The Orchard Under Glass

I finished this in one sitting and felt oddly like I'd been given someone's shoebox of old, impossible summer afternoons. The opening—Lina literally keeping the rain in jars—sets the tone: tactile, melancholic, and strange. I loved how the author uses tiny sensory details (the citrus battery smell, solder tang) to make the neon city feel lived-in rather than just grimy. Patch the drone purring on memory wafers is a small, humane touch that undercuts the tech noir and makes the stakes feel personal. That scene where Lina threads the hairline filament and the child's singing folds open into the orchard beneath a glass dome is gorgeous and heartbreaking; you can almost smell the trapped light. The ragged crew and their plan to plant fragments in living soil is such a satisfying, metaphorical heist—physical reclamation as resistance. Helix as a corporate leviathan is appropriately ominous, but the real power here is in the quiet sacrifices. Very much recommended for anyone who loves cyberpunk with a human heart.

Analytically, The Orchard Under Glass does a lot right. It borrows familiar cyberpunk scaffolding—neon alleys, corporate archives, memory tech—but the execution is deft enough to feel fresh. Lina as a “memory locksmith” is a neat conceit: it both literalizes the act of remembering and gives us a protagonist whose skill set drives the heist mechanics. The hand-cut retro core/hexagonal wafer was a clever plot device (someone was being sentimental or terrified—exactly the right clue to build mystery), and Gate-9 as the liminal space where the corporate and informal economies meet is evocative. Pacing is generally tight around the heist beats; the scenes at MNEM•MEND (that tired glyph sign!) are layered with small, believable details—Patch’s scarred photoreceptor, the burnt-paper hum of the bench—that ground the speculative elements. I appreciated the moral ambiguity: they’re reclaiming memories, but not without cost, and the line about “no restoration beyond what the shard holds” is an ethical rule that complicates every choice. If you want blueprint-level worldbuilding with character-first stakes, this delivers. The tone balances melancholy and urgency, and the final acts where fragments are planted in living soil feel earned rather than gimmicky.

I wanted to love this more than I did. The prose is often striking—the rain-in-jars line and the child's singing folding into that orchard beneath a glass dome are vividly done—but structural problems held me back. The ragged-crew/heist setup leans on well-worn tropes (misfit team, sympathetic hacker, corporate behemoth Helix) without always subverting them, and by the midpoint it felt predictable which shard-arc would surface next. Pacing is uneven: intimate bench scenes sing, but several plot transitions drag, especially when the narrative tries to institutionalize Helix’s motivations instead of letting them emerge organically. There are also a few convenience beats that felt like shortcuts—how the archive locates Lina’s specific childhood catalog feels handwaved, and some crew members remain sketches rather than people. That said, the emotional core works in patches; the scenes of reclamation and planting fragments in living soil are genuinely moving. With tighter plotting and a bit more risk-taking around the antagonists, this could have been outstanding rather than merely promising.

Short and to the point: this is a beautifully written piece of cyberpunk. The worldbuilding is economical—Gate-9, MNEM•MEND, the hand-cut core—and the voice is steady. Lina's patience at the bench, the rule against gambling with ghosts, and the orchard under glass sequence all linger in the mind. The thematic core—memory as currency, small economies of resistance—lands cleanly. Thoughtful and restrained, worth reading twice.

Okay, I came for the neon and stayed for the tiny, perfect details. Lina’s shop—MNEM•MEND—feels like a person: patched glass, thrifted holo-frames, citrus-battery air. The moment the wafer opens and you hear the kid singing? Chef’s kiss. The orchard under glass is such a delicious image: memory literally caged and wired. Also, Patch purring while balancing on the wafers? I don’t deserve micro-drones that are soft at heart. The heist vibes are strong and emotional rather than just action-movie spectacle. Definitely a cyberpunk for people who cry at old-family photos 🫧🌧️.