There Is No Antimemetics Division

There is no Antimemetics Division is a rare book. I really love how it's a composite novel, connecting multiple short stories. It's really inspiring. On the other hand it is a book which is in the cosmic horror space.

The book is about unknowns, simply speaking ideas that are potentially dangerous and hard to grasp. The whole book explores how dangerous it is to know things, try to comprehend something and that ideas or concepts can spread like a disease. Thinking about fake news, manipulation of information or conspiracy theories get close to this as a real world example when people are not critically thinking about them and drowning in these perspectives.

But this book goes further. These unknowns are intelligent beings and sentient enough to be evil in cases or don't want you to discover them. The division is trying to contain them, like a shadow organisation. Yet, they need to forget about certain things to operate and protect themselves. This is the interesting part as the book explores this world of forgetting but continuation. How are you able to take notes but continue with the thoughts you left with those notes?

The style of writing is kind of technical and scientific which totally matches the atmosphere. It was a great and unique read for me and a fresh and nice exploration of a setting with interesting concepts as well as challenges and questions around it.

Ngl this got so convoluted I kinda checked out halfway through. The power creep of the threats is just kinda like.., yeah I mean how do u deal with a world ending congnitohazard that has eaten all of humanity? I found the less threatening scps way more fun to think about. Also it has the classic horror thing of the monster not being scary once you show it. Especially when the threat is a literal CONCEPT, whyyyy are u making me think of a white guy in his 20s?

The book is really well written, the dialogue is good, easily leagues above most SCP writings (which is yknow. Why this is published and most of the stuff is on the archive or Reddit or whatever). The concept of the book is by its very nature impossible to understand, and trying to put it into words is a cool attempt, but it gets kinda tired. Once we switched to Adam’s pov I didn’t really care. Would’ve read an entire book of Nema’s pov tho!!

Anyway these are my only critiques because beyond that it’s pretty cool. I’d say more adventure than horror bc again, once you’ve seen the monster it’s not that scary, so if ur into that kinda thing it’s probably great, just not quite my thing. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4