Volatile Memory

"Volatile Memory", by Seth Haddon, 2025, 160 pages, 45k words.

I will NEVER trust another recommendation by Alix E. Harrow. I loved her latest "The Everlasting" & predicted it would win awards, which it did, per Wikipedia:

The novel won the 2026 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and is a finalist for the 2026 Hugo Award for Best Novel.

But she totally did me wrong with this book.

Looking it up, here's how it is listed on Kobo:

#237 in Romance, LGBT, Lesbian

#1085 in Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction, Adventure

#2332 in Romance, Science Fiction & Fantasy

So, OK, another sapphic romance, between a trans woman, & a cis woman who is dead but has been captured in a "mask". The main technology of this future is "masks", which you wear, & which interface with your brain, & give you superpowers. Very comic book.

The main thing about this is, that its highest ranking is in Romance. It is indeed a bodice-ripper.

I generally don't read those. I'm sorry Alix E. Harrow sent me down this path. The prose is so ... twee, maybe? Trite? Barf-o-rama.

You had wavy hair the color of a stormy night; lightning streaked through in grays and whites, though you couldn't have been more than twenty-five. You were so young, but when you looked at me, I saw the hurricane in your eyes, gray and tired, and when you sold me for parts, whey you finally chose your own happiness, I decided I wouldn't fault you.

...

And you kissed me.

Your lips, slightly chapped, pressed against the chilled byronnicum. You kissed me, Wylla. If only I could faint.

Seriously? You don't want to faint, you want to swoon!

This novel is such drivel. So the personality saved in the experimental mask shares the body of the trans female, who was already having body image problems as it was. But, they are in love! Swoon!

& when they merge, they become a super assassin! & they murder people without particularly thinking about it, or regretting it. Nice! Amoral murderers are some of my fav characters.

Ugh, ugh, ugh. Alix E. Harrow, formerly my neighbor in Madison County, KY, you owe me.

There is a 2nd novel in The Volatile Memory Duology. I will definitely not be reading it. This 1st installment is 1 of those books where you wish you could do a memory purge. But, even if you did, it would probably still give you nightmares. Ugh.