I really enjoyed this novella from Veronica Roth. Arch-Conspirator is a dystopian reimagining of Sophocles’ play Antigone.

In this story, Thebes is the last city on Earth. Earth is a dystopian wasteland and the souls of the dead are stored in the Archive so they may find immortality. When Antigone’s brother betrays her uncle Creon (ruler of the city), Creon dooms him to death without the harvesting of his soul.

I’m loving Roth’s sci-fi writing these days, and I picked this one up because I enjoyed her novel Poster Girl so much. It’s similar: a very thoughtful, engaging book with philosophical questions and a strong and flawed female protagonist. I loved the way Roth updated Oedipus’s family curse, Antigone’s relationship with her sister, and the ending.

Narrators January LaVoy and Dion Graham are perfect, well-suited to this story with commanding and expressive voices that I could easily imagine performing in the original Greek tragedy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for my review copy of this audiobook.

Arch-Conspirator has a great premise. here you have the story of Antigone, whose parents are dead. With her sister and brothers, she takes up residence in Kreon’s house. Once there, she soon learns that this beautiful palace is no palace at all.

This book has an amazing premise. The Sophocles play Antigone set in a very bleak future where the planet has been destroyed. However, something was lost in the execution. Even though this is a short audiobook, I kind of felt like I’d walked into the middle of someone telling the story. Because of that, I had a hard time connecting with any of the characters. Unfortunately, I never felt fully invested in the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this ALC. Dion Graham and January LaVoy were wonderful narrators. Sadly, this book just wasn’t for me.

An interesting story full of twists, turns, fun characters and overall a book I would consider reading time and time again.

While I always appreciate a retelling, this one didn't quite work for me. i lost interest about halfway through. That's not to say it is bad or won't be great for someone else - I fully expect it to have fans (and it is well written), I think it was just too exacting to the original myth and without enough dystopian elements to spice it up for me.

I honestly can't say that I recommend this book to anyone. I'm not a huge fan of novellas only because I get too invested in the story or characters, but then it abruptly ends and I want more but there isn't more to the story.

But this novella? Short story? I really didn't get it. There was so much potential with the sci-fi setting, and the idea and practice of extracting ichor was interesting and new. But of course, with the story being so short, nothing is actually explained. I had to read other reviews to understand what was even happening. I listened to the audiobook arc twice and I still didn't understand what any of the themes were supposed to be about (other than what's already presented in the OG Antigone).

I think the author was trying to make a statement about... Something. Women's roles in a dystopian setting? I don't know.

I just wish this whole idea would've been fully fleshed out with actual characters, their motivations, deeper themes, world building, etc. It's like the author wrote a one-shot AU fanfic that only true fans would love and understand.

I'm only giving this two stars because the narrator's voice was perfect and gave some depth to the story (if that makes any sense).

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for this arc.

To start out with I just want to state that I had issues getting the full audio file for this book, I originally was only able to download 33 minutes which amounted to about 2 full chapters of this book, after contacting Netgalley my issue was resolved fairly quickly.

This Novella is a sci-fi retelling/reimagining of one of Sophocles’ most famous plays Antigone. To preface my review I am very familiar with the play Antigone as I have previously had Antigone as assigned reading in a Literature course. This story follows the story of Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus former leader and revolutionary, as she deals with the death of her brothers, her twin Polynices died trying to kill their uncle Creon while her other brother Eteocles died protecting Creon. Due to this act of betrayal Creon orders that Polynices is to be omitted from the Archive, A sort of genetic bank that people use to create offspring from.

Overall the retelling was fairly faithful with a few minor adjustments, Haemon and Antigone have more of a relationship, Creon is Oedipus’ brother instead of Jocasta, and a few other details. Instead of burial and prayers we see this society believing in rebirth through genetic code and preservation of genetic material, instead of a cave we have a space ship, instead of the siblings being reviled by society because being the product of incest they are outcast of being the “soulless” product of both Oedipus and Jocasta instead of through the genetic bank.

While I enjoyed most elements of the reimagining, I found the world building to be lacking at points and confusing at others which severely hampered my enjoyment of the novella. The voice cast of the audio book was fantastic and made my time with the book more enjoyable. Overall an interesting retelling not revolutionary and lacking in areas that would have made it a stronger story.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review

This was an interesting listen. At first the copy I received from Netgalley only came with three chapters which was horribly confusing but then once I got the entire audio file it was better.

I don’t know much of the original story of Antigone so I can’t really speak to this as a retelling, however it was intriguing. I like dystopian worlds and this one was definitely interesting. The hard part with this for me was that it was novella length and in having to stick with the retelling of another story it seemed like opportunities for more detail and to know more of the world they live in we’re lost. In the end I liked it but it didn’t blow me away. I think I’d have liked it better as a full length book that took more liberties and allowed for more of the story to be told.

The narrator was good and I liked the how quick of a listen it was, but I want more from it.

This sci-fi retelling of Antigone kept me wanting to get through the whole story! An incredibly tragic story, I thought Roth did a nice job of tying in modern day themes to make the story feel more relevant to today. I also really enjoyed the multiple viewpoints throughout the story. I did feel like it was a little hard to follow at times via audiobook but overall really enjoyed the story. I wish that it had been a little longer so that I could take a deeper dive into the characters, but also understand that since it is a quick retelling, you aren't able to go as deep. The futuristic spin to this was intriguing! I wish I could give half stars - this is definitely a 3.5 rating to me.

This title had only three chapters in it: 2, 11, and end matter. I listened to chapter 2 and enjoyed the narrator and the writing style; however, I cannot give a complete rating based on one chapter. I have contacted NetGalley for troubleshooting and may change my review to a full review if the audio files are fixed at a later date. In order to establish that I did attempt to listen to the ALC, I am leaving this place holder review on what I did have access to for now.

I'm not sure whether I'm interested or not. I was given a sample of this book in audio form. First the narrator is not my favorite. There is something about the way he reads this novel. It's all one tone but urgency tone. Granted I was only given 33 mins and is that really enough to see if the narrator is able to convey emotions.....not sure.
Also in these 33 mins I didn't feel an attachment to anyone. I don't care what happens next and I feel like I should.
Or maybe the conversation that a woman is only worth something because of a womb is too close to today's world to be entertaining.

I know this was a short story but the audiobook was only 30 minutes long. Im not sure if that was the whole thing? I feel like I was just wrapping my brain around what was happening and then it ended. This is a modern/sci-go retelling of Antigone, which is not a play I studied in school. I could see this book being a great companion for students studying the original text and this modern retelling side by side.

Thanks to Netgally for providing me a copy to read and review.

For background: I have a degree in the classics.

I enjoyed hearing the story with futuristic elements (eg space ship instead of a cave) but doubt people who aren’t familiar with Antigone will like this. If you don’t already know the story (and arguably the others preceding plays) the story as written will likely feel underdeveloped and confusing. Since this is a retelling, I was surprised more scenes snd dialogue weren’t added so it felt more like a shirt study.

Book Title: Arch-Conspirator
Author: Veronica Roth
Narrator: Don Graham
Publisher: Macmillan Audio for Tor Books
Genre: Sci-Fi - Fantasy
Pub Date: February 21, 2023
My Rating: 2.6 rounded up!

Although not a big Sci-Fi fan, I do like [author: Veronica Roth] ~ this is my fifth novel.
I read the Divergent series as well as "Carve the Mark so was ready for another Roth story. I was also pleased when I saw that audiobook narrator January LaVoy was listed as one of the narrators. She is my favorite audio performers ~ however her role was very minor which was disappointing.
This is a retelling of ‘Antigone’ It is dystopia where women are prized for the ability to reproduce and all of humanity depends on it.
This is a unique retelling on an historic story.

Want to thank NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for this early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for February 21, 2023

I'm really disappointed. There was no mention in the description that this was only a sample, it actually said it was over 3 hours in the notes.

Here is my review for what I received:
'
This is a jumbled mess. I have no way to figure out what is going on and have no clue who the characters are or why I should care. Could not get into this. Zero stars,

Arch-Conspirator is a retelling of Antigone. Antigone is not something I was familiar with so I was excited for my first experience to be Roth’s telling.

In my opinion, Roth knows how to build a world but doesn't know how to make it lived in. The Divergent series is my best example of this. It started out strong and then just went clumsily all over the place. The same happens here and it’s such a short book. The world-building is done well but that’s really it. I don’t know if this needed to be a longer book to add more exposition or if I needed knowledge of Antigone but I had a hard time understanding and processing this story.

The writing seemed lazy at times and just failed to reignite the spark I once had for Roth's writing.

If you know what Antigone is then maybe I would recommend this but without that knowledge the world-building is not enough for me to recommend this one.

We always love a good novella to kick off my reading goals. I am so thankful to Veronica Roth, Tor Publishing, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for granting me Advanced Listener Access to this end-times SFF read that's chilling from start to finish. Arch-Conspirator is set to hit shelves on February 21, 2023 (which is also MY BIRTHDAY!) I am so lucky to share a birthday with so many excellent books.

Arch-Conspirator tells the tale of a war where its citizens are battling each other in the last liveable portion of the dead and dying planet. This atmospheric retelling of Antigone takes the reader on a journey out past the cosmos, where survival is everything to aspire for. Antigone is taken in under the sheltering wing of her extremist Uncle Kreon, where she quickly learns he is the enemy and the one to blame for the shattering battles and skirmishes amongst the last peoples.

Left to imagine the difficult times, Veronica Roth takes her readers on a post-apocalyptic expedition like no other.

This review is for how I received my audiobook. It's a 3 hour audiobook and I was only sent 3 chapters totalling 33 minutes. I don't know who I'm supposed to review a boom based off of 33 minutes?

Thank you to Tor for providing me with this ARC!

So novellas are often hit or miss for me, this one was definitely a hit! I really enjoyed it. You get so many different perspectives and I didn’t feel any aspect of the story was lacking. I hadn’t read what the book is a retelling of so I can’t speak onto how it compares. Anyway, I really liked it and if you’re looking for a quick dystopian story, check this one out!