Why am I passionate about this?

Like many SF nerds, I watched a lot of Star Trek when I was a kid. I liked the adventures. I liked the ethos. I did not like the transporter. Everybody seemed to believe that they were being… well… transported, but it seemed obvious to me that actually they were just getting dissolved, and then somebody else who looked like them was getting created at the other end. This question (transported or replaced?) is the essence of the teletransport paradoxa puzzler that’s bedeviled philosophers since at least 1775. All of these books (including mine) are at their hearts an exploration of this problem. I know my answer. Do you?


I wrote

Mickey7

By Edward Ashton,

Book cover of Mickey7

What is my book about?

Mickey Barnes is an Expendable. Trouble in the reactor core? He’s on it. Need to test a sketchy new vaccine?…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Ophiuchi Hotline

Edward Ashton Why did I love this book?

The Ophiuchi Hotline is the first of four novels set in Varley’s Eight Worlds universe, where bodies are malleable things, and appearance, gender, and even your basic form can be changed on a whim. Its protagonist, Lilo, begins by escaping her execution by allowing an illegally produced replicant to die for her. Her situation deteriorates steadily from there, as she is repeatedly killed and resurrected while passing through the belly of the solar system’s underworld.

This book hits all my sweet spots—a morally ambiguous protagonist, an imaginative plot that provides a running commentary on the many ways we’re making a mess of the present world, and, as a bonus, someone getting chucked into a black hole for making a new kind of food called “bananameat” out of human DNA. What more could you ask?

By John Varley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Ophiuchi Hotline as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Following the effortless capture of Earth by vastly superior aliens, humanity was left to fight for existence on the Moon and other lumps of airless rock. Survival was greatly facilitated by the interception of the Hotline, a constant stream of data from the direction of a star in the constellation Ophiuchus, which enabled the development of amazing new technologies. Four hundred years on, and everything is about to change again because humanity's unknown helpers have just sent what appears to be a bill. It shouldn't matter to Lilo, since she's been caught experimenting with human DNA and sentenced to permanent…


Book cover of Six Wakes

Edward Ashton Why did I love this book?

Six Wakes begins at a very similar jumping-off point to my own book—colonization mission, immortality through cloning and mind-mapping, things spinning rapidly off the rails—but it then takes off in a wildly different direction. This book is a head-hopping murder mystery, with the fun twist that, because all the characters are clones whose memories are decades out of date, even the murderer doesn’t know who did it. I tend to really admire books that I could never write myself, and this one definitely fits that description. It feels like every chapter presents a new plot twist, but somehow Lafferty still manages to pull all the threads together by the end. If you like your science fiction with a noir twist, you should give this one a look.

By Mur Lafferty,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Six Wakes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this Hugo nominated science fiction thriller by Mur Lafferty, a crew of clones awakens aboard a space ship to find they're being hunted-and any one of them could be the killer.

Maria Arena awakens in a cloning vat streaked with drying blood. She has no memory of how she died. This is new; before, when she had awakened as a new clone, her first memory was of how she died.

Maria's vat is one of seven, each one holding the clone of a crew member of the starship Dormire, each clone waiting for its previous incarnation to die so…


Book cover of Kiln People

Edward Ashton Why did I love this book?

Speaking of noir, Kiln People is basically Mickey Spillane with replicants. This book posits a future where the well-off use temporary copies of themselves to do things that are dangerous or difficult or just boring. The copies fall apart after a few days, at which point they ideally merge their memories back into their original. Brin’s protagonists are a private detective and one of his copies who decides he’d rather spend the few hours of life he’s given doing something more interesting than his original’s scutwork. I came to this story for the fun premise, but I stayed for the deeper exploration of the morality of creating an army of sentient beings whose only hope is to live long enough to be re-absorbed into the mind that created them.

By David Brin,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Kiln People as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.


Book cover of The Echo Wife

Edward Ashton Why did I love this book?

Gailey gives us a narrator whose traumatic childhood seems to have blinded her to the fact that her work—she’s the world’s foremost expert in creating and murdering sentient clones—is an abomination. It turns out to be a good thing that she’s got a moral blind spot the size of Montana, though, because as the plot progresses she finds herself devoting her skills to the task of covering up the murder of her ex-husband, who has died at the hands of his mistress, who happens to be the narrator’s own illegally produced clone. In the hands of a less-skilled writer this could have descended into farce, but Gailey turns it into a moving exploration of the ways in which we find support and kinship in the unlikeliest of places. 

By Sarah Gailey,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Echo Wife as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A dark and suspenseful novel of lies, betrayal, and identity - perfect for fans of Big Little Lies and Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror.

It was meant to be an evening to honour and celebrate Evelyn Caldwell's award-winning, career-making scientific research - but Evelyn has things on her mind.

Things like Nathan, her husband, who has left her for a younger, better, newer woman. A woman who is now pregnant - but shouldn't be - and is strikingly familiar. Too familiar to be a coincidence.

A woman who shouldn't exist.

The Echo Wife is a propulsive new novel from an international…


Book cover of Good Night, Mr. James

Edward Ashton Why did I love this book?

This one is a deep cut, first published in 1951. It begins as a straightforward adventure, with a protagonist tasked with hunting down a dangerous alien that’s gotten loose on Earth. It becomes increasingly clear that something isn’t right, though, and eventually, our hero realizes that he’s actually a replicant, sent to do this job because his original was too cowardly to do it himself, and that his only hope of survival is to murder his original and take his place. I first read this when I was nine or ten years old, and the growing sense of horror as the truth becomes clear has stuck with me ever since, as has the dark, dark twist of an ending. This might be a tough one to find, but it’s well worth the effort. 

By Clifford D. Simak,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Good Night, Mr. James as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Strange, poignant tales of life in outer space and on tomorrow's Earth from the multiple Hugo Award-winning Grand Master of Science Fiction.

Virtually every major author from science fiction's fabled golden age-including Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, and Robert A. Heinlein-agreed that Clifford D. Simak was one of the greatest among them. Named Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, the award-winning author created enduring visions of future worlds, perilous space explorations, and weird alien encounters as rich in emotion and humanity as they are in ingenious invention. This is an essential collection of short fiction from the remarkable…


Explore my book 😀

Mickey7

By Edward Ashton,

Book cover of Mickey7

What is my book about?

Mickey Barnes is an Expendable. Trouble in the reactor core? He’s on it. Need to test a sketchy new vaccine? He’s your guy. Need to know if the bathtub absinthe you cooked up is poisonous? He’ll get a glass, you bastards. After six deaths, Mickey understands the terms of his deal, and why it was the only colonial position that wasn’t filled when he signed on.

When he unexpectedly survives after being abandoned on the ice world of Niflheim, Mickey7 returns home to find that Mickey8 has already taken his place. Meanwhile, Niflheim’s natives are becoming curious about their new neighbors, and that has Mickey’s commander very afraid. Mickey may hold the key to survival for both species—if he can just keep from dying for good.

Book cover of The Ophiuchi Hotline
Book cover of Six Wakes
Book cover of Kiln People

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The Alchemy Fire Murder: a Mary Wandwalker Mystery

By Susan Rowland,

Book cover of The Alchemy Fire Murder: a Mary Wandwalker Mystery

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Part-time celt Modern alchemist Myth hunter Jungian

Susan's 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

A traditional mystery with a touch of cozy, The Alchemy Fire Murder is for those who like feisty women sleuths, Oxford Colleges, alchemy, strong characters, and real concerns like trafficking, wildfires, racism, and climate change. This book especially works for those fascinated by myth and witches in history. Read for a seventeenth-century alchemist in Connecticut, a lost alchemy scroll stuck in a California Museum, and a blizzard in Los Angeles.

Murder ensues when an intern is attacked after making a momentous discovery with Mary Wandwalker, an inexperienced detective commissioned to recover the treasure vital to the survival of her Oxford…

The Alchemy Fire Murder: a Mary Wandwalker Mystery

By Susan Rowland,

What is this book about?

Former Archivist Mary Wandwalker hates bringing bad news. Nevertheless, she confirms to her alma mater that their prized medieval alchemy scroll, is, in fact, a seventeenth century copy. She learns that the original vanished to colonial Connecticut with alchemist, Robert Le More. Later the genuine scroll surfaces in Los Angeles. Given that the authentic artifact is needed for her Oxford college to survive, retrieving it is essential.

Mary agrees to get the real scroll back as part of a commission for her three-person Enquiry Agency. However, tragedy strikes in Los Angeles. Before Mary can legally obtain the scroll, a young…


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