I’m struggling to review this. I barely found myself smart enough to read it, I certainly don’t have the words to do it justice in a review. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This felt important and beautiful. I teared up many times from the poetic way Seth wrote about identity and feminine rage.

The second person pov took some getting used to, but it worked for this story. I’m glad it was novella length. It packed a punch, but left just enough of the story up to the interpretation of the reader. Everything was so intentional, and I’m very impressed with Seth’s writing.

This book was amazing!!! 5 stars for sure. Definitely along the lines of This Is How You Lose The Time War - the tech in this is trippy and cool, but easy to understand once you get a few chapters in.

A beautiful exploration of queer identity and female rage. I loved the trans rep, and the relationship between human/AI was extremely well-depicted. It's told in 2nd person, which is rarely done, but it worked very well for this book. A fantastic short story!!

🌈Queer rep: trans woman main character, bi female main character, FF main relationship.

I needed to sit with Seth Haddon’s Volatile Memory after I’d finished it, because it left me feeling surprisingly unsettled by its violence and vengeance, the dysphoria of the characters, the intensity of the situations they go through — the book never stops, lurching from one crisis to another, so that the shock of one event never fully catches up to the characters before the next hits them.

The characters are both queer and both messy and, I guess, “problematic”. Wylla isn’t the perfect transwoman, Sable’s not the perfect… well, let’s not get into spoilers. The point is that they turn to violence, they roil in fear and indecision, they rush into things, and you root for them anyway while knowing they are making some awful choices. (Knowing, too, that there aren’t any better choices, because that’s what their society does, the hands they’ve been dealt.)

I found the narration really well done: it begins as second person POV, addressed to Wylla, but the speaker also resolves into a character who starts talking about themself in the first person as well. Still, the tone is intimate — this story is being told to Wylla, in a sense. It makes it all feel very immediate. The story doesn’t try to explain itself too much: you have to get on board yourself and figure things out — and I found that it all fell into place beautifully, without too much of a pause for exposition.

This was so intriguing! I really enjoyed it, and I loved the descriptions of the technology that was featured. Space travel and sci-fi are always fun, and this was very well told.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the e-ARC!

I really loved this one - Volatile Memory is an action-packed and emotional story of vengeance and connection in the bleakest of life's circumstances.

The setting itself is incredibly dystopian and Wylla, one of our main characters, faces systemic discrimination as a trans woman who chooses her own life over conformity, and HAWK's backstory explores misogynistic violence.

And yet, I would describe this as hopeful. Wylla and HAWK find each other and they find their rage at a system that has tried to squash them down - and together, they might just have a chance at revenge.

I loved the masks in this, I loved the characters, and I loved the action. <i>Volatile Memory</i> explores a lot of painful topics, but also gives power back to the characters.

Comps to The Locked Tomb series feel very apt, and especially to Harrow the Ninth for reasons I hesitate to specify because of spoilers. Very highly recommended to lovers of queer and weird sci fi.

I'm on the fence about Volatile Memory. While I loved the technology and the masks, the rest of the story fell flat for me.

I loved Wylla. I loved her background, what she represented, her reactions and her emotions and her empathetic heart, and her painful need to put herself first. I loved that she was trans in a future where you can do all of the augments until your physical body was perfectly in line with your inner self; and (for the sake of the narrative only! Trans people deserve joy and selfhood and lives free of transphobia) I appreciated that the corporate overlords still viewed Wylla as “undesirable”. It shows a perfect trajectory of how capitalism will still continue to fail people forever and ever.

However, the rest of the book didn’t really land for me. I don’t think the narration style worked; it felt weird and kept Wylla and Sable at a strange remove from each other as well as the audience. Sable was a little too single-minded, pushing the plot without really explaining how we got there (like, how did she suddenly know how to do all kinds of AI things as soon as it was convenient for the plot?). And we didn’t get enough of an overarching “so what” - I mean, we always support getting revenge on abusers, but the last 5% throws in a very sudden, much larger conflict that pretty much came out of nowhere. And honestly, I would have loved to explore it more.

I think rather than two novellas, this should have been a novel. It would have benefited greatly from taking more time with worldbuilding (inter-company politics, a caste system, the general history of humanity, some more characters?) and not rushing through a half-baked revenge plot

Loved the premise, the tech (the masks are SUCH an interesting idea, I really liked how the author described and used them!), the sapphic relationship, the beginning, and Wylla! I found there were lots of interesting elements in this novella that had me wanting more because the ideas are so good, and I didn't have enough time with them.

I wish there was more time spent on the background of the world, I felt I didn't really understand how everything worked outside of the masks and some parts of the Scavengers' jobs and social standing. While I enjoyed the action scenes, having the story told so much from the mask's perspective took me out of it, and we hear so many internal thoughts and observations of the mask I didn't feel like there was truly time to have built a romance between the characters. I do love how they come together for revenge and help one another face their pasts and traumas, especially how transphobia is discussed and pointed out throughout the story.

Although this wasn't entirely for me, I think the author has a very fresh style and this is a unique novella that I know will connect with many folks. Thank you to NetGalley and Tor/Forge for the ARC!

Bright and vicious and occasionally brutal, this is a story that’s as much about the nature of consciousness and personhood under capitalism as it is about its interstellar manhunt. The worldbuilding was fascinating and unique and the sapphic romance was shockingly tender, but more than anything, this is a feral scream of a book: it’s about queerness and gender and feminine rage, about autonomy, and about bloody, merciless revenge. I did feel like by the end its themes started to feel too aggressively overstated and spelled out for my own personal taste, but I still really enjoyed this story in spite of that.

Two words of warning: firstly, this is not a queernorm setting, as the current slate of queer sci-fi tends to favor. The trans MC faces significant transphobia. I thought the exploration of transness was perfectly married with the book’s worldbuilding, which hinges so heavily on body alteration and the struggle to hold onto any sort of freedom or self-actualization under a system that wants to grind you down into a perfect tool to perform labor.

Secondly, this is not a standalone. It doesn’t exactly end on a cliffhanger, but the story is definitely not finished. Be prepared!

When I heard this comped to ‘this is how you Lose the Time War’, I was immediately interested. I think this book is incredibly atmospheric and does a great job with its sci-fi elements. The masks? The technology? I really liked learning more and more about that system. The characters, however, fell flat for me. I think it relied on known talking points vs fully fleshing out characters and their motivations. The pacing is really slow and I can’t hide that I struggled to pick this back up multiple times. I’d encourage anyone to give it a shot, but for me, this wasn’t my favorite.

Give me a couple years and a few rereads and maybe I could come up with some sort of criticism for Volatile Memory, but at this moment, this book is perfect. It is powerful, engaging, beautifully written, poetic, and unique.
The story follows Wylla, a trans woman forced to scavenge across planets when corporate space proves too exclusionary. She is broke and her ship near breaking down when she receives a beacon calling out a piece of tech that no one has ever heard of, a MARK I HAWK mask. Expecting a large payday for something so rare, Wylla soon learns that selling the mask is impossible—because it would mean erasing the consciousness of the dead woman inside of it.
This novella is speculative fiction at its highest level, not because of how prophetic it is with its technology (though who knows, maybe one day we’ll all be running around in animal masks), but because of how it takes contemporary issues and expunges them into something so gut wrenching you cannot help but find their inclusion cautionary. The way in which Volatile Memory addresses bodily autonomy and forces the reader to ruminate on escaping the social and mental limitations of biology through technology, modernizes the transhumanism movement seen in genres like cyberpunk to include immediate concepts like gender dysphoria and feminine rage.
This book made me think of the division between my body and mind in a completely new and enlightening way, and I honestly couldn’t have asked for a more poignant piece of literature in this political climate. I would absolutely recommend this a thousand times over.

An interesting take on a sci-fi novella! Written in second person, which I know not everyone loves, but I do think it makes sense for this book. Volatile Memory is set in a dystopian future in space where people use animal-shaped masks to imbue them with superhuman abilities. It follows a trans woman scavenger who follows a signal to find a new, high-tech mask and gets more than she bargains for along the way...

It's a sapphic novella that explores gender and embodiment and what it means to be a person. It deals with systemic transphobia at the intersection of capitalism, and comes with a side of feminine revenge. I think a lot of people will like it if they aren't thrown by the use of perspective! Note that it also deals with domestic abuse. I received a copy of this book for review via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.

This queer, sci-fi novella is about masks, both literal and metaphorical. Wylla is a scavenger who has done her best to create a life for herself in galaxy that requires conformity. Searching for that big score to lift her out of poverty and give her freedom, she finds a new prototype mask on the body of a dead woman. When she takes off her own mask - one created to heighten her prey instincts to keep her safe - and replaces it with this new mask, she hears a voice.

The relationship between Wylla (a trans woman) and Sable (a conciseness without a body) is perfect for exploring themes of control and autonomy. I loved everything about this book and the many questions it raises. Even though their early relationship was fraught, I was rooting for both of them from the start!

This was SO. GOOD. An absolutely wild ride from start to finish. For a short piece, she really packed an emotional gut punch.
Lovely writing! Queer space pirates (essentially)! Revenge!! What more can a girl ask for??
This reminded me a hell of a lot of The Locked Tomb books, particularly Harrow. Read this!!!

A unique Sapphic sci-fi romance that will have you believing in an echo of love.

I highlighted SO much of this book. The first chapter I didn't even breathe. It's so well written, the characters are so compelling. The worldbuilding is a perfect blend of soft enough to still surprise me and solid enough that I'm not guessing about the rules of this universe.

The idea of someone's memories being trapped in a piece of technology, (a mask in this book), without a body do you have a gender? Or if you do, is it even relevant anymore? I really like this warm inclusive nod to who is included in the definition of woman, which is that she declares it herself. "Was I made 'woman' by my body? Was I still 'woman' now?"

This dialogue about gender with the juxtaposition of Sable (trapped in a mask) and Wylla (a transwoman), both fighting each other (at first) then external forces for their autonomy and identity. It's really clever. "I've fought to make this body mine. Sharing it now seems . . . like a betrayal."

I also liked the flip between POVs, we go between first person and second person POV, which is a BOLD choice, but it works really well as we toggle between our two main characters Wylla and Sable.

This is my first Seth Haddon book by not my last.

Pick this up if you want
👩‍🚀 Sapphic sci-fi romance
👩‍🚀 Amazing trans rep
👩‍🚀 First and second POV
👩‍🚀 Fast-paced adventure
👩‍🚀 Men getting what's coming to them
👩‍🚀 Gorgeous prose
👩‍🚀 Creative worldbuilding
👩‍🚀 Compelling characters
👩‍🚀 Space fight

This book is best read with a highlighter and all the tabs. Probably book a tattoo appointment too.

A wild ride that keeps you on the edge of your seat. At some times tense and griping but also action packed. The read went by way too fast and when I got to the end I was like thats it? No I need more. The technology was cool and interesting and I liked the world building. The main characters held my attention. I found it a gripping story about survival and perseverance in a world that wants you gone or to fall in line. It kept me on the edge of my seat until the very end.

as someone who isn't a very big sci-fi reader, this was fantastic! i normally wish novellas were longer but this was just the right length and the pacing so well done. it almost felt as if i was watching a video game be played in front of me at times which was my favorite part.

Volatile Memory by Seth Haddon
Review by James Thomson

A novella about the masks we wear, and what exactly it means to be a woman.

Wylla Sotain is a scavenger, living day by day, and searching for the mythical big score so she can finally repair her ship and drag herself out of poverty in an uncaring galaxy. In this particular future, people wear AI-powered masks to enhance their abilities. Wylla has a battered old MARK I RABBIT, which means her senses are heightened, like the prey animal she is.

It seems like her fortunes are about to change when she tracks down an expensive prototype that shouldn’t even exist, but she finds the MARK I HAWK lying on the face of a dead woman called Sable Veonya. When she puts the mask on, Sable talks to her and remembers being murdered. Now everybody is looking for them, including VisorForge, the corporation that is responsible for the masks, and the other scavengers who want a piece of the action.

The book is told in second person perspective, with Sable talking to you, the reader, as if you were Wylla. Harrow the Ninth readers will be quite familiar. Wylla is trans and has been fighting the system her whole life. Sable, on the other hand, now has no body at all. They both accept each other quickly, and a relationship develops between the two of them while they try to track down Sable’s killer, and avoid the authorities.

There are so many enjoyable and unique ideas here, and the plot moves very quickly. I do wish this was a full length novel, so the story had a bit more time to breathe, and the romance could develop slightly more naturally over time. As it is though, you can probably read this in one sitting, and get the whole thing downloaded into your brain near-instantaneously. Which, honestly, seems quite fitting.

Recommended!

Wylla is a trans woman trying to make it in a hyper capitalist sci-fi future, where deviation from the norms of gender identity and appearance is viewed as transgressive. She's made her body truly hers, and hacked every online marker and registry to reflect that, and she'll be damned if she backs down. MARK I HAWK, previously grafted to the face of a corpse, is a woman of questionable identity, struggling to remember her past or just how she got into the circuitry of a mask to begin with.

Let's start with the good. Wylla is freaking awesome; HAWK is pretty dang cool too. The world set up by Haddon is interesting and deeply uncomfortable and dystopian and has a lot of promise with regards to depth and nuance. The hyper capitalism is HYPER capitalism, with everything being named after capitalist/corporate structures, and I think that's a neat spin on this variant of the genre.

But unfortunately that leads me to the bad, of which there's a few for me. The first is that the world building wasn't enough! There's so many cool and interesting concepts that I feel just deserved more than what was given. We're given enough to understand that the power structure is similar to that of a corporation, especially with the words used and applied to positions of power, but we don't have the context to know exactly why they're bad and what they've done. For example, the Subsidiaries have arrived, and they're super important, but nothing is fleshed out enough beyond the foundations to tell us exactly WHY or what kind of power they really hold.

Secondly, the writing style is strange and feels like it's trying to be more than it is or should be. It's from the perspective of the woman in the mask, and so at times it feels disjointed, and rightly so for the narrative, but in other ways makes more sense than it should for someone or some thing frequently divested of perspective and tactile information. In that same way, though, it could also be that the writing style itself just doesn't jive well with me, mainly because it feels like someone going through an almost wistful recollection of events tinged with reverence for Wylla rather than a continuous narrative happening in the now.

Absolutely none of that is to say that the writing is bad, not at all. I enjoyed the story despite my above gripes, and I'm interested to see what else Haddon does outside of his comfort zone! My final thoughts however are that I really feel like Volatile Memory needed more pages and more information to ease the reader into the setting, because there's so much there and it's genuinely so COOL and 176 pages just isn't enough!

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Publishing Group for the free eARC in exchange for my honest review!

This was a story about the masks we choose.

This was a fascinating reading experience and I'm struggling to review it. I don't enjoy a 2nd person POV narrative, and typically dnf right away if that's the style, but I was so interested in what was happening that I couldn't put it down and read it in one sitting. It's compelling, and definitely inspired me to think about what exactly makes us who we are: is it our memories? If not- what is it? I'll absolutely check out future entries into the same universe.

Thanks so much @tordotcompub and @netgalley for the eArc!