Memory

There is the feel of a fantasy quest and a western in this novel, Nagata’s introduction to the world at the center of Silver.

There are gods, reincarnation of a sort, and destined lovers. It is a world of vast spaces with humans living only around temples. Most of it seems to be desert-like. There is no aviation. Electronic communication is spotty. Rather than horses, the characters travel by motorcycles and trucks, always careful to arrive at a temple by nightfall. Night is when the silver comes up, a nanotechnology that sometimes consumes or transforms what it touches. Only the “kobolds” in the temples keep it at bay – sometimes.

Frankly, I’ve known about this novel for years, but a young protagonist and a synopsis with words show more I normally associate with fantasy novels didn’t make me want to read it.

However, our narrator Jubilee, a teenager, has a compelling voice and doesn’t have the sort of “pluck” that grates on me.

The story weaves three plots: Jubilee’s search for her brother Jolly who disappeared into the silver one night but who may be alive; her growing, if long distant, love affair with Yaphet; and the threat that, as in times past, the silver may engulf the world. In fact, a shadowy figure named Kaphiri works toward that very end.

Along the way Jubilee, discovers the nature of this world and gains some control over the silver. She also learns that the god and goddess who created the world may somehow be incompletely incarnated as some of the novel’s characters.

That’s not an entirely foreign notion to Jubilee. The inhabitants of this world know there are only a limited number of personalities which get reincarnated time after time. Their memories don’t survive death but some of their knowledge and talents do. Thus, Jubilee has a gift for languages. Yaphet’s talents run towards engineering.

The idea of a destined lover is quite important to the story. One can only bond and mate with a specific individual in this world for reasons revealed in the story. In fact, some people, like Kaphiri, never do, and it’s this alienation from normal life that drives his apocalyptic movement and brings him followers in a similar predicament.

The novel is called Memory because history and information are at its center whether it is the records Jubilee can access with her linguistic gift, legends, the incomplete memory of previous incarnations, or the silver itself.

Nagata’s story is complicated, and, after only one reading, I’m not sure I understood it completely. Unlike the novel’s sequel, Silver, this story is more a mystery and quest story than an action adventure. Nagata layers and revises her explanation of Jubilee’s world and its history as the story progresses. In Silver, it’s clearly laid out. Still, I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would and wasn’t troubled by reading Jubilee’s story in reverse order. The mysteries are engaging as well as the characters, particularly Jubilee and Kaphiri. show less

I very much enjoyed this and there is a real sense of both the characters and the setting developing over the course of the story. The back cover blurb describes it thus:

"A quest, a puzzle, and multiple lives: On an artificial world with a forgotten past, floods of "silver" rise in the night like fog, rewriting the landscape and consuming those caught in its cold mists. Seventeen-year-old Jubilee knows that no one ever returns from the silver--but then a forbidding stranger appears, asking after her beloved brother, lost long ago to a silver flood. Could he still be alive? And why does the silver rise ever higher, threatening to drown the world? Jubilee pursues the truth on a quest to unlock the memory of a past reaching back farther show more than she ever imagined."

The first part of the book is a combination of world building and introducing the characters. The world is a strange and fascinating combination of fantasy and science fiction and there is still a lot of mystery to it even when you've read all the way to the end. The characters are continually reincarnating and slowly become aware of their past lives, or at least the skills they learnt during them as they live. The story is a combination of a coming of age, a roadtrip and a classic fantasy style quest (although there is an absence of big swords or sandals). Our main character, Jubilee, starts off trying to rescue her brother, and as she travels the scope of her mission creeps somewhat to become an attempt to save the world. Her role is a pivotal one amongst the 'players' of the world (as they style themselves). In each reincarnation she has tried to act to end the danger posed by the silver, and as she remembers more and more of these through a series of troubling dreams and flashbacks she determines to try and do something different this time.

There is also a tragic love in the best traditions of unrequited courtly love. Each player has one, and only one, designated lover in the world, and many spend lifetimes looking for theirs. Jubilee finds hers quickly, although he is on the other side of the world past some very dangerous areas. Part of the story is their brief distant relationship and their coming together, which isn't all that they would hope for.

The ending carries a little twist, and it isn't clear until very late on how things will resolve. Towards the last third of the book I didn't want to put it down. The ending, when it came, was good, and I would love there to be more stories from this world. show less

Some pretty cool worldbuilding in a coming of age story. Nothing much wrong with the writing but I did feel somewhat shortchanged at the end, the central mystery of the silver (and its control) are not adequately resolved to my eye.

Story:
Jubilee and her younger brother Jolly live in a world that is constantly being changed due to a mysterious silver cloud that alters anything that is inanimate and kills anything that is flesh. One night when Jubilee is ten Jolly is lost to the silver in a freak accident... or so she thinks. Several years later rumors begin to circulate about a man that can come in and out of the mist without being affected. Disregarding the rumors as hopeful fantasy Jubilee tries to move on with her life until one day she comes face to face with the man, who wants her long lost brother. What follows is an adventure that will reunite brother and sister but in the process tear their idea of history and reality apart while they try to prevent a flood show more of silver that will drown the world once and for all.
-----some spoilers-----
This was a differnt kind of story and it was pretty good in looking at what might happen if a Massively Multiplayer Theme world was left to its own devices after a war of sorts killed one ceator and left the other brain damaged and incaple of repairing the world or doing anything besides keeping what was left running. Most of the back story is figurable out without the author trying to invent technical details and a chapter later in the book does spell out exactly what happened. I really liked this book. The author took a differnt idea and ran with it. Would recommned this to anyone who likes fantasy with a little scifi thrown in and also those who are interested in diffent takes on MMORPGs.
m.a.c show less

This book starts out wonderfully and then somehow looses it. I saw so many possibilities and thought i knew where it was going and then where it actually went was kind of mundane.

The "silver" rises at night and kills anyone caught out in it…leaves behind "follies", artifacts of past histories, but changed. Silver is rising and Jubilee must save the world before the silver floods everything.

This book has a really interesting setting.