When you think of something terrible, and you shove it deep down where it can’t hurt you, does it stay buried? Was the very act of generating that idea the catalyst by which it now exists in the world? It’s your perception of it that keeps it fed—so how do you kill it?
Where to start?
A meeting with Marie Quinn, the director of the titular shadow organisation, the Antimemetics Division. You’re nervous, but she’s lovely. She tells you that Agents are only as good as they are on their first day, which feels like an odd thing to say really, but when the organisation you now work for is dealing with memory and reality altering entities on the daily, you could be headbutting the reset button at any point.
Welcome to your first day (?)
What starts as a series of seemingly stand-alone short stories inside the greater AMD universe, reveals a darker overarching plot than the characters could imagine.
The dread I choked on as I listened made me physically ill. This is definitely an experience I recommend, the audiobook is A++. The unsettling redactions, the entity reports, and drip-fed factoids were called back in moments of unbridled panic, and memory reset after memory reset creates the setup of a perfect storm of coincidences to battle an entity that doesn’t technically exist to Marie or the Organisation.
What starts as a fun, logical and philosophical action romp takes a sudden turn into something darkly heartbreaking and tender. This point, where it becomes clear to the reader, feels like a great, and terrible Eureka!
You know what’s going on!
Oh.
You know what’s going on.
Disorientation as a literary device
Shifting the focus of the story occasionally is disarming, and whilst the author is not able to scrub the clues and information from our minds directly, the disorientation serves as a handy reset point. This literary sleight of hand is masterful, and readers who also write should take note—QNTM gave a new life and purpose to the common gripe of shifting points of view in stories.
These points of view—namely the perspectives of assorted Division operatives, both past and present, lay the groundwork for the darker overarching plot. The point of view of the Division’s Director, the worn-out and overworked Marie Quinn, provides a very human normalcy, especially in her marriage to her very normal musician husband Adam. The white-picket-fencery of it all felt jarring at times, but it was welcome. The Division itself is for the protection and preservation of human life after all, and secret underground labs, and memetic weaponry don’t really portray a world worth preserving better than cups of tea and feeding a beloved pet scraps in a home you share with someone you love.
Comparing this story to works in the science fiction, or thriller, horror, or dark academia genres would be a disservice to such a unique story, as it is very much a *vibes* recommendation type of book.
There is no Antimemetics Division is made up of all the best What-if? questions from a kindergartner, and an Eldritch horror.
Is it fun? Indubitably! Is it scary? Terrifying! Funny? You’ll cackle! Tragic? You’ll never stop thinking about it.
Who is QNTM?
The author, QNTM (pronounced quantum), contributed extensively to the viral story collective, the SCP Foundation.
His works in the SCP archives are early iterations of many of the entities and plotlines in The Antimemetics Division and if you have not spent nights second guessing the scary shadows in your rooms, courtesy of these sci-fi short stories, or didn’t do your research going in (guilty), you might not be ready for the whiplash genre and tone shift about three quarters of the way through.
QNTM, is Shaun Hughes outside of the writing and coding space.
Yes, coding.
QNTM is not content with being ridiculously clever on the page; oh no, he also created the highly frustrating logic games Absurdle, and Hatetris.
I’m not reviewing those games, and it has nothing to do with how terrible I am at them.
There is no Antimemetics Division is a solid 10/10 for a terrific, genre shifting, sci-fi masterpiece that should absolutely be celebrated as one of the finest examples of a book being clever and a romp.
Welcome to your first day!
About Shae Nicholson
Shae is a non-binary femme living and writing on Gubbi-Gubbi land in Queensland Australia.
When they aren’t writing, they are a Virtual Assistant, training as an Audiobook Narrator, and an amatuer mycologist.
They are an audiobook enthusiast and are well known for their top-tier event fashion.
Shae writes about neurodivergent heroines, and the power they hold. She explores the weaponisation of masking and hyperempathy, as well as the subversion of societal and familial norms for neurodivergent women, commonly through feminine rage.
You can find Shae online at their website, on TikTok and on Instagram.