#The Memory Hunters

[aroaessidhe]

2025 reads / storygraph

The Memory Hunters

scifi/fantasy set in a postapoc future US

follows a hunter - a woman who uses a certain kind of mushroom allows her to dive into memories from blood, collecting them for the institute she works for, and her bodyguard / best friend, who needs the job to care for her family in the storm-torn south

when they come across a site with memories that uncover secrets about the past and the hunter’s religion that diverge from the official accounts of history, it tests their relationship and causes them to question everything

f/f

arc, out July 29

[miatsai]

Cover reveal time! And since it's already been on Paste all day, I'm just gonna put it here! The Memory Hunters is about museum ethics and who gets to tell your story! It's got lesbians! It's got mushrooms! It's got ethnomusicology! It does not have a stunt team or a hero who saves everyone! This is the kind of book that has a reference list in the back, fake academic journals cited in the epigraphs, and an in-universe literature review! Be aware!

Also chapter one is in the link above!

Want to support the author? Preorder your copy from Charis Books & More, which is the Southeast's oldest feminist bookstore and is proudly gay and BIPOC and trans and fully rainbow and which also runs support groups for trans youth, trans adults, and parents of trans kids, and you'll get a signed, embossed, and personalized book, along with a special custom book plate I've commissioned from a local artist.

https://www.charisbooksandmore.com/book/9781645662082

[wearethekat]

May Book Reviews: The Memory Hunters by Mia Tsai

I received a free copy from Erewhon Books via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Publish date July 29th.

I enjoyed Tsai's previous novel, Bitter Medicine, and I was excited for her SFF anthropology themed latest book. In The Memory Hunters, Key searches for memories of the past using hallucinatory mushrooms in a climate change-striken future where most technology has been lost. But when Key and her bodyguard Vale stumble upon a memory that contradicts established historical narratives, it sets them on a collision course with both the museum and the church...

The Memory Hunters is a subtly executed and contemplatively paced book. While the premise of using mushrooms to retrieve memories from hundreds of years ago initially appears to be fantasy, Tsai slowly reveals that Key’s world is actually a future version of our own, wracked by devastating hurricanes, heat waves, and an ocean that's slowly engulfing the land. Unlike many authors, Tsai doesn't make the apocalyptic setting obvious--it's primarily Key’s everyday world, and the hints that it's a version of the Appalachian South are subtle. In this world, history is revered, both as a practical means to extract lost technology and as the central focus of a church that worships memory and ancestors.

Key, or Kiana, is a bit of a difficult character. She's been raised like a princess of her city, as the heir presumptive to her mother's church position--not to mention her politically powerful father. She's rich, trained to be in the limelight, and bullheadedly self-centered. It's obvious that she expects special treatment, both in avoiding punishment and in gaining special privileges. I'm not sure I entirely liked her, but I do have to admit that her complex romance with prickly and cold Vale was well done. Key’s carelessness with Vale complicates the close bond they share as hunter and guardian, and the attraction both women have been suppressing. Understated and lovely.

A slow and thoughtful piece of climate SF about memory, belonging, and who has a right to history. Based on that ending, it's clear Tsai is planning a sequel, and I'm excited to read it. Recommended.

[nzbookwyrm]

July 2025

[goryhorroor]

horror sub-genres/techniques: anime horror

[lorenzonuti]

Metal Gear Solid.

The Shadow Moses incident.

Twitter (X) | Instagram | Artstation

[babyjaans]

I’m rewatching supernatural, and I can’t believe I never realised this before, but sam and dean are the exact opposite of what they think of themselves. In the brothers’ eyes Sam is the more emotionally open one, or the one with more empathy, and yet he struggles to make close relationships that aren’t romantic. He keeps everyone at arms distance: john, mary, bobby, cas, and so many other examples throughout the series. Whereas dean is supposed to be closed off and emotionally stunted, and yet he has deeper connections with almost all recurring characters: garth, jody, donna, claire (obviously the ones mentioned before). He lets people in more easily than sam. Even how he knows all the shopkeepers in lebanon, whereas they don’t seem to know sam (ie 14x13).

[tendermiasma]

more old D drawings when he almost real life drowned in a swamp and he actually loves this drink called salsa booze and it sounds disgusting so it tracks

[infoaw]

rain world art month 18 moon

an excuse to draw one of my most favorite things ever

[graveflowerss]

You were blinding, and I thought: Who are you? Who am I? Inspiration (aside from chimera ant arc)

[solargeist]

whatever Grian in Bloodborne

[miatsai]

The Memory Hunters is now on Edelweiss and Netgalley! And there is a cover-ish thing in my inbox! Maybe I should actually tell you what The Memory Hunters is about! It has:

Mushroom anthropologists

GAY in giant capital letters

Tiny weasel girl, always feral

Museum ethics

"This book makes me feel like I'm on drugs"

Things that I'm completely terrified of that I will now share with you

A reference list in the back

Epigraphs. So many epigraphs.

Diaspora and climate grief

Yeah, I know that doesn't really tell you anything . . . but hey, you can go download the PDF and read and review!

[freyadragonlord]

(Spoilers for the sctir novel)

I honestly don't know what is funnier:

The fact that when Yoohyun learns about the Regression, he pretty much immediately asks Yoojin what his relationship to Sung Hyunjae was before turning time back, and that when Yoojin tells him that he and Hyunjae didn't know each other at all before the Regression, Yoohyun thinks Yoojin is lying to him........

.........or the fact that Yoohyun is right.

[solifelessblog]

Dadrius Week Day 4: Memories/Free Space

The memories of that day… @sergeantsporks

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Please reblog, don’t repost :)

[zarla-s]

Haven't been able to find the time to get anything done the last few days, so instead here's an old ladycomic I don't think I posted here, haha. This was one of the very first comics I drew with them! Kind of set the tone for a lot of their interactions in the future.

The song in question is Wolves of the Sea, heehee.

[patreon]

[honey-bird10]

just realized i never posted my sons here im sorry good bye