There Is No Antimemetics Division

Well that was great. Devoured this book in a day. Had no idea what to expect going in and if something has convinced you to read this book, you should read it that way too. Skip the rest of this review.

But if you still need convincing.. This book is a fresh, exciting take on horror/sci-fi. It's as structurally interesting as This Is How You Lose the Time War but then totally different. Rising out of the SCP Foundation mythology, something that originated as early-2000s fanfic, this book takes one really fascinating idea about human memory and perception of reality and spins it into a smart, compelling read. Hints of PK Dick, Lovecraft, and Ted Chiang. But also unique and highly disorienting. Compelling reading.

4 stars is very high praise for me. The only imperfections are.. it's a pretty inhuman book, the strength is in the narrative exploring the scifi idea and not the characters. Also ironically I didn't much like one of the later main characters, the last protagonist, they just weren't' as well sketched out as the others and the story stopped being as exhaustively inventive page after page. But the first 3/4 are truly and intensely excellent, so that slight loss of pace at the end is forgiveable.

Update April 2026 I re-read this book in the new edition, after extensive changes to the second half. It's definitely improved! The key thing is the relationship between the two main protagonists is much better explained, or at least I'm clearer on it now. It's a lovely and tragic story. And it makes it much easier to follow the plot towards the end.

It's still a little woolly in the second half. qntm moves from some fairly straightforward neat idea short story chapters to a larger plot, a complicated setup and denouement. Honestly it's a little hard to follow, and still is in the 2026 version. Just a little too ambitious. But it's quite interesting and still the book as a whole is a uniquely fascinating bit of horror writing. I recommend it more than ever.