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wrongtrainrighttime) wrote2018-02-05 06:59 pm
wrongtrainrighttime) wrote2018-02-05 06:59 pm
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Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
Lafferty, Mur. Six Wakes. Orbit, 2017. eBook.
This review comes out of reading order -- I actually read Six Wakes before In Other Lands. It just took me a while to get to reviewing it.
Six Wakes starts with six clones waking up to a murder scene in their cloning bay. Worse, the murder victims are themselves -- their much older predecessor clones. And they do not remember anything of the time between getting on the ship and their previous clones' death. Worse, the ship and its guiding AI have been sabotaged and the ship -- bound for a far habitable planet and carrying a cargo of thousands of people -- is drifting off course. The six who wake were the only people awake on the ship, criminals promised amnesty in exchange for living out the centuries-long journey by incarnating in clone after clone. But now the mission is in jeopardy, they're missing decades of memories, and one of them must be the murderer.
Soooo...that sure is a premise and a half, yeah? That's what drew me to Six Wakes when it first crossed my radar. I mean, what an idea! Solving your own murder, knowing that one of your compatriots must have been your killer. It's a closed-room murder mystery turned up to eleven. And, I have to say, Lafferty really delivers on the tension and suspense. Every twist and turn ramps up the paranoia as she slowly, slowly teases out the solution.
The world Lafferty builds for her cast is also an interesting one. It's a near-future setting where cloning technology has become viable. People who choose to become "clones" can have their minds scanned to a data file and that, with a data file of their DNA, allows them to incarnate themselves over and over for what is essentially an immortal existence. Lafferty explores both the cloning technology and its socio-political context and ramifications, something I really appreciated. I really enjoyed both levels of her world-building. The whole mindmap idea is a bit "do some magic" but through the flashbacks and the backstories of her characters, Lafferty really digs into what that actually implies, when you can translate a person's body and mind into data -- and manipulate it. There is some really awful horror in what's possible with the technology she describes, but Lafferty does not frame the technology itself as horrific. It is value neutral. What makes it good or evil is how it's used; the horror lies in the people willing to abuse it.
The cultural response to clones was equally fascinating. I particularly found the growing bifurcation of the world into "humans" and "clones" to be interesting, and something that in retrospect I wish had been explored more deeply. The long lives of the clone cast make it possible for Lafferty to show how the world twists and turns on both political and personal levels as clone technology and the clone lifestyle become increasingly entrenched in her world. I wish a timeline had been included because so many of the developments take place over centuries. There were so many mentions of "clone riots" that I became confused as to whether there was just one ongoing riot that spread slowly to other geographic locations or if there had, in fact, been a series of recurring riots over time.
And, look. The way Lafferty frames cloning in her world is absolutely contrived, restricted in the ways that let her get the kind of story that she wants to tell. I still think her world-building worked really well because Lafferty really shows how the restrictions she wants to play with came to be. She understands that rules don't exist in a vacuum, they are the result of human action and reaction. Nothing of the Codicils governing clone existence feels arbitrary to me; they all exist because of a very particular context and set of events. There's still a ton of interesting and fascinating stuff going on with the whole idea of "clone" being a lifestyle that you could choose.
That being said, while this story really worked for me as a mystery and as an exploration of cloning technology, there are some things about the story that bug me. I've alluded to some of the minor things above. However, the major ones require delving into SPOILERS.
First is Sallie Mignon. Throughout the backstory flashbacks, she gets built up to be this mysterious and intriguing figure who is ruthless but not entirely unsympathetic. And then the big reveal that the entire Dormire mission is just her petty long-game revenge plot tips her straight into laughingstock territory. As a scheme, I guess it makes sense, since she's a trillionaire and essentially immortal clone, but also: she literally shoved everyone she disliked even a tiny bit into a spaceship and shot it off into space. She's so petty. How can you take someone who actually thinks toddler revenge is a good idea seriously?
Second is Maria. All those late-novel protestations that she finds messing with mindmaps to be difficult on a moral level ring extremely hollow, considering her first flashback bit starts with Maria offering to fuck up someone's mind for Sallie's selfish desires. She practically hopped at the chance to show off by meddling with Jerome. After that, it's hard for her moral stances to ring anything but false. I get the sense that Lafferty really, really wanted Maria to get a redemption arc. And, yes, she acts in a way that puts her some way closer to the good graces of the crew. But her noble submission to the consequences of her past rings rather hollow. I suppose her decades in prison might have contributed to changing her mind, but...we never got to see any of that, so this all seemed to come a bit out of left field. I didn't buy it.
Finally, I can't say that I liked Paul, but his mindmap is violently enslaved the way Minoru's was, and they all agreed that what Sallie made Maria do to Minoru was inhumane, so...I can believe the crew would do that, but none of that gets acknowledged, like, at all, so...what?
In Paul's fate I read a bit of classism re: clones vs. humans that Lafferty never really explores. Since clones can pass everything down to themselves, many of them become massively wealthy in a few generations. How much does it cost to become a clone, anyway? What happens to humans as wealth accumulates in the hands of a few clones who have no reason to spread it around because they are legally and functionally their own children? I think this is meant to be part of what leads to the clone riots that Lafferty mentions, but I feel like this particular aspect of her world isn't really explored. Some hard numbers of clones vs. humans would have been very helpful.
Six Wakes is ultimately an extremely compelling sci-fi murder mystery that takes a particular tack on cloning technology become common and really explores the shit out of it in a way I greatly enjoyed. On reflection, there were more plot and world-building holes then I'd thought, but I still think this is a great story and a really enjoyable read. Ultimately, recommended.
This review comes out of reading order -- I actually read Six Wakes before In Other Lands. It just took me a while to get to reviewing it.
Six Wakes starts with six clones waking up to a murder scene in their cloning bay. Worse, the murder victims are themselves -- their much older predecessor clones. And they do not remember anything of the time between getting on the ship and their previous clones' death. Worse, the ship and its guiding AI have been sabotaged and the ship -- bound for a far habitable planet and carrying a cargo of thousands of people -- is drifting off course. The six who wake were the only people awake on the ship, criminals promised amnesty in exchange for living out the centuries-long journey by incarnating in clone after clone. But now the mission is in jeopardy, they're missing decades of memories, and one of them must be the murderer.
Soooo...that sure is a premise and a half, yeah? That's what drew me to Six Wakes when it first crossed my radar. I mean, what an idea! Solving your own murder, knowing that one of your compatriots must have been your killer. It's a closed-room murder mystery turned up to eleven. And, I have to say, Lafferty really delivers on the tension and suspense. Every twist and turn ramps up the paranoia as she slowly, slowly teases out the solution.
The world Lafferty builds for her cast is also an interesting one. It's a near-future setting where cloning technology has become viable. People who choose to become "clones" can have their minds scanned to a data file and that, with a data file of their DNA, allows them to incarnate themselves over and over for what is essentially an immortal existence. Lafferty explores both the cloning technology and its socio-political context and ramifications, something I really appreciated. I really enjoyed both levels of her world-building. The whole mindmap idea is a bit "do some magic" but through the flashbacks and the backstories of her characters, Lafferty really digs into what that actually implies, when you can translate a person's body and mind into data -- and manipulate it. There is some really awful horror in what's possible with the technology she describes, but Lafferty does not frame the technology itself as horrific. It is value neutral. What makes it good or evil is how it's used; the horror lies in the people willing to abuse it.
The cultural response to clones was equally fascinating. I particularly found the growing bifurcation of the world into "humans" and "clones" to be interesting, and something that in retrospect I wish had been explored more deeply. The long lives of the clone cast make it possible for Lafferty to show how the world twists and turns on both political and personal levels as clone technology and the clone lifestyle become increasingly entrenched in her world. I wish a timeline had been included because so many of the developments take place over centuries. There were so many mentions of "clone riots" that I became confused as to whether there was just one ongoing riot that spread slowly to other geographic locations or if there had, in fact, been a series of recurring riots over time.
And, look. The way Lafferty frames cloning in her world is absolutely contrived, restricted in the ways that let her get the kind of story that she wants to tell. I still think her world-building worked really well because Lafferty really shows how the restrictions she wants to play with came to be. She understands that rules don't exist in a vacuum, they are the result of human action and reaction. Nothing of the Codicils governing clone existence feels arbitrary to me; they all exist because of a very particular context and set of events. There's still a ton of interesting and fascinating stuff going on with the whole idea of "clone" being a lifestyle that you could choose.
That being said, while this story really worked for me as a mystery and as an exploration of cloning technology, there are some things about the story that bug me. I've alluded to some of the minor things above. However, the major ones require delving into SPOILERS.
First is Sallie Mignon. Throughout the backstory flashbacks, she gets built up to be this mysterious and intriguing figure who is ruthless but not entirely unsympathetic. And then the big reveal that the entire Dormire mission is just her petty long-game revenge plot tips her straight into laughingstock territory. As a scheme, I guess it makes sense, since she's a trillionaire and essentially immortal clone, but also: she literally shoved everyone she disliked even a tiny bit into a spaceship and shot it off into space. She's so petty. How can you take someone who actually thinks toddler revenge is a good idea seriously?
Second is Maria. All those late-novel protestations that she finds messing with mindmaps to be difficult on a moral level ring extremely hollow, considering her first flashback bit starts with Maria offering to fuck up someone's mind for Sallie's selfish desires. She practically hopped at the chance to show off by meddling with Jerome. After that, it's hard for her moral stances to ring anything but false. I get the sense that Lafferty really, really wanted Maria to get a redemption arc. And, yes, she acts in a way that puts her some way closer to the good graces of the crew. But her noble submission to the consequences of her past rings rather hollow. I suppose her decades in prison might have contributed to changing her mind, but...we never got to see any of that, so this all seemed to come a bit out of left field. I didn't buy it.
Finally, I can't say that I liked Paul, but his mindmap is violently enslaved the way Minoru's was, and they all agreed that what Sallie made Maria do to Minoru was inhumane, so...I can believe the crew would do that, but none of that gets acknowledged, like, at all, so...what?
In Paul's fate I read a bit of classism re: clones vs. humans that Lafferty never really explores. Since clones can pass everything down to themselves, many of them become massively wealthy in a few generations. How much does it cost to become a clone, anyway? What happens to humans as wealth accumulates in the hands of a few clones who have no reason to spread it around because they are legally and functionally their own children? I think this is meant to be part of what leads to the clone riots that Lafferty mentions, but I feel like this particular aspect of her world isn't really explored. Some hard numbers of clones vs. humans would have been very helpful.
Six Wakes is ultimately an extremely compelling sci-fi murder mystery that takes a particular tack on cloning technology become common and really explores the shit out of it in a way I greatly enjoyed. On reflection, there were more plot and world-building holes then I'd thought, but I still think this is a great story and a really enjoyable read. Ultimately, recommended.