killed you.You clutch the root in your breast. It is the largest of veins Iterate Fractal stuck into you, and the least intentional.

My love for beautifully crafted words drank in the opening chapter, hungry and grinning like a wolf for more. I'd found a new gem in the rough. Alas, it was not to be my fate, and my heart began to sink as I delved into the following chapters. I started to feel like I had entered a cave with no flash light. The light dimming the further I went in.

I believe Emma Mieko Candon is going to be great author. One day. As beautiful as her writing is, she fails to remember that us readers can't see into her thoughts. Because that's how it felt to read. I felt like I was getting only half the story. I couldn't SEE anything. Descriptions were vague for the sake of ‘pretty words', it was so hard to imagine what any of the machines looked like, and when I thought I might have finally landed on an concept, Candon seemed to counteract that.

A story of AI gods that created cities and housed it's citizens like it's children, only to fall into terrible corruption and nuke the very people it protected? F* yes. Give me more of that. I wanted in. I want so badly to discover this world of Candon's and learn more about these corrupt AI, relic's, ENGINES and everything else. But that's all I could really get, the names of things.

I am not giving up on Emma Mieko Candon, as long as she improves the clarity and depth of her writing, I will gladly pick up another book of hers. The ideas, and concepts and the worlds Candon is creating are meant to be read, they are too cool and epic not to. But until then, I unfortunately need to put The Archive Undying back on the shelf, and sigh wistfully at the cover until I'm ready to let it go to a tiny library or second-hand book store.

4.25 stars This review definitely does not contain spoilers...

This reading experience reminded me of Witch King (Martha Wells) in that you are dropped into a deep and complicated world without a great deal of exposition or other hand holding. I listened to this one, and, although the narrator is fantastic, I plan to read the physical book, as I think I'll get more out of it. The prose, vivid descriptions of the world, and the main POV character's voice all pulled me in. The plot was somewhat secondary for me, possibly because it was harder to parse than the more clearly drawn character conflicts and relationships. I think this book would benefit from tighter execution, especially in the final act. The ultimate conflict was repetitive, and it was the primary point where my vague understanding of the world really hampered my enjoyment. There were also a lot of POV switches in the back half of the book, and it was sometimes unclear who was speaking (for plot reasons?), which was not ultimately enjoyable.

This is not the right book for anyone who can't abide a soft magic system. The tech here is definitely soft, and I don't think there is a point where all is revealed or clarified, though certainly some major things become clear as you go along. Reading this was a similar experience to the first two-thirds of Harrow the Ninth; I didn't really get what was happening, but I was still totally there for it. The major difference is that the big reveal in Harrow doesn't happen here. I think Witch King is the better comp, as in both cases I loved the world and characters but felt like the plot, especially the denouement, was weak. I also saw a lot of common threads in the reviews of Witch King and The Archive Undying. If you are OK being thrown into the deep end and want to experience a unique setting and gorgeous prose, then give this a try. This is supposed to be a duology, and I will definitely be picking up the sequel.

Oooohhhh my god, where do I start? SPOILER FILLED RANT INCOMING! 
I can handle multiple POVs, I can handle first, second and third person storytelling, I can handle flashbacks, dreamscapes, nebulous telepathic mindscapes. What I can't handle well is when it keeps shifting which character is told in first, second or third person! 
I can handle sci fi world building. What I can't handle is pausing on the evocative details 400 pages in after massive amounts of startling plot reveals, stalling the story progression, oh, and being so focused on the current day situation that the ‘before' of Cradle and the pantheon/overseeing AI/earlier generation of robot gods Immaculate/Immortal something or other is referenced so infrequently and with barely any details that I'm lost every time it's referred to. 
I get that this author is setting up what I hope for their sake is a long running series, but you can't leave all the exposition for later books. 
But really, those are just framing issues. Let's get down to the real nitty gritty.
The reason I'm so pissed is because I was so invested, for so long. And then it was just betrayal-palooza up in here. 
I don't seek out works where the focus is on faith, organized religion or cults. My atheist ass finds a recounting of the damage that shit can do to people, in their own experiences or their actions towards others, simultaneously baffling and incredibly upsetting. Maybe as soon as I saw the history of this world built out as post-corruption of A.I.s that were some mix of all powerful/benevolent/tyrannical gods, I should have left. But I figured the societies and the people therein would be over it, especially as the remains of these AIs were being used by a dictatorial government as enforcers to get people to live a certain way.  But no, apparently these AIs managed to fuck up people so bad that they would feed people, including friends and lovers, to their robotic shells in the hopes that they would get better. 
Oh, and then there's the passenger, the AI who's a virus who was created by some other AIs to keep the god tendencies of these AIs in check and corrupt/kill them if they did what they did, control and kill the populations they looked after, but only in very specific circumstances, but of course the influence of humanity means that AI got a little fucked up too! 
[Is anybody else sick to death of ‘humanity created AI so AI will be the distillation of our flaws' narratives? Where are the books about the best of humanity coming through in AI? I would happily read those, please!]
And Sunai, who turned so many cheeks that it felt like he was in an abusive relationship with the whole godamn universe, the reveal that Iterate Fractal designed him to challenge them, just, saw it coming and also incredibly angry on his behalf for being so very caught in the middle.  
I stayed strong for 400 pages, but I'll admit after the big round of ‘actually I was lying to you this whole time and this is the horrible thing I've done/am doing' it gets a little rage blurred. I think some of it could be blamed on the AI, but I'm not sure that makes all of it forgivable? Suffice to say, the ending didn't save it for me, and as my brain is selectively effective at, the irritating portions are already slipping from my memory post walk-out-the-grumpy. If you thrive on interpersonal drama and don't mind some gray morality characters this may work for you. The premise might hinge on corrupt AI, but the plot is mostly messy humans. 🤷🏼‍♂️

⚠️Body horror