Mia Tsai, "The Memory Hunters" (Erewhon Books, 2025)

About this episode

Mia Tsai discusses her novel The Memory Hunters, exploring themes of memory, romance, and climate disaster in fantasy.

Mia Tsai’s novel The Memory Hunters centers Kiana Strade, Key, a reckless young archaeologist and religious figure, who is capable of diving deeper into blood memories than anyone else alive and Valerian IV, Vale, her guardian, who is tasked with the challenging proposition of keeping her alive. The story follows the pair as Key uncovers ancient secrets that and tackles questions of generational memory and the right to knowledge. In this interview, Tsai discusses the way human memory works and the impact on the novel, building a sapphic body guard romance, and the role of climate disaster in fantasy. We discuss family obligations, mentorship, and building institutions around technologies and magic systems. The Memory Hunters is a complex and empathetic adventure and it was so much fun discussing it with the author. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/fantasy

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Mia Tsai

Topics covered

• human memory
• sapphic romance
• climate disaster
• generational memory
• mentorship
• fantasy literature

Keywords

• The Memory Hunters
• Mia Tsai
• fantasy
• sapphic romance
• archaeology
• climate disaster
• generational memory
• mentorship

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Erewhon Books

Books & works: The Memory Hunters

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