Fast paced and a quick read with plenty of action. Struggled to connect with the characters, though.

I appreciate the opportunity to review. Sorry for the long delay in feedback. I'm working on clearing out my Netgalley backlog. Trying to find the joy in reading again by going through the hundreds of abandoned books here.

With thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher of this ARC

The memory agent is a fast paced book, but does contain some upsetting scenes like some readers won't like to read about.

I enjoyed this book

I enjoyed reading this book and it wasn't bad but not great either. The chapters were super long which would make me lose focus in between and Parker's characterization was done in a way that even by the end of it, I didn't really know him. However, the author's writing is something that made me push forward with this book along with the neat ending.

The Memory Agent wasn't a bad book, but it's safe to say that it wasn't for me. The idea was brilliant, but the story itself somehow so confusing. For most of the book I had to push myself to get through it.

It's also quite a bit triggering. Triggers feature rape, murder, torture, loss of significant other, violence, false memories, memory loss.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook through NetGalley in exchange to an honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

This wasn't bad. A lot is going on so it's super fast-paced, but sometimes it was hard to follow. That said, it kept me on my toes and had me guessing the whole time.

A nicely written and well paced book but i wish some things would have been explained better while on the other hand i wish some would have not been as described.
Overall its a nicely done book and worth a read if you are interested.

The story begins in Cairo in the year 1933. Roger Parker thinks that he and his team are about to unearth an ancient Egyptian tomb but instead they find an underground city, New York City to be exact but not from 1933 but far into the future.

But there’s something lurking in the city, something that doesn’t want them there. Memories start to come back to Roger. He’s not an archaeologist but a prison breaker trapped inside a high tech prison, a prison of the mind, and he’s about to attempt the most dangerous mission of his life, to save his wife.

Wow there’s a lot crammed into this novel! Different eras in history, monsters, gun fights and at the beginning a little bit of Indiana Jones action in the desert. It also had a slightly creepy uneasy feeling to it at times, I genuinely never knew what was going to happen next.

The story has quite a lot of layers and the time line does go backwards and forwards as Roger discovers his memories, it is a little hard to keep up sometimes! I was very intrigued though, I had to know what happened at the end of the book.

But this is not a quick read, in fact at times it felt like a bit of a chore to get through. I think the author should have divided it up better, it’s only eight chapters but a couple of the chapter took me over an hour to read. I think it could have benefited from shorter sharper chapters. I also felt a little disconnected from the characters, like I never really got to know them properly or invested in them emotionally.

Overall I very intriguing novel but the slow pace of the story lets it down.

Like looking at a Monet up close, this book resembles a beautiful mess. Then once you finish it and take a step back, you can see all the brushstrokes and plot twists come together to weave a wonderful story. There are just so many layers of this story, that you are drawn further and further in. When I read the blurb and started the story I kept stopping and going back. The story being told and the story I was reading didn’t seem to match. I kept waiting for Delaney to give up and stick to formula but it kept getting away from any box I put it in.

The sheer amount of world building can be overwhelming at first but once I was able to fit myself in, I was pulled into another layer of the details. The characters were a bit hit or miss but I found myself so drawn to the story that I didn’t really care that much. The sheer futuristic concept of a reality prison and how to break people out is a refreshing concept and had just enough Twilight Zone feel to it to feel familiar and yet strangely different. If you enjoy being surprised (in a good way) by your books and you want a fun time, this is the book for you. My only suggestion would be to get rid of the book blurb and just go with “It’s really good...trust me.”

​*This eBook was provided by NetGalley and 47North in exchange for honest feedback*

The Memory Agent is a fast paced, mind bending fascinating book set in the future. The story begins in "Egypt" on an archeological dig and travels to Manhattan but in reality is just a dream within a dream. Yes, it IS one of those books. But the writing and the concept is so incredibly unique that you will not want to put this book down until you are absolutely sure of the ending and then.... you are not sure of the ending! If you ever have seen or read The Matrix it is not unlike that.

This is the future where prisons actually are holding rooms for prisoners who are connected to virtual reality centers. They are kept in a state of "sleep" and fed a different reality, alternate memories and reality from that of their past crimes. However, their families can pay to break them out of prison and that is what our MC does for a living. He enters their alternate reality. Spooky, Freaky, Weird and Amazing. This really is a roller coaster, exciting read!

Thank you to Netgalley and 47North for allowing me to read this novel!
This story was a mind bender. It throws you for a loop every single time. This novel was a series of plot twists and constantly kept me on my toes. As soon as I thought that I had figured something out, I felt like a rug had been yanked out from underneath me and I was soon diving into a new portion of the story.
It starts out in "Egypt" where the main character is going on a dig. It soon turns out that there is a city underground and Roger Parker starts to explore. Wrapped up in memories of a past that he is trying to remember, he is sent on multiple missions throughout the novel, trying to find his way back to his wife.
I gave it three stars because although it was good, there were parts (towards the middle/middle end) that I just wasn't excited to read. It did drag a little bit but the ending was totally worth it.
The characters, besides Parker, weren't really fleshed out as much as I would have liked, although the ending does sort of justify that? I felt like because those other characters "don't like talking about how they got there" was sort of a cop out.
The idea behind the novel was very interesting to read and i did love the uniqueness of everything. I almost want to know if there will be a sequel? I would be interested in reading more about this.

The first thing that came to my mind when I was reading The Memory Agent was: this is like The Matrix and Inception combined! I can say I wasn’t the only one thinking it. It mix elements of both stories, but I should say it isn’t as fast paced as it could have been. The first chapter was too long for my taste, almost 30% of the book building this tension with some mysterious incidents when it could have been shorter.

It definitely has an interesting premise, set in the future where there are no prisons as we know them but there as these rehabilitating virtual facilities called ‘Panopticon’ where the prisoner spends his conviction in a dreamlike state living a whole another life in his/her subconscious. The thing is that, as mostly everything in life, money and connections can buy you anything, from a great alternate life regardless of your crime to even your way out if you have enough money.

Roger Parker is your guy for a prison break, a mental prison break that is, he have just the right team and the right skills to maneuver through these dreamlike worlds and ‘wake’ his client. But Parker and his team encounter a problem, a new state of the art mental prison that is probing to be a just too real inconvenience.

The main character goes through different virtual worlds where he has to search for clues to help him beat this new prison system where he needs to break a well-connected prisoner; but this prisoner has some information that could possible endanger Parker and his team. The real problem is that nobody knows it and everyone is going the extra mile to reach him either way.

The concept is great and it really picks up after the first chapter, although I kind of feel things were a little rushed at the end (the first chapter took too much time!). Nevertheless, I enjoyed it and was genuinely spooked sometimes (the sense of being watched and followed gave me goosebumps).

You won’t be absolutely sure of the ending, I mean I told you it have Inception elements, still if you are into those things I’m pretty sure you will also enjoy The Memory Agent.

Published by 47North on July 18, 2017

The Memory Agent is entertaining, but it struggles to find its identity. The novel starts as an adventure story with an Indiana Jones feel, then it becomes a science fiction prison break novel, then a section has a post-apocalyptic Mad Max feel, and yes, there is sort of a zombie story, because if you’re going to mash up a bunch of subgenres, why not include zombies? And then there’s a killer minotaur, so I guess The Memory Agent is also a horror novel. The writing is sufficiently strong to sustain interest as the story meanders, provided the reader has an even greater willingness to suspend disbelief than science fiction usually requires.

In Cairo 1933, an expedition is formed to find a lost city, supposedly discovered by a tribesman who produces a journal by one of Napoleon’s soldiers describing a lost city of glass and steel, as well as a copy of the New York Times from 2017. The expedition does, in fact, find the mysterious city, thanks to a subway that takes the members there as they flee from an angry mob. The future Manhattan is empty (mostly), although it conveys the impression of a lingering presence.

Eventually, after the novel jumps around a few times, the reader learns the secret to the (mostly) empty city. And eventually the reader learns the whole truth, in a series of surprising revelations as the novel nears its end. Some of the revelations seem contrived, or perhaps it is their cumulative weight that makes them all seem contrived, but they also seem fitting given the story that precedes them.

Some nice moments of humor contribute to the story’s fun factor. I like the effect the song “Thriller” has on the quasi-zombies. On the whole, though, there’s a bit too much going on in this confusion of genres. I got the impression that Matthew Delaney had an idea for a novel but wasn’t sure how to flesh it out, so he made seemingly random choices to fill the pages. Again, the prose is good and the story is usually interesting, although I had trouble staying motivated after the Minotaur showed up. A sharper focus would have improved the presentation. The Memory Agent might have worked better as a novella, perhaps turning a couple of other sections into short stories. But on the whole, the entertainment factor is strong enough to earn my recommendation.

RECOMMENDED

Matthew Delaney has created a world of the future with an imaginative skill unlike others within this genre. With his own unique voice, Delaney captivate his readers the moment they open that first page. The world which he created from that moment keeps them coming back for more. A wonderful surprise well worth your time.

This book has an amazing plot. Because of the amazing-ness of the plot it sometimes overshadows the characters of the book. It took a while for me to realize that the name of the main character was Parker (This was before I reread the description.). I don’t even know what to say about his character because this book was so focused on the story that it didn’t really put so much light on the characters.

It felt like the characters were just used to narrate a very nice story about a discovery and not narrating their own story at all. However, the book has great first person point of view that you would also feel that the characters isn’t useless after all.

And yes, it has amazing first person point of view. It is that kind of writing that instantly connects you to the character. When I started reading it, it was hard to stop. I didn’t even notice that I was reading the too much describing parts of the book. It was that great. It has amazing narration and writing style. Some chapters were in first person POV and some are in third. My favorites were the first person though.


The story is about breaking someone in a prison, the prison being the mind of the prisoner –which is a very cool and amazing kind of prison system by the way. You see, their prisoners here are put into a Sleep machine and they are having shared dreams of different timelines of Manhattan. And Parker’s story started about him and his team of five people including him finding out an underground city of Manhattan in the year 1933.

They found a ghost town of Manhattan. No people, no sound, not even a movement. It was totally deserted. So they went out to explore a bit. And then Parker started getting phone calls from pay phones or telephones inside a diner or a hotel. And bes, every time those damn phones ring, it creeps the hell out of me. It was so creepy! Imagine you’re in a place with no people at all and then you started hearing ringing phones and when you listen to it, there’s actually someone talking. Like wtf.


The book is amazing. It has a very cool story and every chapter has a twist. It only has eight chapters but all of it has plot twists you won’t see coming, especially the plot twist on the last chapter. I swear you’re going to suck in a huge breath if you read that part. It will blow all your guesses about the plot twist of the book. Well, the author is kind of good at blindsiding the reader. Hehe.


The ending though, I have serious problem with it. The whole story is amazing, seriously awesome. However, I have a lot of mixed feelings towards the ending. First, why the hell would you end this kind of book that way? Seriously, why? Second, what happened after that last sentence? There was no proper conclusion nor closure as to what happened to Parker’s character after he tossed someone off the bridge. And third, really? That’s the ending? I was kind of not satisfied by it.

I actually kind of shouted no in the middle of a café-ish place me and my friends were hanging out in. I just shouted NO! and my friends was like, “What happened to you?” and I was like,"Hell no!"

While asking, why would this amazing book end like this! The book ended in the middle of the climax! I mean, it was building and building. It was intense! And then suddenly, I turn to the next page and the words, ABOUT THE AUTHOR, flashed.

I felt like I was hit in between the eye from the shock. Legit. I’m still kind of reeling myself from the intensity at the near-end part. I was amazed by the whole book. I was actually thinking of giving this a perfect star rating because it’s an awesome sci-fi fantasy book. But then that ending bitch slapped me in the face and this is my new rating. I’m not even considering changing it. The ending was abrupt and I wasn’t happy. :P


To wrap this up, this book is amazing bessies. Really it is. It has great concept and plot twists in every corner. If you are the kind of reader who loves sci-fi and a bit of action combined, this book is yours!

The less you know about the story before you read it, the better it works. It took quite a while to really get going, didn't make much sense until I got 30% into it. It was a very fast read, you may be able to finish it in 3 uninterrupted hours.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

It's been a few hours since I finished this book, and I've slept on it. I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about it though. It's a high 3 that I'm rounding up to 4 stars. It wasn't bad, but I didn't especially enjoy it.

The Memory Agent is organized into eight chapters. Eight looooooong chapters. They alternate between first person perspective and third person, all told from the same MC's, Parker's, perspective. Chapter one took FOREVER to get through it felt like. I got the point right away but it just kept going and going. The author is really good a describing settings, but chapter one got me thinking that describing settings was the only thing he wanted to do. I got bored despite the mysterious and spooky clues that pop up at the end of the chapter.

Chapter two immediately got me interested in the story again. It's in third person because Parker is re-living a memory. It's fun. Chapter 3 returns to the original storyline, which gets a little more interesting as he continues to try to figure things out. Chapter four is another memory, then the original storyline, then memory, etc. through the end of the book.

I got REALLY into the story during chapter six. By then, the complexity of the whole thing and the world building between the different prison worlds Parker visits is really excellent.

I was less interested in chapter seven, which returns the reader to the main point of the story. When chapter eight began, I was hardly interested at all. We get a NEW prison world, new set up, and the continuation of a story that I didn't really care about. Parker's love for his wife wasn't explored well enough. And as the book came to a close (I was carefully watching that 94% done, 95% done, etc haha), I came to question more and more what the point of the story was because there hardly seemed enough time to finish it out, especially compared to how much extemporaneous detail the author includes throughout the story. Sure enough, a simple conversation with a talkative villain provides all the answers we need. A second conversation with him adds the final reveals and wraps up most of the loose ends of the story. Then Parker makes a decision and THE END.

After such a complicated story, the ending seemed very convenient, rushed, simple, and lacking. It needs more resolution, an answer of sorts as to what Parker does next, though it is pretty easy to guess what he plans to do next. The reveals didn't surprise me, unfortunately. I'm not sure how obvious they are in general; I feel like the author relies more on distraction than a tight-lipped approach when it comes to the two major reveals of the story.

The book was probably inspired by the movie Inception. Things would get all mind bendy, including the physical surroundings of the characters. In a few chapters, their settings fade and blur or disappear because they have no memory of visiting that location before or are following another person's memory and see only what that person noticed at the time.

So if you are interested in surreal landscapes and thrillers/mysteries about figuring out who the main character is, where they are, and what they're doing, this book might just be for you. It definitely had some really cool parts to it, but I wouldn't recommend it to a broad audience.

This story is a mind-bend where you trapped between a dream and reality.

The story begins in a dream within a dream. The place is Egypt in 1933. An archeological dig is led by Parker at the Valley of the Kings, south of Cairo. A sealed tomb is found in the depths of the earth. Ambushed by rebels, the team members are forced to take shelter inside the tomb only to find out it is a portal into the future. The new world is a future Manhattan and yet not a single soul around. A clue from the entrance of the tomb's door leads them to the statue of Columbus which reveals their destiny-panopticon. Throughout his journey, clues revealed to Parker hint at a distant memory of his life; memories that he is finding harder to grasp.

A virtual prison system created out of economic need where convicts are hooked up to machines in a deep artificial sleep is the setting and premise of this spell-binding novel. With the prisoner's mind erased, new memories inserted to create a new virtual reality. The prisoners are unaware of their circumstances, but with shared consciousness, the convicts can interact with each other in the hopes of rehabilitation. But there is one way out of the darkness.

Parker, the main protagonist, is a prison breaker for hire, hacking into the virtual realities where convicts serve their time, while asleep. To help other prisoners break out of their virtual reality, he kills them with silver bullets and instantly the prisoner awakens in the real world. Parker has been experiencing these other realities for ten years while his real memories are fading. He is fearful of losing his mind, especially of the memories with his wife. It becomes a race against the machine as he performs one last important job with an offer he can't refuse; the chance to be with his wife again.

The compelling story line is an original concept that dares to blend many genres together. And it's done with high precision. The structure of the narrative contains multiple realities and timelines and requires you to pay attention to subtle hints and details to fully enjoy its complexity. As a reader, I alway loved to be challenged, and I started to take notes about some of the references in the hopes of it being relevant later in the novel. A Japanese fable, a children's book, a red easter egg, dates (the 1880s, 1953, 1972, 1986), and a time not randomly chosen and placed.

The Memory Agent is a beautifully written book. Delany builds several virtual worlds each different without the overuse of words. In modern Manhattan, you feel the breeze in Central Park surrounded by the tall skyscrapers and apartments old and futuristic. In the 1880's the dark slums of New York emerge with the rickety buildings basking in sickness, poverty, and rot. Horse-drawn carts, the smell of bread, buildings of brick and wood. You feel the division of the rich from the poor, "The Gilded Age" is afoot in these slums.

His character sketches are so vivid you could see the person as if given their photograph. They are three-dimensional and with enough detail that you anticipate their reactions to various situations. Each of the characters had a backstory, habits, and quirks which made the story of virtuality a reality. Parker's longing for his wife, from 16 months ago is omnipotent in all his choices. When Parker gains access to Charlotte's mind and memories, you feel a depression so palpable. Even the non-human elements, such as the different mythological creatures are so realistic as to send a shiver down the spine.

The book often reads like a video game with clues that lead to a key to a door which leads to another reality. The only pitfall of the narrative was the feeling of the relentlessness of Parker's journey in all of the mazes. Perhaps this was on purpose to have your emotions align with the protagonist.

I loved every moment of this fun and suspenseful novel. It appealed to all my senses and compelled me to read until the end. I have never had an interest in historical fiction until I read The Memory Agent. Learning about fables, different eras in New York and international history has cultivated a curiosity that I will continue to feed. This book was entirely unexpected and astonishing.


Thank you, NetGalley and 47North for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was the creepiest book I’ve read in a while. I loved the time changes, and willingly suspended belief as I tried to keep up with the plot twists that progressively revealed … the truth? This novel really made me think about the real meaning of Alzheimers and memory loss!

This was an entertaining read. There are some really neat ideas happening in this book, but I wasn't crazy about the execution of it. For starters, there are only 8 chapters. Which meant that the chapters felt very long. This is a personal preference of course, and may not bother other readers. Secondly, two of the chapters were about four times as long as the rest (my kindle measured the time to read as two hours vs thirty minutes for comparison sake). Finally, the story is told in alternating timelines. This normally doesn't bother me, but for this kind of read, which felt like a thriller/horror plot at times, I feel like it would have been better told from a singular timeline.

The main character, Parker, is a prison breaker. In this book, convicts have their mind wiped, are put to sleep, and inserted into a virtual reality where they serve out their time and hopefully learn to become more productive members of society in preparation for their release. So Parker breaks into these virtual realities, kills the prisoners with silver bullets, where they wake up in the real world. Parker wants out of the game, because he's tired of losing days of memory every time he does one of these prison breaks, but someone is making him an offer he can't refuse. Break out one last prisoner, who can give Parker the location of his wife, who is also in prison.

Pacing issues aside, Delaney's writing is great. The book traverses different settings and time periods and he evokes the feeling of them all very well. In one scene in particular, Parker is at the Hotel Pennsylvania, and he's watching the memories of some of his comrades play out. The feeling of the whole scene is chillingly spooky and eerie, like ghost stories whispered in the dark as kids. I absolutely loved these parts and I wish there had been more of them.

There are some parts of the book that don't make sense as you're reading them. Not that they are confusing in any way, just that somethings require a big suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader. By the time the book ends though, everything is wrapped up neatly with a nice little bow and all the pieces fall into place. For that reason, I feel like this is a book I might enjoy a second read of. Knowing what I know now, I think I would have picked up on all kinds of cool little easter eggs and made it much more fun.

The only reason I didn't give this four stars, is that I never really felt like I connected with or cared about the characters. I know who Parker is, but I never really felt like I knew him. I'm big on character driven books so that was what held this back from being a four star read for me.

Thank you to 47North and NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I chose this book because:

I’m interested in tech, I liked the TV show Prison Break, and I like sci-fi such as with the short story collections Children of the New World by Alexander Weinstein and Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. Roger Parker seems like a smart guy in a bad situation. He must be smart enough to be able to pull off so many prison breaks, and he must be in a bad situation if his source of income (I presume) comes from illegal activity such as prison breaking, but I guess his main motive for doing these jobs is to find his wife. I’m intrigued by this character, and I wonder what his wife did to get sent to prison. Other than all that, the motifs of time and memory are interesting to me as well.

Upon reading this book:

I’m the kind of person who needs to see the big picture first. The blurb gave me the big picture, but I got confused once I started reading the book. Knowing the blurb, I figured the book began with Parker immersed in this dream world as his reality. But if I hadn’t read the blurb, I would have thought that what was happening was his reality, and I was reading some strange adventure/action rather than sci-fi. And I like adventure/action, but not given a bigger context, I felt like I was reading one of those action movies with no real plot.

I later checked out some Goodreads reviews and found out that everything I was expecting from the blurb would be revealed at the end of the really long first chapter, and maybe I would have gotten into the story then, had I continued reading the book myself, but regardless of the pace of the story, I wasn’t really into it, so I decided not to finish.