Six Wakes
Book description
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…
Why read it?
4 authors picked Six Wakes as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
I was hooked on this locked room mystery from the opening premise: six newly minted clones awake on a generation ship and must solve their own murders.
The rest of the story did not disappoint, taking me on a crash course through the history, ethics, and sociological implications of cloning, a technology that in this future society has made many people functionally immortal.
I love a satisfying mystery, especially one with strong sci-fi underpinnings, so this really hit the spot for me.
In Mur Lafferty’s Six Wakes, a crew of clones opens their eyes aboard the spaceship Dormire headed away from Earth to find their previous versions floating around dead. Not just dead, but murdered. There’s nowhere to go and each and every one of them could be the killer. That’s a premise that could have gone in a dark direction but Lafferty keeps it light, much of the story propelled by lively dialogue as the clones go about keeping the spaceship on course while zeroing in on the killer in their midst. Weighty questions about the ethics of cloning alternate…
From Neve's list on mysteries that break the mold.
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head-hopping murder mystery, with the fun twist that, because all the characters are clones whose memories are decades out of date, even the murderer doesn’t know who did it.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…
From Edward's list on science fiction about people who won’t stay dead.
What's better than a locked room mystery? How about a locked room mystery set aboard a spaceship transporting thousands of sleeping colonists to a distant world? A crew of clones wakes up midway through a long journey only to discover that their former selves have been murdered, and they have to solve their own murders when they are also the only suspects. One review called Six Wakes a cross between Clue and The Thing and, honestly, I can't think of a better way to describe it. It's a delightful puzzle of a story with elements of horror, a rich cast…
From Kali's list on gritty and gripping mystery books set in space.
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