View attachment 620553
There is No Anti-Memetics Division
Secret agency tackles anti-memetic threats, otherworldly predators or alien intelligences that are difficult to impossible to perceive or even remember the existence of.
I've read a fair amount of horror and science fiction stories and this one was more unsettling than most without resorting to horriblely unpleasant shit or general edgelording. It's got some gore and some body horror but it's the ideas that get to you. I listened to this on audiobook and at nine hours it does not overstay it's welcome. I was never bored. The lady that does the reading does an excellent job but whoever produced this thing introduced an element that should earn anyone in such a position a day in the stocks at the center of a major city. Rotten fruit should be hurled at them by children. Stray dogs should piss on their legs.
When the book begins we are introduced to a sound that will play during sections that, I assume, would have been garbled in the text. Textual gimmicks are old hat but they can be fun if used carefully. The sound is a mixture of static, garbled speech, screeches and other unpleasant bits. There are two sections of this audiobook where it plays this very, very annoying to listen to mess for two or three minutes almost continuously. I was at my computer and could quickly lower the volume. For someone with earbuds it would be akin to being spit in the face and then slapped. I was considering bailing on a book that I was five hours in to and really liked. That's how annoying I found it. I've not experienced audiobook sound design so poorly thought out in the 25 years I've been listening to them.
If we exclude that bullshit it's a solid B with some occasional spikes in to the A- territory.
