There is No Antimemetics Division

I quite enjoyed this book, and I'm taking a star off for something that isn't really the book's fault, just my taste. It got a bit more horror than I expected and liked, I more enjoyed the mind bending fun thought experiments of the different SCPs a lot more, it followed kind of a broken up story style that fit very well to the story told, and while it got pretty out there in the last 4th I ended up liking it quite a lot.

Really enjoyed this. If you're a fan of urban type horror or unknowable cosmic threads give this a go. If you've played Alan Wake or Control, you might appreciate this too.

I enjoyed the fragmented / short story style and much preferred reading them collated here in a book rather than on the SCP wiki.

Some cool tech - I especially enjoyed the concept of a drug that temporarily reverses old age (and therefore memory loss) at the cost of a whiplash effect when it wears off.

Imagining ideas that are so alien or transdimensional that our brains literally cannot handle them is very compelling. I got turned around throughout these stories that I wasn't entirely sure what happened in what order but I love the idea of humans fighting a war they can't even remember.

I did not know the SCP Wiki nor the content of the book. Somewhere here on bookwyrm I was intrigued by the title. I really liked the musings on memory, the connection to oneself, but also on institutional memory. Recommened for every science fiction fan!

Fun and quick to read; dense with concepts and twists that are amusing to think on. The speculations on memory, attention, personal and institutional knowledge, trust, social communication, etc. are sometimes unsettling to consider, sometimes funny, sometimes dreadful.

It may be said to lack a solid through-line, a single character or path that can be traced from beginning to end. That may make it feel even more like a cascade of neat ideas than a story.

And, man, it doesn't end very strongly. It doesn't wrap up in a way that's, uh, worthy of its funny, playful, disquieting concepts and set-pieces. Instead, it ends like an animé.

This was a wild read. I didn't know about the SCP wiki before, I found this book by chance via a Mastodon review someone posted. It sounded interesting enough, a little bit like the John Dies At The End novels, maybe without the humor.

The premise of ideas invading human space and these "beings" (if you can call them that) being all around us, just invisible, is pretty interesting. Deliberately purging your memory so these ideas cannot invade your brain while simultaneously trying to solve the problem of how to save humankind, even more so. An enjoyable read if you like sci-fi with more than a touch of horror mixed in.

This was a great read. If SCP wiki is at all something you like, you'll like this.

Mind bending cosmic horror that's reminiscent of the laundry files and towards the end, COVID.
It's nice to find science fiction with a novel conceit that's delivered as well as this one. Each chapter builds on the previous until we're through the looking glass. By the nature of the topic it has plenty of opportunity to talk about the importance of memory, though I feel like it only scratches the surface of the setting.

The normal world carries on around us, and we are all oblivious to the world ending horrors that constantly seek to reshape reality. If only there was an organisation dedicated to securing, containing and protecting us? If there was, I'm sure they would have an antimemetics division to deal with those pesky cognitohazards. Or would they?

So, yeah, definitely Lovecraftian in many ways: in magnitude (this is end-of-the-world horror, not pedestrian handful-of-teens-in-the-woods); in intention (no impersonal asteroids or supernovae, we’re talking pure directed malevolence); in complexity; and, most importantly, in creativity—the ideas developed here are really clever.

Unfortunately, I’ve never cared for Lovecraft. Even as a teen, before I learned what a racist PoS he was, I found his stories tedious. Like, okay, I’ve got this great idea for a concept, let’s see if I can completely kill it in development. This book was (unlike Lovecraft) actually quite good, well written, thought-provoking, enjoyable... it just tried too hard to work with ideas that can’t pan out. (I won’t go into details or spoilers. It just doesn’t add up. Not the motivations, nor the background, and least of all the science.) There are just some ideas, like impromptu hitchhiking to South America or coating your lover in whipped cream, that are better just left to the imagination.

The cover and summary don't mention this, but on page one you find out that this is a book in the SCP mythos. SCP is a collaboratively created fictional universe involving a "Foundation" with mind boggling resources that protects an unknowing world from supernatural horrors.

In fact, the first chapter is the relatively well known SCP 055, and the rest of the story is an extension of 055's ideas.

The problem with being part of a shared universe like SCP though is that it's not clear what background reading you need to do to understand what the rules are. The book is mostly self-explanatory but then around 3/4 of the way in a wild new element is introduced that takes the story from low fantasy firmly into high fantasy territory. It definitely sticks the landing though.

There is a big central mystery but we don't get much of our characters (or the reader) being in contention with it so much as them just bumping against it. Also we don't get very much information from inside the characters (in fact, it's not always clear who the POV character is from scene to scene.) I would have appreciated a bit more of that; I think that because the style is ultimately related to creepypasta the goal is to make the reader fill in the feelings with their own fear and doubt.

The message, setup, and especially the ending and lingering questions feel very current, but left me wanting a bit more spelled out-not the mysterious parts, but the mundane parts.

If you're a fan of Control or Primer you may enjoy the sf elements or the horror.

If you like Charles Stross's "Atrocity Archives" or Doctor Who's "The Silence" story arc, you're going to love "There Is No Antimemetics Division".

It explores the idea of what would an anti-meme war look like. I understand that the story was originally serialized on a blog, but it fits together pretty well. The final act was great, but just shy of mind-blowing.

I give 5 stars sparingly, but I knew this deserved one just 50 pages in. Overall, a great addition to my new sci-fi canon, because this story stays with me. I think about it during the day, and I feel like it shifts my perspective in an interesting way. I intended to ship it to my fellow-sci-fi-loving mom after I was done, but it's got more Lovecraftian gore and body horror than she'd like.

Perfection

This book is an explosion of ideas, astounding and obvious and transformative and crazy and valid. And the people are people, and intensely human through it all.

It feels odd to say that this is the best piece of science fiction I've ever read, both because how could that not be hyperbole, and because "science fiction" at the same time doesn't do it justice.

But there it is: this is the best piece of science fiction I've ever read.

No doubt that's partly because it happens to fit my personal tastes and interests so very perfectly.

But also, it's just that good.