Millions died after the first contact. An alien weapon holds the key to redemption–or annihilation. Experience Karen Osborne’s unforgettable science fiction debut, Architects of Memory. 2021 Locus Award for Best First Novel–Finalist SyFY Wire SFF Reads to pick up in September Terminally ill salvage pilot Ash Jackson lost everything in the war with the alien Vai, but she’ll be damned if she … with the alien Vai, but she’ll be damned if she loses her future. Her plan: to buy, beg, or lie her way out of corporate indenture and find a cure. When her crew salvages a genocidal weapon from a ravaged starship above a dead colony, Ash uncovers a conspiracy of corporate intrigue and betrayal that threatens to turn her into a living weapon.
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I was really eager to read this book. Unfortunately it didn’t match my expectations and turned out to be an incredibly frustrating read. The plot takes forever to unfold and the reader isn’t helped along the way to figure out where it might take them. That it takes them to a really unexpected place is a good thing, but the lack of directions made me feel blindsided by it. Also the title of the book made me expect a completely different story. It took me over a half the book to realise that there will be no architects of memory and that memory manipulation doesn’t play any role in the story. Memories become erased, yes, but nothing new comes out of them. The series title, Memory War, is a more accurate guide for readers’ expectations.
The story is set in a future spacefaring world that is ruled by profitmaking corporations. People are either born as citizens of these corporations or they indenture themselves to them to earn a citizenship. There has been a war with an alien race before the book begins. When an alien weapon is found, all the corporations want it, ostensibly to defeat the aliens. The plot is basically about the corporations fighting over the weapon.
The main point of view character is Ashlan. The book begins with an emotion dump about everything that is wrong with her life. In a couple of pages we learn that she’s dying, but she wants to make into a citizen before that, which makes her take risks. Her fiancé has died of the same illness a year earlier. She’s since fallen in love again with her captain, but she’s dumped her for fairly vague reasons. Then Ash finds the alien weapon and it turns out she’s uniquely connected to it.
Ash is a character with practically no agency over her story. She goes where she’s told to, reacts to events around her, and whines about her fate. It isn’t until the very end that she tries to take matters to her own hand, only to be frustrated time and again. Her solution made me lose what little interest I had in her.
The rest of the characters weren’t any better. Maybe the attempt was to create nuanced characters, but the execution was so clumsy that they came across as sociopaths with zero control over their emotions. At one moment they were friendly, at next they were genocidal killers because of a past trauma, and back to likeable again. It was impossible to tell how any of them might react to any given situation or why they reacted the way they did. It was easier to not become attached to any of them.
A smoother narrative and better descriptions along the way, both the world-building and the characters’ emotions, might have made this a better read. The ending reveals that the book has aspirations. I wish it could have achieved them too.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Architects of Memory
(The Memory War #1)
by Karen Osborne
I had the audio version from Chirp and it was awesome!!
When I get a science fiction book it better be good or I can’t get far into it. This book was hard, fast, stunning in the descriptions, excellent in the world building, characters were rich with life, true corporate greed, and even though they were searching for alien artifacts, it felt real!
Ash is an indentured servant, every one starts that way unless you are born to a citizen. You have to work hard to buy your way into citizenship. Ash works aboard a ship that does dangerous missions to seek out crash sites to find things, hopefully alien artifacts from the war with the aliens the Via.
They do find an artifact and everyone wants it and tries to take it. Ash has many secrets that gets exposed along the way. One she didn’t even know herself! It’s full of action, emotion, twists, hope, disappointment, and it is so awesome! The suspense, fights, world, missions are incredibly! I really loved this book! I want to read the next book as soon as the price comes down! Lol!