Architects of memory

by Karen E. Osborne

Paper Book, 2020

Status

Available

Call number

813.6

Series

Memory War (1)

Genres

Science Fiction

Fiction

Publication

New York : Tor Books, 2020.

Description

"Terminally ill salvage pilot Ash Jackson lost everything in the war with the alien Vai, but she'll be damned if she loses her future. Her plan: to buy, beg, or lie her way out of corporate indenture and find a cure. When her crew salvages a genocidal weapon from a ravaged starship above a dead colony, Ash uncovers a conspiracy of corporate intrigue and betrayal that threatens to turn her into a living weapon."--Provided by publisher.

User reviews

LibraryThing member ladycato

Architects of Memory is solid scifi with awesome character development, deep worldbuilding, and moral complexity. It's escapism that also makes you think.

Ash is an indenture with a big goal: gaining citizenship, and maybe proper medical treatment, before her terminal illness does her in. She

already almost died in an attack by mysterious aliens that did kill her fiance. Now, she's working to salvage tech off of space debris caused by those same aliens, the Vai. When she has an odd reaction to some strange tech, she finds herself caught in a vicious tug-of-war between the corporations who run and ruin the worlds.

The dialogue is witty, the action intense. I found this to be an incredibly quick read. It was great to read about a character whose bisexuality is presented and accepted without question. All of the characters are great, though, portrayed with genuine human nuance. The aliens are unique, too. Really, everything about the book takes old tropes and gives them a deft turn. Normally I can predict a lot of upcoming action, but this novel surprised me all the way through.

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LibraryThing member bookappeal

Several elements of this story are handled really well, particularly the aliens and their first contact with humans. The main characters are likable and interesting, though they could be more fully developed, particularly with respect to their lesbian/bisexual relationship. The inclusion of many

strong, talented, sometimes flawed, female characters who are actors on all sides of the battle is appreciated. The action scenes are plentiful and exciting but contain a good amount of sci-fi jargon that may interfere with a more casual reader's enjoyment. The corporate/political factions are not differentiated enough in character and the author relies on uniform colors to communicate who is with which faction, which is expecting a bit much of the reader when there are so many players and so many ships and planets to keep track of, as well. Osborne’s writing style can be overly and nonsensically descriptive at times (“The battle was a cipher within a storm, an ill-scrawled ebony ink note in a dead-dark room, a confusing chiaroscuro sweeping by in breathless, brilliant arcs.”) though, to be fair, she is often trying to viscerally describe the effects of an alien entity that is unlike anything in the human experience. If the same dedication had been put into developing character personalities and backgrounds, this would have been a more engaging novel.

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LibraryThing member Dokfintong

I'm in the minority.

I am the only person I know who does not like this book, which seems to be on a trajectory to win major awards this year. The only thing I can say is that the characters make choices that have no logical basis. Why should Ash, who has no science, military, or team leader

experience, be named to head the expedition? Because she has the most experience with the artefact, which consisted of getting shocked into unconsciousness by it. Makes no sense. Sexual attraction leads the military agenda.

I received a review copy of "Architects of Memory" by Karen Osborne from Macmillan-Tor through NetGalley.com.

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LibraryThing member gypsysmom

I wanted to like this book a lot. I had read Karen Osborne's Big Idea post on John Scalzi's blog in which she talked about how the idea came to her as the result of a medical issue that she experienced. She lives in the USA and her pre-existing condition meant that she would not be able to get

health insurance unless she was part of an employer's health care coverage. So she imagined a world in which people who are not full citizens and have to pay for their health care would never be able to accumulate enough credits to become citizens if they had a serious injury or condition. As a Canadian I am often appalled at the judgment calls people in the USA have to make about their health care because they don't have and can't afford insurance. So I was all disposed to like this book, until I read it that is.

Ash is an indentured employee with Aurora Corporation working on a salvage team of five. She was rescued from a mining world after an attack by the aliens called Vai and Aurora thought she would make a good pilot and salvage expert. But Ash is ill and her symptoms are getting worse. The substance she was mining, celestium, has infiltrated her body and unless she can become a citizen and get the expensive treatment for her illness she will die. The ship the salvage crew is dismantling has a Vai weapon on board. When Ash opens it up she experiences a blackout and memory loss.Aurora Corporation wants to retrieve the weapon and figure out how it works. The problem is so do all the other corporations and soon there is corporate warfare. Ash is swept up in it because she not only has celestium in her blood but also Vai nanobots that allow her to turn the Vai weapons on. Some other members of the salvage crew have sold out to competing interests but the pilot, Kate Keller, is true to Aurora. That loyalty is tested though when she realizes what Aurora has planned for Ash because the two are lovers. Can the two of them find a way to stay safe and keep the Vai weapons from the corporations? That is a question not completely resolved at the end of the book which leaves the door open to a follow-up.

I had big problems with the way the author constructed her universe. There were holes which were not sufficiently explained and the characters were not very well introduced. Ash's involvement with the pilot seemed unbelievable given that (a) she had been engaged to a man when she was a miner and (b) that she was a lowly indenture while the pilot was a citizen. There was never any explanation as to what made Ash fancy a woman after being sexually involved and in love with a man. As well, the aliens appear to have a collective mind and to accept Ash as a new member but then when the two Vai captured by the corporations died it seemed like Ash was no longer linked to them. I did not understand that disconnect. So for these reasons and more I don't think I'll be reading any more in this series if the writer has more published.

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LibraryThing member MontzaleeW

Architects of Memory
(The Memory War #1)
by Karen Osborne
I had the audio version from Chirp and it was awesome!!

When I get a science fiction book it better be good or I can't get far into it. This book was hard, fast, stunning in the descriptions, excellent in the world building, characters were rich

with life, true corporate greed, and even though they were searching for alien artifacts, it felt real!
Ash is an indentured servant, every one starts that way unless you are born to a citizen. You have to work hard to buy your way into citizenship. Ash works aboard a ship that does dangerous missions to seek out crash sites to find things, hopefully alien artifacts from the war with the aliens the Via.
They do find an artifact and everyone wants it and tries to take it. Ash has many secrets that gets exposed along the way. One she didn't even know herself! It's full of action, emotion, twists, hope, disappointment, and it is so awesome! The suspense, fights, world, missions are incredibly! I really loved this book! I want to read the next book as soon as the price comes down! Lol!

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LibraryThing member Shrike58

For the last year or so I've been taking this novel out of assorted local public libraries and taking it back, even though it was well-regarded as a first novel. This mostly related to how the whole "evil corporations in space" (spoken in a portentous tone) has become something of a cliche to me.

However, with the second book in the trilogy coming out, I figured it was time to get on with the issue at hand. So, on one hand, I feel a little sheepish for not reading this book sooner, as I like the pacing, I like Osborne's concept for her aliens, and this just generally feels well executed enough that I look forward to reading the second book sooner, rather than later. There is actually rather little that I'd knock this book down for, though the way it finishes makes me wonder how much story there can really be going forward. The reviewers who are also critical of whether the backstory of some of the characters hangs together probably do have a point, though the plot is propulsive enough that I didn't let it bother me too much.

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LibraryThing member ehines

I agree with most of both the positive and negative comments posted already. Osborne does a good job of bringing us into Ash's world in medias res and quickly settling us in to it. Ash is well-drawn as the protagonist, though the subsidiary characters are at this point more set-pieces.

There are a

ton of well-established tropes in the plot--evil corporations, luckless but resourceful peons, alien technology, "special" characters bordering on Messiahs.

What will become the backbone of the series, I imagine, is the aliens, and they, so far, do NOT look to be straight out of central casting.

A good debut with corners cut where you might expect corners to be cut in a first novel, but I'll read number 2.

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