Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for an ARC of There Is No Antimemetics Division.

I was so excited by the premise of this book and totally blown away by the first 40ish%. I couldn't wait to read more. Unfortunately the last 60% either sucked or I wasn't smart enough to understand it (possibly both). A huge disappointment regardless.

3 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for an arc of There is No Antimemetics Division" by qntm. This was genuinely such a fun read. The premise was interesting but I did not expect the ride and good time I was in for. From page 1 I was absolutely hooked and hanging on to every word.

This book should be approached with as little foreknowledge as possible, in my opinion, so I'll be really vague here. This story follows the dedicated employees of the Antimemetics Division, and their job is really hard, they're pretty sure, and comes with challenges they'll never see coming, until they do. Considering the action-heavy plot, I wasn't sure how much time we'd get really learning about the characters, but it also manages to give heart and depth to characters that spend most of their time focused on anything but their own feelings.

I really can't recommend it enough to readers who want a mind-f'ing, action-packed, suspenseful, endearing story to get lost in.

We all know memes but the majority of them are harmless - contagious, often repetitive ideas that take the form of sayings or songs, lodging in your brain for a while before fading into irrelevance. Antimemes, however, latch on and consume your memories - your first kiss, your daily commute, your awareness of the antimeme itself.
You could be in the room with one and not know it; it could be your coworker, lover or friend. It’s a vacant lot in the middle of a busy street, one you pass quickly to avoid the headache-inducing hum you always hear in the vicinity. It’s here, and it’s hungry. By the time it’s finished with you, those around you can’t see you, can’t hear you, and don’t know you ever existed.
Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day.

What a wild ride! The concept is so inventive, horrifying, and wildly complex without losing the reader in convoluted logic. It’s a refreshing take on the unreliable narrator and I felt a kinship with Marie and her fellow operatives, trying as hard as they did to stay one step ahead of each Unknown enemy. The story kept me on the edge of my seat and yes, even challenged my love of The X-Files.

Oh wow - this was a bundle of speculative fiction, horror, and sci-fi. There Is No Antimemetocs Division explores an organization dedicated to discovering, tracking, and containing entities that are unknowable and unrememberable. At times feeling a bit like a fever dream, ironically this read is one I will not soon forget.

Thanks to social media, we all know what memes are: ideas that get stuck in our head and go viral because everyone, everywhere, is talking about them. But in "There Is No Antimemetics Division," the world is also filled with antimemes, ideas and entities that defy reason and resist being remembered, even to the point of consuming our memories, our lives, and our reality. Using a blend of esoteric math and philosophy, labyrinthine security protocols, bizarre technologies, and memory-altering pharmaceuticals, the Antimemetics Division fights to protect humanity from these bizarre entities. But how can the men and women of the Antimemetics Division accomplish their mission when their mission often requires them to forget everything they know about their mission? Suffice to say, this novel — which originated as a series of entries on the SCP Foundation wiki — is pretty high concept stuff, and gets trippy as it jumps back and forth between time periods and even different states of memory and existence. It also gets creepy in places, weaving in traces of cosmic horror, and boasts a streak of bleak humor (like the antimeme that only consumes bicycle-related memories). There were times when I wasn’t sure Qntm — the pen name of programmer Sam Hughes — would be able to pull everything together, but in the end, I found this to be clever, enjoyable, and even a bit moving.

By far the most unique story I’ve ever read. I was pulled in from the first chapters and the author did a wonderful job easing us into the organization without info-dumping. The focus is plot over character and felt like the epitome of sci-fi. Unfortunately, I’m not sure that I’m smart enough to enjoy it fully, which combined with a slowdown in pacing, I was lost near the end and found myself pushing through it.

I would recommend this for anyone looking to discover a true new idea.

I'm all but positive I've read parts of this book before. The idea is good, but things wander. As they should. I was frightened when I was supposed to be frightened and I may have forgotten how to ride a bicycle in the process.

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the ARC.

Thank you NetGalley and Ballantine Books for this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

There Is No Antimemetics Division feels like a breath of fresh air compared to a lot of the horror I've read lately. It deals with truly existential concepts, and makes them just understandable enough to terrify the reader. If the synopsis sounds even some what interesting to you I would say go ahed and read it, even though I do have some problems with the novel.

Plot: I thought the plot here worked really well up until the end. Even though it is dealing in concepts that by their very nature are unknowable it all makes sense. My problem with the end is it just kind sputter out a bit and there is a lot of rehashing of the same info over and over again, which makes in-world sense for the characters but for the reader who hasn't forgotten it just kinda gets bogged down.

Pace: Again the pacing of the novel worked for me right up until the last 4 or so chapters. At the start it has a short story collection feeling, with each chapter introducing elements of the world that aren't super connected to the chapter immediately before it. I would say about halfway through it starts following a more traditional narrative structure, and the transition is pretty seamless. Then it starts slowing down, until the final chapter where it just zips through the conclusion.

Persons: I don't have a ton to say on the characters, they served their purpose throughout the novel and you got to know some of them well enough that the intended emotional beats hit as they were supposed to.

Place: I mean the setting of the novel is really the main juice here. The SCP-esque Unknown Organization is super fun, the whole concept of fighting a war you don't know about and can't known about is super intriguing to me. Memes and Anit-Memes are one of those things that feel very terminally online to me in a way, ideas and concepts that only people deep into online horror know about, so to see them getting more widespread is absolutely great.

Prose: Serve their job. Never so bad as to be noticeable, but never so great to be noticeable either.

4 stars

I had heard of this book before and it sounded fascinating, so I was excited to see it as an ARC choice.

It’s (mostly) the story of Marie Quinn, the Antimemetics Division chief (because there is a division. And we should be damn glad.). The Division collects “unknowns,” “phenomena in the world that actively defied reason.” But if you are thinking spooky dolls you couldn’t be more off base. These are… bigger. Weirder. Scarier. Think potentially world destroying. Maybe worse. And part of the fun(?) is reading about them.

This dark, demented and really good. I don’t want to give anything away, but it has a really satisfying (for me) ending and I so appreciated the creativity here…it’s rare to come across something like this (for me, anyway) and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m not doing a great job at reviewing it because it’s just one of those books where I don’t want to give anything away. It’s good.

I picked this up back in December 2024 before finding out the author was reworking this for traditional publishing and thinks the new work is much improved. I put it down to wait for its traditional publication.

I only got through the first couple of chapters, so I'm not sure what changed from the self-published version. This was great, though! The ideas are big, and I've never read anything quite like this before. There are complex science fiction ideas and deep character studies. Some chapters are paced like thrillers, some are more introspective.

The whole book is compelling, but the first half is easier to follow and really engaging. I'll definitely need to re-read the second half because I'm sure I missed things.

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books!

This book was enjoyable, but I mostly enjoyed the SCP document parts, not so much the interconnecting story. The first section was the strongest in my opinion. And while I understand how SCPs work, the redacting information was just distracting in a book (plus it was hard for me to read the few chapters with the black-highlighted text, but that might just be my device). I'd be curious to hear what someone who has never heard of SCPs thinks of this book.

Thank you to qntm, Ballantine, and NetGalley for the ARC!

This was a book with a very interesting premise that I felt was pretty well executed. It is a pretty bizarre story and the author did a great job at making the reader actually feel all the tense moments.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to re-read one of my favorites now that it is being revamped for professional publishing.
This book is challenging but in a very rewarding way. Incredibly original. One of the best modern sci-fi books in several years. I pretty much recommend it to any friend I know that enjoys good science fiction.

**Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the eARC of this unique title!**

I’ve actually read this in a previous release and didn’t realize it was the same book when I requested because I’m a silly goose.

This was a weird but but I loved the mixed media aspect and felt that the subject matter was truly unique at the time that it first released. I will be rereading this eventually but wanted to drop a quick review ahead of the publication of the hardcover!

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

There were sections of this that I was fully immersed in, and then it would leap out into a new section. I understand the formatting of SCP, but the constant redacting and skipping felt a little too tongue and cheek for me, especially when I was just trying to get into the rhythm of the story.

4.5 stars!

Did you know that a lot of general anesthesia works not by making you unable to feel pain or truly too unconscious to experience it, but by inducing temporary amnesia so that you don't remember feeling that pain? So there is a version of you who, partially conscious, presently experienced the pain of surgery only to have those memories never enter long-term storage. Does that freak you out too? Then this book is perfect!

Most of the world knows nothing about the Unknown Organization and the entities it contains, and most of the Unknown Organization knows nothing about the Antimemetics Division within, which specializes in entities who are easy to forget and easier to never see in the first place. As head of the Antimemetics Division, Marie Quinn knows that her memory and perception are vulnerable and there are always ideas too great to comprehend just out of sight.

I'm a huge fan of the SCP foundation and someone happened to recommend this to me just as the indie version was wiped from the internet in advance of it being traditionally published. I'm so happy to have waited to read it, because it's such a good time and very nostalgic for me. Don't get me wrong, this is a bit of a stretching routine for your brain and my head hurt a little at points but it does a great job with such a difficult premise and gives me all of the horror slice-of-life that I desperately want in regards to SCP. Obviously all of the moment referring specifically to SCP have ben altered, but if you're a fan don't worry. It definitely maintains everything interesting about the source material. I agree with a lot of existing reviews that the end of the book gets a little too twisty and surreal for me personally, but I think it makes sense for the premise.

Thank you to qntm and Ballantine Books for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

One of the more bizarre and inventive novels in recent memory. I you like SF or horror or weird fiction, this is for you.

This book completely captivated me with its fresh and inventive premise about antimemetics—concepts that erase themselves from memory just by being known. It’s a rare kind of speculative fiction that’s cerebral and deeply unsettling, blending mystery and existential dread in a way that feels both original and profoundly thought-provoking.

The writing is sharp and purposeful, perfectly matching the cryptic and tense atmosphere. I was drawn into a world where uncertainty and paranoia are as much characters as the people themselves, and the story manages to keep that delicate balance between revealing just enough and holding back enough to maintain suspense.

While it delves into complex ideas, it never feels inaccessible—there’s a carefulness in the storytelling that respects the reader’s intelligence without becoming needlessly obscure. For me, this was a standout read, hitting all the right notes of mystery, depth, and emotional weight.

Overall, There Is No Antimemetics Division is a brilliant, eerie exploration of memory and reality. It’s exactly the kind of smart, unsettling story that stays with you long after you turn the last page.

Thank you to Netgalley and Ballantine for this ARC!

There is No Antimetrics Division is a perfect blend of Scifi and horror.

The timeline got confusing at times, but once I figured it out...man was it good. The plot twist at the end had me shocked!

Absolutely wild and thrilling read, one part sci fi and one part horror and it absolutely does not let up. I was hooked from the first chapter. The book is written with snippets of “data entries” throughout the story to give readers some perspective of the “science” of what’s going on. It was a lot of information mingled in but the author does an amazing job making even those engaging and easy to digest in line with the story.

There was so much going on and so much information coming at you, but at no point did I ever feel like bored or waiting for it to get back to the “meat” of the story. They were excellently done in a way that added so to the experience of the book.

It was compelling, unsettling and fascinating. When things would start to get a little out there, the author did a great job of making at all seem relative and believable to the story. It provided a little bit of levity for me in a fast pace, and at time horrifying story.

I usually lean more towards horror than science fi, so I am approaching this as a horror reader, but I throughly enjoyed this book. I think horror fans who want a little something different from your run of the mill thriller novel would enjoy this. As well as obvious sci fi readers.

My only critique was that the ending, although felt appropriate for the story, felt a bit abrupt. I do hope that means that leaves some room for future novels!