Clone Club

4.5 stars. Y’all should really read this book. I went into it not knowing much, just something vague about clones and murders, but hearing that it was highly recommended. And hoo-boy did it fucking deliver. This was probably my favorite book of the year so far and I’m going to be foisting it upon people for a while.

It’s the future and if you die, it’s okay because you probably have uploaded your consciousness and can just be re-downloaded into a new clone body. Six clones are guiding a ship to a new world and have been doing well for decades, but wake up as new clones in vats streaked with blood. Turns out they were murdered and their memories of the journey so far have been erased. The story is them trying to put together what happened to them and which of them killed the others. Oh, did I mention that they were all criminals of some kind back on Earth? They were promised a clean slate as a reward for guiding the ship and the cryogenically frozen people within to their new home. So really, this is a space adventure murder mystery book.

Lafferty is a good writer and methodically lays out the mystery, piece by piece. She does a great job of ramping up tension and making you want to keep reading. It took me less than a day to finish Six Wakes because I was so invested in finding out what happened. Not only that, but the characters are each extremely compelling. Lafferty flashes back to their histories and you get to see how they got to the place they’re at. I could see a lot of different types of readers digging this, so I highly recommend for everyone!