By Sinclair Adams
Artificial Intelligence has been a hot topic of discussion lately. ChatBot-based writing and AI-generated art has spread across all news and social media platforms, leading many to reconsider the nature of the sci-fi trope of a “robot takeover.” The narrative around AI has seemed to change from the control of humanity into the improvement of humanity. Things certainly aren’t turning into a “robot utopia” where the lives of all humans are made easier with the chipper presence of helpful machines.
This is why Emma Mieko Candon’s The Archive Undying resonated with me. It’s not a robot utopia, nor is it a story about the destruction of humanity. In The Archive Undying, Candon probes the novel question of what happens if humanity and AI grow as one–and decay as one, as well.
The Archive Undying is the story about a world where large and far-reaching systems of Artificial Intelligence interface with entire city-states and act as patron gods to their city. The story follows Sunai, a man who’s survived the destruction of his city of Khuon Mo at the cost of becoming a vessel for its fallen patron AI. Ever since then, Sunai has been dealing with the incomprehensible trauma of sharing his body with the AI–not technically dead, but still not living his own life. Sunai’s coping mechanisms are ironically very human, as he often drinks himself into stupors and sleeps with any guy he stumbles upon. After Sunai hooks up with a mysterious man named Veyadi, it begins a chain reaction that places Sunai back into the driver’s seat of the corrupted AI gods. Along the way, they have to deal with the Harbor, the authoritarian military state who has their own vision on how to deal with the corrupted AI gods.
On Sunai and Veyadi’s journey across wastelands, abandoned temples, and even mafia dens, they meet a cast of equally complex characters with something to gain from their connection to the AI. One of my favorite characters was Jin, a snarky and cunning nonbinary person who is more than meets the eye. Their inclusion in the story as a nonbinary person is seamless, and even contributes to a bit of social worldbuilding as they are identified with “third gender” markings. The representation of a complex nonbinary person who is not completely defined by their gender is another thing to enjoy from Archive.
One of the things I most appreciated about this book is Candon’s commitment to high speculative science. There is no shortage of imagination when building this world on every page. The technological interworkings of the world take the form of roots and genetically-corrupted animals, further blurring the line between organic and bionic.
The reality of this world is so fully realized that, as a reader, it can sometimes become difficult to find an entry point into it. A lot of concepts get introduced without explanation, and sometimes the characters make decisions that seem to have no correlation with their actions in the past. Before the book begins, there is a “Dramatis Personae” list of characters, cities, and their AI counterparts. I felt like there was a missed opportunity to add in a glossary that explains major plot features for your continual reference. Common words like “disruptor” and “ENGINE” are thrown around, but in the world of Archive, they have their own distinct meanings that I often had to remind myself of. Without a proper glossary or a slower introduction to the worldbuilding, this is a book where a lot of the discovery is on your own. Archive required me to do a lot of re-reading and note-taking to better keep track of where the plot was going.
Even if it’s a dense read, there is no shortage of worthwhile moments. Candon describes the world of the decayed AIs viscerally and beautifully. The most intuitive parts of the worldbuilding were the smaller narratives inside the narrative. Within Archive, there exists its own lore and mythology that appear to reflect the movements in the plot at large, escalating the story to epic proportions.
In that same vein, there are multiple places for you as the reader to draw your own conclusions. The story never grounds itself as taking place on the planet Earth in a far-distant future, allowing you to fill in your own lore about where it is located. Is this the story of a faraway planet, or is this the story of Earth thousands of years in the future, after society destroys and rebuilds itself again and again? The conclusions are yours to draw.
There are occasional shifts into different points of views, which can also add to the confusion, but they create mind-melding moments of perspective warping that only the written word can do. As the reader, being jerked around from a second-person narrator to experimental multiple-perspective captures the feeling of body horror and loss of autonomy that the protagonists experience.
My most favorite moments in Archive, however, were the domestic moments. There are multiple scenes where characters cook food or share a meal, which brings a lot of humanity to them. Despite this taking place in an advanced and futuristic society, it does not necessarily mean it is a peaceful or healthy one. Having characters simply lean on each other in the face of the chaos they live with are just as important as moments of existential AI horror.
The Archive Undying is not a light read and takes a lot of patience to work through, but the reward is there. For me, Archive has set a higher standard for the mecha genre of stories. If you are keen on science fiction and want an innovative and thought-provoking take on AI in literature, this book is one that you will not want to miss. Not to mention, the cover is absolutely stunning, and will look beautiful sitting on any shelf.
The Archive Undying is available from Blue Cypress Books, Bookshop, Charm City Books, Loyalty Bookstores, and Village Well Books & Coffee.
Sinclair Adams (she/they) is a writer interested in speculative and science fiction narratives. She earned a B.A. in English from the University of Las Vegas and an M.F.A. in creative writing from Chapman University. She was an editor for Ouroboros Magazine, Chapman’s journal of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and other speculative fiction. Follow her on Instagram @sinclairwrites.