Volatile Memory

By: Seth Haddon

Narrated by: Emily Gibbons Bouchard

This is How You Lose the Time War meets Ex Machina: Seth Haddon's science fiction debut, Volatile Memory, is a sapphic sci-fi action adventure novella.

"A gorgeously tender exploration of human connection in a post-human universe." —The Washington Post

“Providing growing confidence to Wylla's voice and depth to Sable's, narrator Bouchard makes this interstellar romance a gripping listen.” — AudioFile

An Amazon Editor's Best Sci-Fi & Fantasy Pick

A Most Anticipated Book: GoodReads | Literary Hub | BookRiot | Words & Brush Strokes | SheReads | BookTrib | Winter Is Coming | We Are Bookish | New Scientist

With nothing but a limping ship and an outdated mask to her name, Wylla needs a big pay day. When the alert goes out that a lucrative piece of tech lies hidden on a nearby planet, she calls on all the swiftness of her prey-animal instincts to beat other hunters to it.

What you found wasn’t your ticket out—it was my corpse wearing an AI mask. When you touched the mask, you heard my voice. A consciousness spinning through metal and circuits, a bodiless mind, spun to life in the HAWK’s temporary storage. I crystallized and realized: I was alive.

Masks aren't supposed to retain memory, much less identity, but the woman inside the MARK I HAWK is real, and she sees Wylla in a way no one ever has. Sees her, and doesn’t find her wanting or unwhole.

Armed with military-grade tech and a lifetime of staying one step ahead of the hunters, Wylla and HAWK set off to get answers from the man who discarded HAWK once before: her ex-husband.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor.com

Very good!

This book took me by surprise. Initially I found the pov a little off putting. It grew on me, as did Wylla and Hawk. This was a very cool concept for a sci-fi world. The tech was pretty interesting and I wish it had gone into a bit more depth on the uses and varieties. However most of the story is spent introspecting and speculating between the two MCs. The ending really picked up and had me on the edge of my seat.
Emily Gibbons Bouchard did a wonderfully nuanced job with the main characters and the few side characters. I was very invested in Wylla's confidence by the end.
I will read the next one when it come out for sure!

queer-cyber-punk-holy-trinity

I enjoyed it throughly. saying it's like This Is How You Lose The Time War and Ex Machina is assuming that's the only way some one would read this novel, and im here to say that's just not true!

A great listen that left me wanting more.

This is a fun sci-fi ride that isn't too long, Fun sci-fi tech concepts, good action, some revenge fantasy, and quick pace. It made my day of otherwise tedious tasks in my workshop go by quick!
It was also thought provoking, and exercised some empathy muscles that I recon needed a nudge.

The narrator absolutely nailed it! 5 bright stars on the performance.

Sapphic Space Adventure With Real World Themes

do y’all remember when that lady fell in love with the Eiffel Tower and married it.

Well,
Volatile memory is about a scavenger mercenary who falls in love with a sentient animal-shaped mask.

Wylla and other scavengers receive a message from a highly desired animal shaped mask challenging them. “if you want me come get me.”

In short,
A good animal shaped mask “helps humans overcome the limitations of human physiology.”
These masks can upgrade their awareness of their surroundings, help them hunt better, or even can be sold for a high price. But these masks aren’t supposed to gain sentience.

As Wylla escapes with her new trophy, she starts to get to know the mask, if you get what I mean, while uncovering what happened to the previous owner.

Volatile memory has sapphic and transgender representation. Its a sci-fi novella that explores the themes of what it means to live under a capitalistic government that controls the bodily autonomy of its citizens, the ways trans people aren’t treated as human, and how greedy
Corporations and men treat women as incubators to make future workers.

Transgender people in this society are forced in to conforming to the status quo or risk losing their monetary value.

For example, “ corporate federations punished you for the divide in your body and mind; they called you man when you were woman and you had made your body your own, had altered it to recognize yourself, had evolved to a place of comfort, and this made you unemployable in their eyes. Conformity over comfort.homogeny over evolution. Anyone altered in such a way proved they were unwilling to comply and anyone like that was difficult to control.”

In a way, these government praises their citizens for masking who they really are and punishes those who can’t seem to conform. The citizens are allowed to wear masks to enhance their bodies because the changes are based off the terms of the government and not the self. In their minds, if they can control how people modify their bodies, then they can control the amount of worker bees they can produce by keeping people their assigned genders. In a twisted way of thinking on their part, there will be a shortage of people procreating if too many people become who they truly are. The end game being control by any means and always having a work force to exploit off of.
And The government goes as far as tracking their citizens to keep them in line.

The book points out the real world dangers of corporations and the government having control over your genetic history.

The government devaluing transgender people as a whole allows for its citizens to openly discriminate against them.
Both our world and the world in the book gives transgender people two options: mask and conform to the control of the government, or have your own bodily autonomy but be punished for doing so.

And what happens in this world when you do everything in your power to conform and have a baby and play by the rules, well, as long as you bear children and be a obedient wife, then you can go on living a normal life.
But for those that have complications or can’t bear children, then they are looked down upon because they couldn’t produce more worker bees for the future assembly line. At the end of the day, corporations rely on working class people to continue making babies so that they can keep making record breaking profits while exploiting their workers.

A world like this solely focused on capitalistic greeds funds propaganda against abortion, lgbt rights, and people’s rights to all forms of bodily autonomy. Because, in their minds, how can a corporation make money off of your future children if you abort your baby, how can a corporation make their quota of necessary workers if the gays are fucking but not popping out kids and why are women allowed to breath if they aren’t constantly incubating the next employee? These are the questions capitalists must ask themselves before they fund the next right wing politician hell bent on taking away your rights, who of course, is eventually going to be caught on Grindr at the RNC.

Is our world so different? Are we any better in our society with how we treat the poor or transgender people or women? Is this really fiction or is this a viable nightmare that we are already living?

For a 161 page novella,Volatile memory asks us to look at our society and see where we can do better. It is a sci-fi action adventure about breaking from the norms and regaining your power and bodily autonomy from the government. It’s about being okay with defying a system put in place to subjugate for the means of capital gains. Or in laymen’s terms, saying fuck you to a society that bends over for money hungry corporations.

the hawk

hawk is some of the coolest tech I've read about and I understand what it's like to not fit into the idea society think u should or shouldn't be,but live authentically no matter what you do