The SCP Foundation is so influential that you’re likely already familiar with many of the series’ tropes and monsters, even if you’ve never actually sat down to read the wiki and enjoy its complex web of collaborative genre fiction. Yet, despite being such a massive pillar of online culture, direct adaptations of the wiki’s stories rarely survive outside the internet. While part of this is due to complicated legal issues that have now mostly been dealt with, another part is due to the sheer difficulty of adapting internet-based horror stories to other media.
Thankfully, the semi-anonymous writer and SCP contributor QNTM has finally found a way to escape the SCP bubble with their mind-bending novel, There Is No Antimemetics Division. A metatextual masterpiece that toys with readers as it explores memory and the terrifying power of narrative, this literary puzzle was originally self-published as an SCP spin-off before QNTM revised the story into something more original and, in my humble opinion, even more entertaining!
The new version of the book accompanies Director Marie Quinn (originally Marion Wheeler) throughout her career at the “Organization”: a secretive foundation that secures, contains, and protects paranormal anomalies ranging from cursed objects to Kaiju-sized creatures that cannot be perceived by human senses. Specifically, Marie works for the titular Antimemetics Division, an obscure department within the Organization that deals with Unknowns capable of disrupting human perception and sometimes even the idea of storytelling itself.
Via encounters with memory-eating parasites and clues left by past incarnations of the Division, Marie eventually realizes that there’s an apocalyptic conspiracy afoot involving a forgotten war against a godlike being from beyond the limits of human comprehension – and it doesn’t look like our side is winning.
On the surface, this is pretty much the same story as was first published online for free back in 2020, but the more you read, the more you realize that QNTM has completely reworked the text into a fully revamped novel, fixing nearly every gripe I had with the original work. While it’s a shame that character names had to be changed and overt references to the SCP Foundation were discarded in favor of legally distinct analogues, this was all done in the service of telling a tighter and more emotionally impactful story with an ending that hits a hell of a lot harder.
Just the mere fact that the book no longer assumes that you’re already familiar with the SCP Foundation is enough to make it much more accessible to the average reader. This also allows the novel to better explore concepts that were taken for granted in the original text. From the inner workings of the Unknown database itself to the bizarre nature of some of the lifeforms contained by the Organization, it’s fun to see so many outlandish events treated like just another day at the office as characters describe elder gods through language usually reserved for paperwork.
In fact, that signature SCP style of depicting high-concept paranormal activity as more of a daily inconvenience than anything else is present on nearly every page here. While the overall mythology behind the Unknown ecosystem contains some of the most fascinating sci-fi concepts I’ve read about in years (with some individual ideas being more than enough to sustain an entire horror novel by themselves), the best part of There Is No Antimemetics Division is the way that QNTM weaves these fantastical elements together so naturally that you can’t help but take them in stride.
That’s why creatures like Marie’s memory-eating “pet” can be elevated to supporting character status without even batting an eye, and the division’s battles against self-censoring “ideas” are so normalized that workers are used to being forgotten by the rest of the Organization (hence the book’s tongue-in-cheek title).
Of course, Marie’s relationship with Adam is the real heart of the story, with this raw emotional throughline grounding all of the Organization’s supernatural shenanigans in an all-too relatable personal tragedy. I’d even argue that you can read a lot of symbolism into the novel when you realize that, if you remove the world-ending anomalies from the mix, the story is ultimately about a woman with a high-stress job that keeps her from living a fulfilling life – but at the same time, she can’t escape the situation because she knows that her sacrifice is the only thing keeping the world from falling into chaos since most people are incapable of perceiving the true nature of reality.
While I was a fan of the over-the-top Noosphere portion of the original book (where it was revealed that the SCP Foundation’s struggles continued even in the afterlife), I have to admit that the new third act is a huge improvement. Not only does the story focus more on Marie and Adam’s connection, but the stakes also feel higher when you know that our protagonists can’t rely on a higher power to save them.
Despite the novel having been streamlined for a broader audience, I’ll admit that some of the surviving plot points are likely to hit harder if you’re already familiar with certain “online” subject matter like the infamous Mandela Effect. However, I’d argue that QNTM’s prose is effective enough that most readers will have no problem with allowing their minds to be repeatedly blown by unexpected reveals. Hell, even rereading the book made my brain leak out of my ears due to the author’s ruminations on the fickle nature of memory, and I mean that as a compliment!
Regardless of whether you’re an existing fan of the previous version of the story or a complete newcomer to the Organization, I can guarantee that QNTM’s definitive version of There Is No Antimemetics Division is a genre treat unlike any other. Ironically enough, given the subject matter, there are moments and characters here that will likely haunt your thoughts long after you’ve finished reading.
So, if you like cosmic horror that makes you question the very nature of reality, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up.
There Is No Antimemetics Division is available now on all major platforms, with a special audiobook edition also available with intentionally corrupted audio files and creepy special effects.
