The Archive Undying

The Downworld Sequence, Book 1

By: Emma Mieko Candon

Narrated by: Yung-I Chang

Length: 16 hrs and 28 mins

Publisher's summary

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 life: 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.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor.com.

©2023 Emma Mieko Candon (P)2023 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Giant robots stomp around a lush and tactile world of ruined cities and unknowable AI gods, which is all one could ever need.”—New York Times bestselling author Tamsyn Muir

“The Archive Undying is everything you could want in a mecha novel. Emma Mieko Candon is brilliant.”—Ann Leckie, Hugo and Nebula award-winning author of Ancillary Justice

“Candon pours her/their elaborate setting of weird artifacts, monstrous fragtech, and corrupted AI through an intense and intimate emotional focus to create a vivid journey of recovery and reclamation.”—New York Times bestselling author, Kate Elliott

AI evolution towards corruption

Emma Mieko Candon’s The Archive Undying is a confusing sci-fi story of a dystopian future after AIs had risen to godlike power such that they were worshipped with archivists serving as priests, only to become corrupted creating a post-AI world where some are hunting for AI artifacts. Individuals who had interacted with AIs retain some abilities and are referred to as ‘relics.’ The political structure is one of competing city states run by mob bosses, many of which have ambitions of creating an ‘engine,’ basically an AI derived entity that is under the control of a relic with an archive (the memory or data). In the hunt for salvage, un unknown AI arises that seems to have been the cause of the original corruption.

Candon’s worldbuilding leaves much to be desired as the current state of the world as well as how it got this way is never fully fleshed out. The whole tale is reminiscent of the 70’s film ‘Zardoz’ with a set of contrived arrangements that permit a story, but without much satisfaction.

The narration is acceptable with some character distinction. Pacing is on the slow side.

A meditation on interbeing

In this exquisitely strange and well-drawn world, humans and AI’s are intermingled in surprising ways. What it means to be “human”, to feel, to think and to act, becomes complicated (and funny and sad and scary) in ways that most of us never think about. Lucky for us, the author thought about it. All we have to do is enjoy the journey!

No idea what’s going on

Admittedly I’m a pretty casual reader, but the story tries to be everywhere, the world building is really good but is rendered incomprehensible by the un marked perspective shifts; are we in a memory, a vision, who is talking right now? Often I was wondering: where are we? And What is going on? As another reviewer said— don’t hide your world building, want the characters to travel in a huge beast like in mortal engines then take the time to explain how the walking creature works and where they are. Literally spell out this is what happened to the AI, this is how AI society worked, what happened. I’m left super confused at all times and after like 10 hours I just couldn’t keep going as I had no idea where we were, what the characters goals were, and why the things that were happening were happening.

Hard to connect with

I deeply wanted to like this book. Mecha and AI in a weird future-past-present? Sign me up. Especially with a cover blurb from Tamsyn Muir, whom I adore. But alas, it is extremely hard to build any sort of emotional connection to the world or these characters because the author buries everything in layers of obfuscation that feel pretty unnecessary.
I respect her commitment to avoiding info-dumps. Another reviewer was like, “Please spell out the world-building,” and I disagree with that sentiment. Info-dumps take you out of the flow of the story and often feel very YA. The author clearly decided she would avoid them altogether. That’s great, it’s a laudable goal, but she doesn’t pull it off. I spent 80% of this book saying—out loud—“what? wait…what? who? why?!” There’d be these passages where the narration was like “suddenly it all made sense” or “sunai understood everything” and I was like, “Uhh, I don’t.”
I STILL do not understand almost any character’s motivation, which I think is the central reason it’s so hard to connect with. The main love story is so rushed that it’s nonsensical. Everyone knows everyone or maybe they don’t but they definitely do? Divine convergence, amirite? Who is the Harbor? Wtf do they want? What does ANYONE want? The plot ends up feeling like nonsense, and by the end I was just desperate for it to be over. The last 40 minutes took me two weeks to finish. The ending lacked any sort of emotional punch, both because of the aforementioned complete lack of understanding of why anyone was doing what they were doing, but also because the perspective shifts so constantly that it becomes impossible to tell who is talking.
It’s hard not to compare this to what I think to be pretty obvious influences: Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series and Neon Genesis Evangelion. The Locked Tomb is similar in how it handles world-building, but the writing is nuanced instead of intentionally obfuscated, and you learn about the world in pieces that make sense, like a slowly revealed tapestry instead of jackson pollock painting. Where I think it fails in comparison to Eva is that was a visual medium. The author has also written graphic novels, and I honestly think this would have been waaaay better as one. She could do so much with images that she can’t with words, and I think we’d all be less confused.
I had this on my wishlist for almost a year before it came out, and I was pretty disappointed in the result. I highly doubt I’d return for a book 2, but I might sample the author’s work again down the road once she’s figured some things out.

Wonderful!

Absolutely loved it!

I'm not usually into mecha/robot stuff (I'm more of a high fantasy nerd) but the book blurb was so wild that I had to read the sample and it hooked me immediately! So much that, despite planning on reading it, I decided to buy the audio book so I could listen to it at work.

The characters are funny, interesting and multifaceted in their motivations. It's difficult not to like any of them even as their motivations clash. I was especially charmed with Jin, I love a little cunning, sassy bastard, especially a non-binary one.

It was a little difficult to follow sometimes (I got a little lost near the end) because it is, at its root, speculative fiction, but by the time the book was nearing the end, everything came together and I wasn't left feeling like I was missing anything (even though I'm sure I did, lol!) It's going to warrant a re-read in the near future, for sure.

The narrarator for the audio book was fantastic as well! The character voices were distinct and it was easy to follow who was speaking and whose POV it was, even when they blurred together. His cadence and voice were a perfect fit for the book.

This can definitely be a stand-alone as it felt complete, but I'm very excited to see that this may be part of a series! Looking forward to seeing what the author writes next. Thank you so much for this book!

The Secret Shouldn’t Be The World Building

I really enjoyed the characters in this book and you can tell that this writer has a firm grasp on the world they’ve created. They’re just unwilling to tell us ANYTHING for so long that the book is almost incomprehensible the entire way through. Company cats are mentioned before their description or purpose is even implied, the corruption of the AI gods is a vague calamity that doesn’t even have outcome descriptions until late in the book, we don’t even get an idea of what corruption does until chapter 33. There’s very compelling stakes and plenty going on, I don’t understand why the world building is so restricted from the reader. Regardless of that frustration, I really like Sunai and I think if a sequel book comes out with clearer admission of the world, this will make a more compelling read a second time around.

A personal, but important story in a large, expansive world.

The Archive Undying knows when to hold your hand through world building, and when to let you fill in the spaces on your own. Exposition isn't forced, but is substantial where needed. Less ham fisted than Snow Crash's librarian explaining Mesopotamian myth, but no less thorough, and for a world all its own. This was sold to me as "For your friend who brought a 200 slide presentation on Evangelion to the Presentation Party," and I was left satisfied and hungry for more.

multiple voices with out multiple audio voices.

very confusing. I could not follow the plot. characters descriptions were poor. only finished because of a book club. would not have finished other wise.