Empire State of Mind

Yiming Ma’s debut joins a long tradition of speculative novels that craft an alternative history for the sake of illuminating the present moment. These Memories Do Not Belong to Us is set in a world where a single global superpower, the Qin Empire, has achieved total dominance. Details about the geopolitical situation within or beyond its borders are few and far between. What we do know is that every citizen is fitted with a “Mindbank”— a device “directly installed into the hippocampi” that records experiences with perfect fidelity and can play back the memories of others. Once used by the wealthy to enjoy Memory Epics, an immersive source of education and entertainment, these gadgets have become compulsory tools for surveillance. Under the totalitarian regime, Mindbanks are carefully monitored and Memory Epics are tightly controlled. Experiencing unsanctioned thoughts comes with the risk of arrest or worse. Impressions of dissidence or even nebulously oppositional...