Drop Everything & Read the Archive Undying RIGHT NOW
It's like if Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was a gay mecha book.
Welcome back to Klaudia's Corner!
For the uninitiated, this is where I bring you 1 piece of media that has captivated my heart and soul lately, and break apart why it is wonderful, why it is (or could be) popular, and why you will love it, too.
This issue I have the distinct honor of discussing a piece of media right as it releases, rather than being years or months late to the game like my last few issues. I am so excited to talk about the first novel of the Downworld Sequence:
The Archive Undying
by Emma Mieko Candon
I was already a fan of Emma's first novel, Star Wars Visions: Ronin, so I went into this novel knowing I'd like it. I did not know how much I'd LOVE it. As a fan of adult scifi like Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice/Imperial Radch books, I was already interested in the topic of worlds with AI with multiple human bodies. And while those books delve into the political aspects that a society with ancillaries brings, The Archive Undying asks what it is like when the bodies connected to the AI, in this case called relics, are more a question of faith and spirituality. What does it mean, to love a god who has also taken your bodily autonomy? How does that inform your choices? And what is ethical for the god to do to you?
This is also essentially the plot of the book if that helps.
This book has a little something for everyone. The main character, Sunai, is loveable in the way that he so desperately does not want to be loveable and says it constantly, but you, the reader, much like his god Iterate Fractal, and everyone who meets him, cannot but help to love him. The worldbuilding, like the tendrils of Iterate Fractal into a relic's brain, takes some time to understand, and get used to, but you slowly begin to piece it together just as Sunai allows himself to realize certain truths.
Emma deliberately references a lot of mecha in this book and Eva is no exception. Sunai is like if Shinji grew up to be loveable yet still extremely depressed, and he loves to cook. Get in the robot, Sunai.
And the prose? I LOVE Emma's style, so I may be biased, but in almost every chapter there is a line that just knocked me flat. It feels like reading epic poetry, but at the same time modern, relateable and hypercharacterized. Even some of the most mundane occurrences are described in ways that are beautiful, which I think pairs so well with the theme of making the machine the divine.
I read it as an audiobook, my preferred method, and I'm actually sad I did, despite it being a really good audiobook, because I wanted to catch all these lines and highlight them as they happened, which almost never happens for me. One such example:
“He wants to see that face as he’s seen in turn. What a fulsome whole they make together. He is consumed by the transcendence of union.”
One thing to note, is that this is adult scifi, and not a scifi capital R Romance novel, but there is a romance at the center of it, and it is BREATHTAKING. I think of them constantly. Yes, they are gay. So are most of the people around them. But they are also deeply flawed people rejecting connection despite wanting it dearly and the constant yearning is DELICIOUS. Fellas, is it gay to both worship and fear the same AI god together?
I cannot stress enough how this is basically Sunai and (SPOILER).
(Speaking on representation, yes, there's significant LGBTQ representation, but also very prominent characters are very explicitly neurodivergent, some might argue autistic, and several are physically disabled, and it's treated extremely well and normally. It feels very natural, and even factors into the world and character building for one character at one point.)
This is what Sunai wears to sleep every night.
Like the AI god Iterate Fractal itself, this book left me hungry for more, of Sunai, and of this world. I immediately would pay any amount of money to see this as an adult animated series, maybe in the visual storytelling style of Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It's a story about mechas and AI tech, but deeply rooted in the natural world, and the people of a city. It has huge and brutal action scenes, but the general vibe is quiet, and rooted in how the machine attempts to be a part of the natural world, from how it acts like vines, to how it uses bone and coral.
The ending is also basically this song, which made me full body laugh for 10 minutes when I realized it.
I am almost upset I read this book as it is coming out, because then I cannot binge all the books in the upcoming series at once and have it piped into my brain directly as if I was a relic interfacing with an AI god myself.
You will enjoy TAU if you like:
All the mecha you can think of - Evangelion, Pacific Rim, Gundam, they all probably influenced Emma in some way. However, even if you are not a mecha enjoyer or aficionado, you will still enjoy it. (If you enjoyed the political machinations between powerful women from my last issue in Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury, the author of TAU is also a GWitch fan and this book has PLENTY of that as well. As well as lesbians, obviously).
Specifically on Pacific Rim, if the idea of drift compatibility makes you feel as crazy inside as it does to me, then this is the book for you. You know, the inherent romance of sharing a bond so close you can pilot a mecha.
As I said before, the Imperial Radch universe of books from Ann Leckie, or really any scifi about droids and the ethics of artificial intelligence (but again, even if that's not normally your thing, I encourage you to give it a try - it feels VERY different).
YES, Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom but also Breath of the Wild! Emma loves the games themself and you will definitely notice some influences, but the combination of magic and spirituality, technology and engineering, and the awe of the natural world that the BOTW/TOTK era brings to LOZ is SO VERY similar to the Archive Undying. (Yes there's divine beasts, but also people with cursed mechanical body parts like Link's arm in TOTK, and fragments of corrupted technology from ages past, and consuming objects of unimaginable power that change your body forever...)
Not only lots of queer characters, but queer characters with varying shades of gray of morality, but who never feel like caricatures. There isn't even one "villain" per se, and every character has moments of failure and redemption, even for side characters.
When just cooking up a tasty meal is an integral part of a scene. Damn, this book made me hungry. I think if this book was animated I would hate every scene of Sunai avoiding his problems by cooking for people because it would look SO tasty.
A wider thread on what a police state with mechas looks like, which is often a common theme in mecha anyway. How do established resistance movements and the state and the divine intertwine?
WLW/MLM solidarity, or more importantly, WLW/MLM hostility (sometimes the gay protagonist's best butch lesbian friend has to kick his ass).
A they/them who is a menace to society (complimentary).
The Power of Aunties (Sunai is helpless to resist).
Did I mention the divine beasts? But yes, mecha animals, and terrifying mecha sea creatures as well. Think of the robotic sea monster from Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
Multiple POV in prose fiction. This book switches a lot between third person about Sunai, and first person from the POV of different AI, and other things I cannot spoil, in order to get across how perspective and consciousness meld and bend often. It's FASCINATING.
Yes, Trigun. The author is also a Trigun fan. I can only describe Sunai as if Wolfwood was the plant, unable to die, but like Wolfwood, self destructive but unable to not protect those he loves and be doomed by the narrative, and fall in love with a divine being. (Also, a chainsmoker who loves to cook!).
Rogue One, but specifically the character of Galen Erso, the conflicted, manipulated, and guilty scientist.
In-universe poetry as a storytelling device. (And yes, this does include Sunai mentioning soulmate poetry to a guy he just barely met, despite saying he doesn't like getting attached).
The messiest gay love triangle imaginable (both LITERALLY and FIGURATIVELY).
If none of this has enticed you yet, let this art commissioned by the author, drawn by Caitlin Ono of my dearest Sunai, convince you:
Once you finish the book you can order this as a print directly from the artist here!
I am SO excited for more people to read this book so I can talk about it more. (And so I can see fanart, PLEASE). You can read the first SIX CHAPTERS for free right now to try it out!
When you decide to read it, please:
Check if your library has it/has it on order, either physically or on the Libby or Hoopla apps. If not, see if you can request it!
If you're in the US and my recommendation helped, please order it through my Bookshop! (the Barnes & Noble and Libro.fm audiobook subscriptions also offer a free audiobook when you sign up if you want to go the audio route and want to divest from Amazon).
If you're not in the US, I would ask that you try to buy it anywhere other than Amazon. Even Rakuten Kobo for the ebook or audiobook is slightly better!
If you like it as much as I did, make sure you write a review on GoodReads, and yes, Amazon (you can write reviews there as long as you've bought something in the last year, even if you didn't buy that item there). I don't use either, but I repost my Storygraph reviews over there because it really helps authors. And tell a friend! Or post about it online! Word of mouth does wonders for books! (By the way, we should be friends on Storygraph, the BETTER reading tracker/Goodreads.)
Please email/call/text/DM me everything about this book. I NEED to talk about it with someone.
Congratulations for getting through my very long email, see you in the next issue!
