Hugo Award-winning authors Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal team up in this sci-fi thriller set in a world where one woman fights to know her true identity and survive the forces that threaten her very existence.
In the near future, humans choose life—for a price. Injectable nanite technology is the lifeblood that flows through every individual wishing to experience the world through the lens of their own theme. While death from mortal wounds is still possible, life is made easier in a socially liberated society where automation and income equality allow passion pursuits to flourish over traditional work. Renewal stations are provided to every law-abiding citizen for weekly check-ins, which issue life-sustaining repairs in exchange for personal privacy. But what becomes of those who check out, of those who dare to resist immortality and risk being edited under the gaze of an identity-extracting government surveillance system?
When Holly Winseed …
Hugo Award-winning authors Brandon Sanderson and Mary Robinette Kowal team up in this sci-fi thriller set in a world where one woman fights to know her true identity and survive the forces that threaten her very existence.
In the near future, humans choose life—for a price. Injectable nanite technology is the lifeblood that flows through every individual wishing to experience the world through the lens of their own theme. While death from mortal wounds is still possible, life is made easier in a socially liberated society where automation and income equality allow passion pursuits to flourish over traditional work. Renewal stations are provided to every law-abiding citizen for weekly check-ins, which issue life-sustaining repairs in exchange for personal privacy. But what becomes of those who check out, of those who dare to resist immortality and risk being edited under the gaze of an identity-extracting government surveillance system?
When Holly Winseed wakes up in a hospital room, her memory compromised and a new identity imposed on her, a team of government agents wastes no time stating their objective. With intent to infiltrate and defeat the terrorist group ICON, the agents tell Holly that she is now a Provisional Replica and has one week to hunt down and kill her Original for the murder of her husband, Jonathan. If she succeeds, she’ll assume her Original’s place in society. If she fails, her life will end. Holly’s progress is monitored by an assigned contact that feeds her information as she confronts the blank, robotic world around her, discovering that others view life through the theme of their own choosing.
With her newly implanted combat and deduction skills, Holly fends off both attacks by terrorists and doubts about her own trustworthiness as clues lead her to her Original—and to the truth about Jonathan. In the end, one body remains and one walks away. Although questions persist, one thing is certain: Life will never be the same.
Much action + a dash of what is the government up to
4 stars
The premise is that with some crimes, the best way to catch the original perpetrator is to decant a clone with their memories and tell the clone they have 4 days to find the original or they die. This seems like an odd backdoor method, but after that it's a decent action story. Oh and everyone also is infused with nanites that heal them and "theme" what they see. "Theme" being the term for altering perception to make everything perfect. Despite lots of words focusing on the main character (the clone) being motivated the the original killed their husband (this was the crime) that emotional aspect never really landed for me.
