An interesting and intriguing twist on a popular science fiction trope: a generation ship, awoken passengers, and some clear evidence of criminal mischief. It's well written, and well-plotted. I didn't love it as much as I'd hoped (something that's been true for all of Lafferty's work that I've read), but it kept me reading and engaged throughout. Recommended for anyone looking for a SF novel with a bit of a difference and that takes some interesting turns in the telling.

Mur Lafferty fulfills a great premise with this book about six people murdered on a generation starship. What makes the story unusual is that the six victims have to investigate their own murders, a twist possible thanks to the fact that the investigators are the clones of the deceased. To make the story work, Lafferty creates a cloning laws, informed (like any good legislation) by past abuses. It's a believable world with interesting characters, diverse back stories, and enough mystery and surprises to keep the pages turning. It's no surprise the books was nominated for the Philip K. Dick, Nebula and Hugo awards.

I interviewed Lafferty about SIX WAKES for the New Books in Fiction podcast. In it, she talks about cloning laws, the risks of reading an unfinished novel in public, the lessons she learned from Agatha Christie, and the thrill of having her work nominated for science fiction’s most prestigious prizes. You can listen here: http://newbooksnetwork.com/mur-lafferty-six-wakes-orbit-2017/

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1796505357?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1

Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty is a cohesive blend of science fiction, mystery and thriller. It starts off strong with a new crew of six clones awaking under mysterious circumstances. They quickly realize their memories are not fully up to date, and it looks like it is quite apparent at least some them were murdered (thus triggering these new clones to emerge as their replacements).

So, when you wake up with no memories and realize the entire crew (your previous selves) has died, how does one solve the mystery of what happened? And what do you do about it if you solve it? So many questions!

The story is told from the varying crew member’s perspectives as well as through some flashback chapters that help clue us in a bit more about who these crew members are, and why they are on this ship. Another interesting thing to note, all of the crew members have some kind of criminal history, so their pasts are not necessarily the ho-hum expected.

The clone technology and laws around it in this open many interesting ethical questions. Clones must be registered, and there can only be one instance of a clone alive at a time. On it’s death, the memories from that clone will be transferred to a new, fresh version of the clone. This essentially makes a person immortal in that their memories live on through existence of its clones. But then, there are many interesting questions about if a clone should pay the price for the actions of a previous incarnation? There are just a lot of considerations to make in respect to this technology. And if there are multiple clones, who should be punished? How do you determine which one is legal versus illegal? Or are they all punished even if the only connection they have is the DNA they were cloned with? It was this aspect of the book, combined with the characters that kept me fully engaged with the book.

The characters are an interesting mix of personalities. Lafferty does a good job of keeping the pace going and throwing twists at the reader to keep things fresh and exciting. Honestly, the only thing working against this book for me is I don’t always enjoy “mysteries”, so nothing with regard to the author’s execution so much as personal reading preferences as I just don’t tend to get as excited about books with a strong “who dunnit” aspect. Color me strange, I expect that is not a hang up most readers will have. And to its benefit, I enjoyed this much more than typical mystery heavy books. The clone technology and all of the ramifications and ethical questions surrounding it, paired with the characters made this book well worth reading.

A crew of a compromised ship wake up to confusion and murder, with no memory of what came before. It’s not exactly a new premise, which is why when I first picked up Six Wakes, I thought I knew what I was in for—a mindless space adventure-thriller, with a bit of mystery thrown in perhaps. Turns out, I was wrong. Oh sure, the book had a little bit of this and a little dash of that, but it was also more than the sci-fi popcorn fare I had expected. Far, far, far from it, in fact.

The story begins on the Dormire, a generation starship carrying a cargo hold full of sleeping humans to the unspoiled paradise planet of Artemis. On the four-hundred-year journey it would take to travel to their destination, their lives would be safeguarded by IAN, the onboard AI. Six clones also make up the ship’s crew, all of them reformed criminals who are hoping to scrub their pasts clean and start their lives anew on Artimis: Katrina, the captain; Wolfgang, her second-in-command; Maria, the junior maintenance officer; Hiro, the programmer; Joanna, the medical officer; and Paul, the ship engineer. The opening scene is one of blood and terror when the six of them suddenly find themselves waking up in their cloning vats, with their minds downloaded into their new bodies—something that only happens if a clone’s previous incarnation has died.

Indeed, when they have recovered enough to find their bearings, they discover their old bodies floating around the ship in zero-G, all showing signs of violence. IAN has been knocked offline, explaining the lack of artificial gravity as well as the fact their ship is now off-course. To make matters worse, the cloning bay has been sabotaged so that the clones’ most up-to-date mindmaps cannot be accessed, and the food printer has also been reprogrammed to churn out poison. Since all the passengers in the hold are still in stasis, the implications clear: one of the six crew members had killed the others including themselves. And because their latest memories were retrieved from back-ups made decades ago from around the time they left earth, no one can remember what happened right before their deaths, so the killer can be any of them.

The more I think about it, the more I begin to think there are actually two sides to this novel. First, we have the obvious mystery aspect, which combines the suspense of a sci-fi thriller with the elements from a classic whodunit. Throw in the madness-inducing claustrophobia of knowing you are trapped on a spaceship with a group of criminals, any of whom are capable of murder—one of them has already killed you once, in fact—and the stage is set for a gripping psychological drama. To keep things interesting, the narrative also shifts between our six main characters, exploring not only who they are but also who they were in their past clone lives. Impressively, the tensions of the central mystery plot were kept up despite these frequent interludes and flashbacks.

Which brings me to second aspect of the story. While the publisher’s description might have sold us the idea that Six Wakes is nothing more than a murder mystery in space, the true nature of it is much more complicated and layered than that. Lafferty imagines a future in which humans can choose to clone themselves and transfer their mindmaps from iteration to iteration, effectively achieving a sort of immortality. Not surprisingly, this process is regulated heavily by a body of laws and a number of attached codicils to ensure that it is not abused. In exploring the characters’ pasts, the author not only addresses the ethics surrounding the cloning controversy, she also raises astute questions about our humanity by looking at the political and social ramifications on an individual as well as a societal level.

Personally, I love sci-fi stories like these, the ones that engage both the heart and the mind. I initially picked up Six Wakes expecting a straightforward mystery—some light entertainment, maybe a few twists and turns—but the book ended up being all that and more. Beneath the surface of its central premise, you’ll find a thought-provoking narrative that’s cleverly presented and well-crafted. Ultimately, Mur Lafferty has written novel that is more than it seems, engaging readers with a cast of unforgettable characters and a richly imagined plot. Six Wakes was a fun and rewarding experience all around and I cannot wait to read more by the author.

The nitty-gritty: An addictive, fast-paced science fiction thriller in space, full of buried secrets, cool tech and endlessly interesting characters.

I loved the premise for Six Wakes when it first made its way onto my radar, but I had no idea what I was in for when I started reading. This is one of those happy occurrences where the book was way better than I thought it would be. Mur Lafferty, welcome to my “must read” author list! I had so much fun with this story, and there were so many twists and turns, secrets and lies, and characters who didn’t even know whether they were lying or not. The entire story takes place on the generation spaceship Dormire, in very tight quarters, and revolves around seven key characters. Not only is this a top-notch science fiction story about cloning, space travel and a group of people forging their way into the future, but it’s a damn fine “locked room” murder mystery as well. This isn’t the first story I’ve read where a group of characters wakes up from some unknown event, only to discover they’ve lost their memories, but it’s definitely the best.

Lafferty takes the idea of cloning in a new direction and adds a political layer to her story that deals with clones versus humans. In the future, clones are commonplace but not without controversy. A deadly war between humans and clones resulted in a set of strict codicils being written to govern the existence of clones. Humans can choose to become clones, and most do so because they know they will live forever, their memories, knowledge and experiences being “mindmapped” every so often in order to preserve their essence. When a body dies, either by aging or more violent means, a new body is ready to be woken up, having been grown in a cloning vat. By uploading the mindmap of that person, the clone is ready to begin its new life, with all memories intact.

Aboard the Dormire, a crew of six clones is running the ship during its four hundred year journey to the planet Artemis: Katrina, the captain; Wolfgang, the second in command; Paul, the engineer; Hiro, the programmer; Joanna, the ship’s doctor; and Maria, the “girl Friday,” in charge of feeding and cleaning up after the crew. And running the ship itself is an AI named IAN. Resting in stasis are 2000 humans who will awaken when the ship finally reaches the planet. But when the story begins, the six crew members have just awoken in new bodies, floating in zero gravity in the middle of a bloodbath. Several of their old bodies are riddled with stab wounds, and one of them appears to have hanged himself. Even worse, no one can remember what happened. Scared, confused and hungry, the six new clones begin to piece together the events that ended all their lives. With all 2000 passengers still in stasis, they realize that one of them must be the murderer.

But they soon discover there is even more to worry about. IAN is offline and the ship is drifting off course. The food printer has been sabotaged and is only printing poisonous hemlock leaves. And the worst news of all, the cloning bay has been destroyed and their mindmaps have been wiped. Unless they can get them working again, these could be the last bodies the six will ever have. In space, so many things can go wrong, and the crew of the Dormire is about to find out just how bad things can get.

Lafferty’s story is multilayered and intricate, and even though we do get lots of action near the end, this is primarily a story that is held up by characterization and psychological mystery. The author gives equal time to each of the six crew members, and the format goes back and forth from present to past to tell the stories of each one and how they came to be aboard the Dormire. I don’t want to give too much away, but I will mention that each crew member has a criminal history, and they’ve been told their crimes will be wiped clean if they agree to the mission. The caveat that keeps this idea interesting? No one knows that the others have been arrested or accused of various crimes. It’s a delicious set-up with so many possibilities, and Lafferty uses it to great advantage.

Maria is what I would call the “main” character, and ironically, she’s the crew member with the lowest standing, having been recruited to keep the ship clean and cook for the rest of the crew. But Maria is quite a complex woman, and as a clone she has lived many lives. I loved Maria’s resourcefulness, and as Lafferty slowly reveals her colorful past, she quickly became my favorite character. I also loved Hiro, the loose cannon of the bunch, who has a morbid sense of humor despite the fact that one of his friends most likely killed him.

There is an almost casual approach to death for these characters, including Maria, because as clones they always have a new body on standby, and being in a dangerous line of work just isn’t a concern for them. After the terrible events on the Dormire, the crew members are facing real mortality for the first time ever. Six Wakes is suitably violent at times, and if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to wake up in a room with five bleeding dead bodies in zero gravity, well now’s your chance to find out! I don’t normally get queasy when I read, but Lafferty’s descriptions of blood and gore floating around the room were almost too much for me.

The best part about Six Wakes—and trust me, there is so much to love about this book—is that the story did not go where I expected it to. Eventually the mystery of the murders is solved, but the author doesn't stop there, and what comes after is brilliant. Lafferty draws surprising connections between her characters and it all seems to make sense in the end. The action scenes, which mostly take place near the end, are thrilling and cinematic, and I hope movie studios are paying attention because this would make a fantastic movie or TV show (and in some ways it reminded me of the grittiness of Battlestar Galactica).

If you’re looking for an exciting space adventure, with deeply developed characters, humor, emotion and an interesting take on the cultural and political ramifications of cloning, you won’t find a better book than this. Highly recommended.

Big thanks to the publisher for supplying a review copy.