5th September 2025


Books


Author Profile


qntm


Writing under the moniker qntm, Sam Hughes’ debut novel is mind-bending SF that confronts one of our most existential fears. Katie Fraser reports


I


Imprint Del Rey Publication 11th November 2025 Format/s HB (9781529953176, £18.99); EB (9781804954768, £9.99) Rights sold 12 territories, including the US (Ballantine Books) Editor Kate McHale Agent Caitlin Blasdell, Liza Dawson Associates


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magine there is something lurking in the corner of your room. You have seen it before, but you cannot put your finger on when. Eventually, you will not recall ever having seen it because this entity


possesses the perfect camouflage – it has already begun erasing your memory of it and has begun to consume your other memories, too. In There Is No Antimemetics Division, the debut


novel by qntm (aka Sam Hughes), the thing lurking in the corner would be classified as an “antimeme”, an entity with self-censoring properties. In the novel, the role of the Antimemetics Division, and its workers, is to isolate and contain these preda- tory entities. When captured, each antimeme is labelled as an Unknown with a corresponding number. The Unknowns can take any shape or form; for example, Unknown 5649 is a “deep cave in Chile filled with millions of cubic metres of living, breathing lung tissue”. No one can remem- ber this cave, except those at the Division. Originally, the novel was published as a serial


on the SCP Foundation, a collaborative writing website where Hughes writes under the handle qntm (pronounced quantum). There are two versions on the SCP website, and they will remain there indefinitely, but the self-published e-book Hughes created has been removed from sale. What is now There Is No Antimemetics Division was “overhaul[ed]” for traditional publication


Books Author Profile


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