This book was weird and I really liked it. It's very short, but I think the author did a great job of packing a lot into every single word.

I'm not going to say much about it, as it is short and I don't want to spoil anything, but it is a sapphic story that involves one MC's conscience being trapped in a mask. There is also a lot of feminine rage. Like, A LOT. And I'm totally here for it.

My rating: 3.75★

If you like sci-fi and can appreciate purposeful second-person perspective: READ THIS BOOK. Like the blurb, this story is told in alternating first- and second-person and I think it really works.

This novella is action packed: from racing towards the jackpot that is the mysterious mask waiting to be claimed, to figuring out what exactly to do with it afterwards. Masks as tech is a really neat concept to see in action, even more so when this sought after prize comes with the consciousness of a woman with a twisted past attached to it.

Volatile Memory explores body autonomy, gender expression, and doing whatever it takes to survive and protect those things, which sounds like a mix that could not go wrong. And it didn't necessarily "go wrong" for me but the last half of this story becomes more echoey fever dream than I typically enjoy—maybe YOU will love that! I will still be purchasing a physical copy of this book because it was such a unique experience and I would like to take it for another spin, better yet give me another story featuring this tech!

*Thank you to Tor for providing me an e-ARC of this book.*

i have never read anything like this. volatile memory played like a movie in my head. it was fast paced, full of action and the yearning!!!!! omg. i loved the main characters. i really enjoyed this little sci-fi novella.

second person narrative is always hard for me to get into but once it clicks!!!! the writing flowed nicely, the world building was simple yet powerful, the political intrigue and the romance was really well done. i highly recommend listening to the audiobook. i listened while following along with my arc and it was an immersive experience.
<I>☆sci-fi // cyberpunk novella
☆book 1 of 2
☆trans rep
☆sapphic
☆a.i. masks with animals capabilities
☆forced proximity
☆1 body; 2 minds
☆revenge plot
☆capitalist dystopia
</I>

<b><U>quotes i like:</U>
╰┈❥We were open to each other now like a dam had been breached, and even if we were to patch that hole, parts of us had already run into each other. A part of you was in me, and I knew that I was in you.

╰┈❥Put me on, I thought, and you did. And when you did, when our vision collided, and your heartbeat became ours, I thought to you: This is the closest we will ever get. And also: This is closer than anyone can ever get. Because in truth, we were one person when we were like this. A fusion. And if I could not kiss you, or hold you, or fuck you, I could still experience you. We could still be together.

╰┈❥We sat together for a while as this one being. Existing close to you, your warmth on me and in me, our shared heartbeat and organs and limbs, was divine. A holy thing. An evolution. We were something new.

╰┈❥But I wanted to be inside you, cradled in the safety of your rib cage, close to that heart of yours. I wanted to eat it, I wanted to be it. I wanted to get so close to you we wouldn’t be able to see the seams.

╰┈❥ <I>Is the body that important to you?</I> I almost said— and didn’t, because yes, of course, the body was important to you. You had spent your life reshaping yours. Turning flesh into art , owning wholeheartedly the body that contained your mind. You had made a home of your body— you had torn shame from your insides, confronted every aching, rotten part until you could recognize yourself.

╰┈❥ "You worried that the mask tech allowed others to know too much about you. With the right amount of money, with the right tech, perhaps they could squint and find the seams in your stitching. Perhaps they would decide that you were unreal. But in truth, it wouldn’t matter. With the right amount of money, with the right tech—you could be seamless and they would find fault in you regardless. Some people simply hated people like you. Remember? The cruelty is the point.

╰┈❥ "You dimmed the vessel lights. A tinny tune reverberated around us. Some AI-generated salesperson popped into existence. He looked like an amalgamate of every race, unrecognizable and statistically average—which wasn’t done for representation, mind you, but to appeal to as many people as possible. Just another Corporate Federation workaround; they couldn’t even hire a real person for this.
</b>
thank you so much netgalley, seth haddon + tor publishing group for an arc!!

This was an unexpected delight. Not that I thought I would dislike this---I just didn't anticipate how much I would truly enjoy it. The main character was so complex and well-done. Her choices and thoughts were layered and really believable. She came to life throughout the story. Sable was such a good balancing character, they were complex, too, but in a different way. The pacing was tight and the plot was compelling. My only complaint is that I simply wanted more *crying*.

Volatile Memory is one of the most unique approaches I’ve seen to exploring gender identity, misogyny, and body autonomy. The premise alone being two people forced to work in the close quarters of a literal body is clever, but the way it’s executed is both intimate and thought-provoking. This is How You Lose the Time War being a comp title did not disappoint. The vibes were similar and I had a great time.

Wylla instantly won me over as a main character. She was resourceful, layered, and compelling from start to finish. Sable, on the other hand, was complex in a different way, navigating her own arc while regaining her memories. The dynamic between them is electric, and watching them fall in love under such strange circumstances was deeply satisfying.

Haddon’s prose was exceptional, sharp without being overwrought, emotionally resonant without slowing the pace. For such a short book, I was thoroughly impressed how much he managed to pack in! Every page pulls you forward, yet it leaves you with plenty to ponder once it’s over.

A page-turner with brains and heart, Volatile Memory managed to marry the imaginative and emotionally grounded.

4.5 stars for me!

When Wylla receives a strange transmission promising a big payout to scavengers, she knows she has to be the one to grab the prize, an ultra-rare mask that has the ability to modify its wearer's abilities to some unknown quantity. Other types of masks that do the same thing are much more common — Wylla has a Rabbit mask that increases her situational awareness; someone she encounters has an Ox mask that makes him super strong — but this is one that Wylla has never heard of. And when she gets it, she soon realize there's a reason for that — this mask has a person's thoughts and memories and emotions trapped inside it, making it an odd amalgamation of human and machine. Once Wylla comes to terms with her discovery, she and the woman in the mask, Sable, embark upon a revenge-fueled quest to destroy those responsible for putting Sable in this condition.

For a pretty short book, the worldbuilding in this story is phenomenal, and left me wanting more in the best possible way. Wylla is a trans-woman and her existence paired with Sable's not-quite-human-anymore existence (and Sable's incredible abilities with the mask) brings up an excellent examination of autonomy, identity, and consent, all while taking the reader on a rollicking adventure. A word of warning to readers: the book is told from Sable's point-of-view as she's speaking to Wylla, so much of the book is in second person. It takes a minute to get used to that, but makes sense for the story, and is well worth the read.

I love how much can be said in a short sci-fi novella. I hope everyone reads this because while the story is fantastic, the message is even better. Seth Haddon tackles systemic transphobia, capitalism and a bit of feminine rage, all in a dystopian future in space where people wear animal masks to be imbued with superhuman power. To top it off, we get a sapphic romance told in second person, from the perspective of someone who died and whose consciousness is now tied to an AI mask! The plot of this is so fantastic, fast paced, and filled with action.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Thank you to @tordotcompub for the ARC and finished copy. All thoughts are my own.

Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon has a powerful message, exploring identity, self, and gender all in one breathless story that is also a sapphic love story, all about human connection in a world that tries to strip humanity from individuals. It delves into being transgender and the reality of how much is kept from those who are different, including their ability to choose what face they want to wear.
This story is so full of layers, from the human connection to the way Wylla struggles with her identity. Hawk wants to live but doesn’t even have a body to call her own so is she truly alive or not. The questions and answers this story raises are profound and memorable. It has a powerful message of identity that will stay with the reader long after finishing the book.
If you like powerful and transformative science fiction, Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon is a must read. It explores such exciting and rich ideas, the idea of humanity and souls in a unique way. I can only believe that this is one novel that will win awards in its execution and its intriguing ideas. I loved every moment of this unique and amazing story.

A superbly written novella of identity, physicality, action and REVENGE.

Go in with just the book jacket and get absorbed in this world. The world building was amazing.

Ex Machina x Murder by Memory x The Stardust Grail x Blade Runner vibes with a hint of Roland Rogers Isn’t Dead Yet (if you know you know).

I loved the narrative style, but it takes some getting used to.

My only real issue is Goodreads says this is a duology… if it’s also a novella why not just merge the two and make it a full length book. There were sequences that did feel a little rushed or could’ve been expanded on.

Received from NetGalley, mad I waited so long to read!

Seth Haddon’s Reforged series has been on my TBR so I must get to reading that.

wylla is a scavenger in a dystopian space future where civilization is controlled by massive corporations. when a signal goes out offering up a rare piece of tech, she answers the call, but instead of an easy payday she finds something that shouldn’t exist: the consciousness of a dead woman inside a mask.

i’m so bummed about this one! i enjoyed the world-building and the concept of animal masks that lend their wearers specific skills and abilities, as well as the exploration of how trans identity challenges a society that demands conformity. unfortunately, that’s about all i liked.

my overall complaint is that volatile memory seems to prioritize style over substance. seth haddon’s writing style (at least based on this novella) doesn’t appeal to me, so i couldn’t even sit back and enjoy the vibes. i’m generally not a fan of second person narratives, and i don’t think the use of second person did this story any favors. i would have appreciated more insight into wylla as a character.

for a “vengeful” story, most of the novella was frustratingly toothless. wylla’s goodness—which HAWK mentions again and again, lest we somehow forget—often read more as naïveté (to a degree that didn’t make sense given the world she exists in), and the emphasis on her goodness made her sudden embrace of HAWK’s tactics even more abrupt. i wanted more rage and revenge.

the romance didn’t work for me on any level. the writing implies that this is a relationship the readers should root for, but it reads as more of a toxic dynamic. HAWK’s instalove borders on obsession, perhaps as a side effect of existing as a mask instead of a woman, and there were scenes that made me distinctly uncomfortable for wylla. i’m not at all opposed to an “i can make her worse” type love story, one character corrupting another, even an exploration of the abused becoming the abuser, but this book is marketed as a “heart-filled, vengeful sapphic sci-fi action adventure” and that’s what i went into it expecting. the dynamic between wylla and HAWK is not that.

volatile memory has an audience, but that audience clearly is not me and i doubt i’ll be picking up any future seth haddon releases.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars (rounded to 5)
Tags: sci-fi, novella, trans woman MC, sapphic, Australian author, made-me-think, made-me-cry

This queer sci-fi novella was beautifully written and thought-provoking. The trans rep was very relatable and I liked how it tied into the story and character relationships.

I do love a quick read, but I kinda wish this one was longer because there's more I would have liked to enjoy from the world and characters. I think there was slightly more depth to be delved from the variety of excellent themes.

I definitely recommend this book and I'm grateful to Tor and NetGalley for the eARC! All thoughts shared in this review are my own.

In Corporate Federation space, those who do not conform are marked as nonviable in the system and become unemployable. Many make their living as scavengers and, as a transgender woman, Wylla joins this caste. Even among outcasts, she’s an outsider, and she’s barley scraping by because most of her credits go to transforming herself into a perfect woman.

When a signal is transmitted from an advanced piece of tech, Wylla knows this payday will allow her to erase who she isn’t and live freely as who she is. What she doesn’t expect is to find an AI HAWK mask occupied by the consciousness of its former wearer. Frightened but intrigued, Wylla decides to help Sable find answers about her death and the unknown tech she inhabits.

VisorForge’s animal masks are meant to give the wearer attributes from that animal, not hold memory and definitely not a complete consciousness. However, when Wylla touches the mask, Sable’s consciousness spins into its temporary storage. With access to Wylla’s mind, they share themselves in an almost transcendent intimacy. Sable sees Wylla—her big heart and brilliant mind, her fractures and bitter fury. Their bond is the ultimate in intimate connection—a connection intensified by being hunted. HAWK is secret military-grade tech with unheard of capabilities that VisorForge will do anything to reclaim, and the women may not survive the fallout.

Volatile Memory is a fast-paced, high-tension, speculative fiction story that explores the consequences of unchecked capitalism and state sanctioned oppression, transhumanism, and identity. Can you be alive without a body or the “right” body? If your consciousness is a technological ghost or sentient AI, are you less real? Who gets to determine who you are and your importance? Incorporated into these ideas are several sensitive topics, such as transphobia, allusions to domestic violence/rape, and suicide.

The world building is straightforward and may appeal to those who don’t like hard science/intricately complex sci-fi. Wylla and Sable exist in a corpocracy where its final form of mutated capitalism logs a person’s genome into a global system to create compliant, mindless sources for commodities, including reproduction. Wylla and Sable are disposable, because the former is transgender and asexual and the latter is unbreedable. The story is written from Sable’s perspective, which alternates almost seamlessly between first and second person. It’s like a combined memory log and reflections journal swirling within the immediacy and intensity of chaos.

Sharing the same nature as her RABBIT mask, Wylla makes herself small and skirts the edges to survive. Her body defines her existence and chasing conventional womanhood is her raison d’être. The body she was born into was quiet torture, but the world acknowledged her humanity. The body she’s creating stripped her of that modicum of human recognition. Sable is Wylla’s opposite in almost every way. She will not accept a world that refuses to acknowledge one’s intrinsic value. She chafes at injustice bodied and bodiless and underscores that being a woman isn’t confined to biology.

However, her personality is a bit sparse. Even before she goes full on Sith, her quieter or tender feelings often have a strong undertow of anger that tugs at Wylla’s suppressed emotions. With her limited memory, immediate intoxication with Wylla, and their constant imperilment, Sable’s interiority pretty much begins and ends in Wylla and violence. She’s mostly used as an avatar of righteous frothing rage, rather than a person—similar to the machine she’s raging against. As a heroine in the revenge cannon, it’s perfect, but I hope she’s developed more in the second half of the duology.

The ending has a Thelma and Louis feel—a sense of self ownership and freedom, despite insurmountable odds. I‘m very curious to see how their odds increase to at least David v. Goliath viability against two or more government megacorps/regimes. Having no plan and only Berserker demon mode doesn’t scream success, but it does scream bloody, vengeful fun. And that cover is everything.

Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon is short but definitely packs a punch. A lot gets crammed into this novella.
A quick and satisfying read. The story focuses on a (very) small cast of characters as they explore themes of identity, freedom, and self-actualization.

Overall, we enjoyed Haddon's sci-fi debut. Very interesting premise with very interesting world-building.
While we do have some qualms with the tech and how it all works...we still had fun reading the book.
We think the similarities to This Is How You Lose the Time War and Ex Machina are apt. Readers who enjoy the themes and sass of Murderbot may also enjoy Volatile Memory.

Our in depth spoiler-free and full-spoilers thoughts will be released in a forthcoming episode.
- Spoiler-free ep: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1dB9t9SIbNpsKHoHGxHsyF?si=1FeVRW-iRpqw88flla5G1w
- Full-spoilers ep: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1MEJKK7UAzxl5Gm8FQbHtL?si=Hjb1yvLCTvW2Slv3I0qn8w

I picked up Voliate Memory for the stunning cover and the promise of queer sci-fi, but what I got was a visceral, poetic gut-punch of a novella that cracked me open in under 200 pages.

This isn’t just sci-fi. It’s a meditation on autonomy, identity, and refusal—what it means to say no to the boxes the world tries to cram you into. Told entirely in second person (and yes, it works), the story feels disorienting at first, but once Wylla and Sable collide, everything sharpens. It’s not a gimmick—it’s a mirror. And it’s devastating.

The prose is lyrical without losing clarity. Every sentence is doing something deliberate. Haddon doesn’t waste space, and yet the emotional depth here rivals books three times its length. The relationship between the two leads—complicated, furious, tender—is the beating heart of the story. I would’ve happily read 500 pages of them plotting revolutions and staring each other down.

If you like sci-fi that feels like a spell—urgent, lush, and razor-edged—this is one to read and reread.

Thanks to Tordotcom for the ARC

Volatile Memory is clearly a different kind of story from the jump. Anytime a story starts with a strictly second person narrative style I'm always immediately on edge waiting to find out who the person is behind the voice. The opening scene our unlucky scavenger, living off the scraps of tech abandoned on the edge of company territory, comes across a lead that no scavenger could ever pass up. A piece of unique, read valuable, tech left on a dead planet and broadcasting a ping to anyone who would listen. Wylla new that ever scavenger with a scanner would be after this find, but what she did not expect was what else would be waiting for her at the end of her chase.

The world of Volatile Memory is a really interesting cross between Space Opera and Cyberpunk. I am a big fan of the helmet tech as a ubiquitous piece of necessary tech. An interesting parallel to the issue of phones and the advent of more wearable tech.

This is a really great story that I highly recommend to fans of sci-fi. I can't wait for more.

🔷VOLATILE MEMORY🔷 by @sethhaddon is a soliloquy of symbiosis and weaving of brainwaves that had me pretty raptured! Thank you to the author, @netgalley and the publisher @macmillan.audio for the audio-ARC. This title came out on Tuesday and is already on shelves!

🚀🚀🚀

"Somewhere in this fusion, we'd both unlocked each other."

This is is a sexy, intimate cyberpunk coupled with an amateur space sleuth trying to solve their own murder. I am always impressed when an author can pull off a second person narrative and this one hit for me. There were absolutely incredible descriptions of digital intermixing and the fusing of data and the idea of AI masks was pretty mind-blowing for me.

Some of the major themes included:
💻What does it mean to be conscious
📀The ungrounding feeling of being bodyless
💻Love, intimacy and grace
📀Men behaving badly
💻F*ck the patriarchy
📀The concept of gender is useless without a body
💻Disorientation and body dismorphia

I keep returning to the themes in this one and rehashing my thoughts. So I was delighted to learn this is slated to be a duology!

I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes sci-fi or cyberpunk type settings, roots for female agency, and doesn't mind some sexy digital intimacy.

Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon is a queer sci-fi thriller that explores transness, personhood, and our relationship to our bodies in a beautiful, thought-provoking way.

First off, I really loved the concept of masks in this book. The biotech masks in this world grant different abilities depending on the type of mask (kind of like in Majora's Mask—albeit with a sci-fi twist). For instance, an ox mask will grant its user extra strength and a rabbit mask heightens your awareness and alerts you to danger.

I’ve also got to applaud the author for taking artistic choices that pay off. The story is actually told from the perspective of the sentient mask, and it switches from I to you to we depending on how integrated the mask is with Wylla at the time. I felt like this works cleverly on a thematic level to show the two characters' growing connection with each other.

All and all, this book turned out to be one one my favorite reads of the year. It’s an inventive and boldly honest sci-fi that packs an emotional punch in a bite-sized novella. Can't wait for the sequel.

I've been looking for a book written in the second person for a long time and im so tickled that this book checked that box! It was such an interesting story too, the world was unique, and i enjoyed the armor aspect too.

This sapphic sci-fi revenge quest novel is a wild ride with a fascinating concept! I loved the breakneck worldbuilding, which threw me into a far future space community where humans wear high-tech animal masks that amplify physical abilities and reinforce a visual hierarchy. We follow Wylla, a scavenger and a trans woman who has gone through hell just to exist in this galaxy of soulless corporations. When she hears of an all-new mask called Hawk, she speeds to an abandoned planet, survives a bloodbath, and discovers that the mask houses Sable, the consciousness of a vengeful ghost. Together, they explore what it means to be a woman existing in a body that defies convention, and develop a deep connection as they race to avenge Sable’s death and fight the corporation searching for the mask. “Volatile Memory” was a blast to read, a quick, grisly, and thought-provoking story that succinctly asks all kinds of interesting questions. I only wish it had been a full-length novel, as there was definitely enough conceptual and emotional potential for more story, but I will patiently await the sequel, and in the meantime I’ll have to check out more of Haddon’s work.

Thanks to Tor and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Packed into a short burst of a novella, Volatile Memory is a fast-paced sci-fi story about identity and humanity. In the relatively few pages I spent with this book, I found it captivating, its two primary characters engaging. The mixture of second and first person PoV hooked me from the outset, and I couldn't put it down afterwards. Haddon manages to thread the needle of a short but deep story, pushing the boundaries of what it means to be person in a society ruled by corporate entities.