"The Echo Wife" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

Come share all your thoughts! A few questions to get discussion started:

1. What did you think of the clone concept?
2. What questions or themes do you think this book was exploring?
3. What did you think of the plot and characters?
4. What worked or didn't for you?

Non-spoiler thread here: First impressions

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

I liked the concept. Exploring the idea of mostly liking someone or not liking them at all but appreciating the vessel that they exist in. We had to go through the well trod ground of questioning whether a clone is a person but it was done well enough. I tend to baulk at stories involving clones so it was a pleasant surprise to actually enjoy the Echo Wife.

The fear of being replaced seems to be a story that we'll never be free of. I didn't quite enjoy how it was explored here as too much focus was given to the other (the husband in this particular case) in determining the protagonists worth, but what with the characters history with domestic abuse it has to be done that way.
If I only remember one thing about this story it will be the scene of her mother teaching her to go down the stairs soundlessly and keeping the knowledge from her father.

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

I agree with liking the concepts, particularly with conditioning the clones. I found that brutal yet somehow appropriate.

The other take on the clones that I found a bit novel and enjoyed was the tweaking of the personality leading to thoughts on what I would tweak in myself and what my friends/wife would want to tweak for my clone to be much more enjoyable :)

[Sarah, The Unsettled]

I liked that too Hank - though I found it really creepy. I mention this because it was brought up in the first impressions thread regarding the scientific stuff, that one thing that kind of threw me was the way they went from DNA tissue to full blown adult in just a few months? I’m no scientist so maybe it’s possible or will be in the future but it required a lot of suspension of disbelief on my part. I also wasn’t sure about the concept of having him build 13 clones in two years. Whose lab and lab equipment was he doing this in that no one noticed?

I mostly liked this. I liked Evelyn - I sympathized with her a lot. It’s one thing for a spouse to cheat on you but to build a “better version” of you is really despicable.

The other thing I wanted was more clarity on was what happened between Nick and Martine. Martine kept saying “he was going to kill me” which given all the bodies in the yard I can believe but at the same time she was already pregnant so it made me question whether Nick was really that cold (or was he already too accustomed to playing God?) or if she couldn’t be trusted 100%.

I listened to this on audio so I’ll apologize in advance if I missed some of those details.

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

Sarah wrote : I mostly liked this. I liked Evelyn - I sympathized with her a lot. It’s one thing for a spouse to cheat on you but to build a “better version” of you is really despicable."

There's no better version of me. There's what I am now, what I was before, and what I will be. But changing any aspect of my personality means I become someone different. At least to my mind. It's how the multiverse works. So for me what he did wasn't so much despicable. Not in striving to have a 'soulmate' at least. The killing of all the people engineered from the dna of his wife was though.

I guess it depends mightily on how much you identify with your meat vessel.

[Sarah, The Unsettled]

Ryan wrote: "Sarah wrote : I mostly liked this. I liked Evelyn - I sympathized with her a lot. It’s one thing for a spouse to cheat on you but to build a “better version” of you is really despicable."

There's ..."

I can't tell if Schix and Sarah are being baited or not.

ETA: I see what you mean about the personality - changing the personality makes Martine a different person then Evelyn, but I do think personalities within a single person can grow and change and that doesn't necessarily make someone a different person.

This is a very circular argument that I have not had enough coffee to make yet.

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

Allison posted a quote in the quotes to live by thread that seems relevant.

(view spoiler)["Lemme tell ya something, sweetface. I have been married at least four times, to four different men." She watched him chew that over for a moment before continuing, "They've all been named George Edwards but, believe me, the man who is waiting for me down the hall is a whole lot different animal from the boy I married, back before there was dirt. Oh, there are continuities. He has always been fun and he has never been able to budget his time properly and - well, the rest is none of your business."
"But people change," he said quietly.
"Precisely. People change. Cultures change. Empires rise and fall. Shit. Geology changes! Every ten years or so, George and I have faced the fact that we have changed and we've had to decide if it makes sense to create a new marriage between these two new people." She flopped back against her chair. "Which is why vows are such a tricky business. Because nothing stays the same forever."

The Sparrow (hide spoiler)]

Living a (mostly) linear existence we tend to think of ourselves as everything we are from birth to death, but it's not quite the case. I'm not now the person I was when I was 15 or will be at 45. Even the memory of who I was at 15 will likely differ between me now and me at 45 because really we're stories with changing emphasises based on our experiences and the environments we find ourselves in.

It's interesting that you frame it as 'personalities within a single person' because it's not at all how I perceive personhood. How many personalities do you currently have?

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

I was coming at it from a slightly different angle. Certainly past/present/future you are all different yous and all this brings about the nature vs nuture argument but what could I tweak in present Ryan so that future Ryan is more/less *something*

Clearly Martine breaks her design and conditioning but not completely so what can and can't be changed? Always things I like thinking about.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

I think what this book did best is working through things that innate and things that were created. Evelyn hated her mother and therefore became her also-hated father. Martine became the mother.

I think it fails though at talking about WHY, and what it means to be human. It's not the scar, it's the thing that we recall most about the scar. I have scars on my knees that I never think about, even when they're visible. But when I do think of them, what I remember is why I got them, and how annoyed I was that my ankles are weak, and the trees in this city aren't tended properly, and that particular chain restaurant was absolutely disgusting. And those thoughts make me, not the physical scar. But we kind of wave that away here as a bit of chemicals here or there. I'm...not convinced! Chemicals can play a big part, but processing can, too.

And for crying out loud...why did the clones not have to be seen as people?! They're exactly the same person! That's the point!

Side note...when Martine was pregnant and we learned that wasn't supposed to happen...did anyone else think this was gonna go the route of Jurassic Park?

[Sarah, The Unsettled]

@Allison - I definitely said that line “Life will find a way.”

@Ryan - I didn’t explain myself well. I think that a person grows. Growth means change. Of course you are not inherently the same person at every stage of life, to me, a person is the whole collection of experiences and growth and change.

And to answer your other question, two apparently.

[Chris]

Cloning is nothing new to science fiction. I got the impression that Gailey was selling it hard, so maybe their intended audience is not familiar with the idea. When they go into technobabble, I don't know enough to judge whether they are correct. (At least one GR reviewer says that Gailey is not at all accurate.) I would have preferred to go more directly to the consequences because I already believe that cloning humans is possible and even likely.

One theme that made me think was the separation of work and family life. Evelyn is completely dedicated to her career, and Martine was created to be a mother and a housewife. That Evelyn is female and occupying a traditionally male role of workaholic doesn't make the situation any more appealing.

I was disappointed with the amount of navel gazing. It's a relatively short book, so the introspection came at the cost of plot and characters. I can't think of a book with fewer named characters; I'd have to go back to the play Waiting for Godot. The premise suggests that the book would be a thriller, but it really isn't. With all the introspection, the idea of being caught barely comes up. How is digging large holes in the yard something one can do with confidence? When Seyed is caught stealing supplies, it's another missed opportunity for conflict. Instead he is easily recruited into the replacement scheme and almost completely forgiven. Some authors seem to be allergic to conflict and tension.

The flashback memories of Evelyn's parents mostly didn't work for me. The fact that her mother murdered her father seems unremarkable after Evelyn barely blinks at Nathan's death, not to mention the dozen failed clones in the yard.

[Anna]

(I'm listening to Reset by Sarina Dahlan and two characters are discussing if they think a person remains the same person as the years pass. Different scenario, no cloning, but it made me smile having just read this thread earlier today.)

[Mike]

I have never read a more despisable MC. Evelyn breaking Matine and forcing her to leave her baby was enough for me. I skimmed through the rest of the book after that. I kept hoping Matine would kill Evelyn and bury her. Perhaps Evelyn mentioning the place in her childhood backyard where her mother buried her father and telling Matine to stay away from it was a hint that Matine would do just that, kill Evelyn and bury her next to her father. That a person abused as a child would turn out to be just as abusive as the adult who abused her I hope is not typical. Would not recommend this book to anyone.

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

I don't know, Matine was the one who killed her husband and kind of backed herself into the situation. Not sure what else you have read about abuse but breaking the chain of trauma from one generation to the next is quite difficult, this seems typical unfortunately.

Chris, I hear you on the plot. It was muddled at best but I have to admit I did like the characters. I like the way Gailey tried to get two different sculptures from the same block of wood.

[Sarah, The Unsettled]

Yeah Mike I read that scene differently too. I was kind of disturbed by Martine’s eagerness to pull the plug on the new nick. I didn’t see it as Evelyn was abusing Martine but protecting Nick. Did you read the ending?

[Chelsea]

I read this last year and really enjoyed it. I hadn’t really read anything like that before. I was surprised by how many clones he had made before he made the right one. And just buried them in the yard. What!?!? Crazy /

[Mike]

Hank wrote: "I don't know, Matine was the one who killed her husband and kind of backed herself into the situation. Not sure what else you have read about abuse but breaking the chain of trauma from one generat..." Matine did this after discovering nearly a dozen dead bodies Nathan had murdered. Which happened to be versions of herself. She can't go to the police. He had his hands around her throat intending to murder her. What else could she do? It all hinges on your feelings about clones. We're not at the point of human cloning yet (hopefully), but I'm sure we will be soon, so we better start thinking about it. Would a human clone be a thing or a person? I vote for person. It's human flesh and blood. Is someone conceived via artificial insemination less human that a person conceived in the natural way? You could make the argument that they are no more human than a clone would be. I would make the argument clones are no less human. These are valid arguments we need to think about, of what it means to be human, because advances in science and medicine are going to skewer our ideas on this. I enjoyed this part of the book, the ideas presented and debated. What I didn't like was the character of Evelyn. Did she have to be so dark? So disregarding of other people's humanity? As I said before, by the end I was rooting for Matine to murder her. I was hoping this is what the author was hinting at when Evelyn warned Matine away from the corner of the garden where her father was buried.

[Ellen]

Mike wrote: "I have never read a more despisable MC. Evelyn breaking Matine and forcing her to leave her baby was enough for me. I skimmed through the rest of the book after that. I kept hoping Matine would kil..."
I think Nathan is a pretty good contender for most despisable. He's unhappy with things about his wife so he makes a new one 13 times. He kills the 12 that don't turn out right then tries to kill a pregnant Martine? Martine killed him in self defense.
When Evelyn remembers the baby after they fake Martines death I was pretty ludicrous . How could she forget something like that? Was she just that self centered? I had not forgotten her and kept asking myself during that part what they would do about Violet.
For all its faults though and plot holes I enjoyed the read. It was thought provoking and suspenseful.

[Mike]

I agree. Nathan was reprehensible. The most sympathetic character was Matine, and she got treated the worst. By the end of the book I was rooting for Matine to kill Evelyn. I was hoping the author was suggesting, when Evelyn warned Matine to stay away from the part of the garden her father was buried, that this would happen. That would have been a more suitable ending for me.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

What I took away was how the programming of brains was the key to all of the drama. Evelyn’s father and mother ‘programmed’ her emotional and intellectual development through abuse and example, as did her marriage. We call it out as PTSD and experience and emotional scars, but it’s programming, sure enough. Martine was programmed too, but it was openly acknowledged, unlike Evelyn’s programming, as well as Nathan’s programming in patriarchal selfishness.

The clone was dehumanized by everyone primarily because she was a programmed being - which is a dark joke I suspect, because all beings are programmed by DNA and environment, unrecognized as this may be. Evelyn finally recognizes that she couldn’t be what Nathan wanted her to be, the marriage had always been doomed. If-then-else programming modules are by nature limited to those modules that have been written into the schema and Evelyn wasn’t equipped with the if-then-else branching modules Nathan wanted to be there in her programming

- If woman marries, then wants baby.
- If get baby, woman runs housewife routines.
-If Nathan gives command, then wife obeys happily without questioning.

Evelyn begins to see Martine is actually a person with growth potential because of education, but she decides to restrict Martine’s possibilities of growth the same as any patriarchal man because that makes Martine more useful to her.

To me, this novel is as much about the effects of child abuse as it is about many societies’ patriarchal hierarchy structures, similar to programming modules. Social programming = C++ or Basic or JavaScript or Assembly or Pascal or Python ….

[Ellen]

I think the book is very much about the effects of abuse. In their acknowledgement Sarah Gailey references their personal experience with abuse and its influence on their life. I think their personal life shows heavily in the book.

[Mike]

aPriL does feral sometimes wrote: "What I took away was how the programming of brains was the key to all of the drama. Evelyn’s father and mother ‘programmed’ her emotional and intellectual development through abuse and example, as ..." Good points. But some characters broke their programming. Evelyn by becoming a mother figure to Matine in spite of her programming by her parents not to want to be a mother. Matine broke all her programming by becoming a real human being -she had a baby, against all impossibilities. That she finally is forced back into her programming, even to the point of abandoning her baby, by Evelyn is the worst abuse of all. Is that all abused people have to look forward to? Become as big of a monster as the person who abused them? I hope not.

[Mike]

Ellen wrote: "I think the book is very much about the effects of abuse. In her acknowledgement Sarah Gailey references her personal experience with abuse and its influence on her life. I think ..." Okay. I was just expecting a science fiction story. There is nothing wrong with sci-fi taking on powerful personal issues, I just wasn't expecting it.

[Ryan, Your favourite moderators favourite moderator]

Sarah Gailey uses the pronouns They/Them.

[Ellen]

Ryan wrote: "Sarah Gailey uses the pronouns They/Them."

Yes they do. I edited my post to reflect that.

[Colleen]

I really enjoyed this book. It was the perfect combination of sci-fi and thriller, though with a little too much horror. The creepiness built throughout the book and by the end was making me a little queasy but not enough to stop reading.

1. What did you think of the clone concept?

I liked the clone concept especially in the way it was treated as not such a big deal. Clones were used for specific purposes and that (apparently) was okay, It was strange to see it treated so mundanely. I found the programming and 'conditioning' to be ultra disturbing but only as an add-on to the horror of the whole cloning idea. So cool concept for the book but disturbing in reality.

2. What questions or themes do you think this book was exploring?

It wasn't until the end when I read the acknowledgements that I truly understood what the book was about. It made me feel as if I needed to go back and read it again so I could catch alot of the stuff I obviously missed. I did appreciate the programming theme, since we are all programmed in different ways, and especially the look at how successful people can be at overcoming their programming, or not. And is there any real hope for it, once you've reached a certain stage?

3. What did you think of the plot and characters?

Every characters was creepy in their own special way. Even Seyed who starts out as being someone who you think might be the good guy ends up having a dark underbelly. If you're looking for characters to 'like' I'm not sure this is the book for you, though if you want to start looking over your shoulder and checking your own behaviour and experiences then this will do it in spades.

4. What worked or didn't for you?

There was a bit too much horror in this for my tastes but I get that it was necessary to illustrate the points Gailey was trying to make. I would have like Martine to continue to evolve past the point of being so controlled and submissive, but perhaps that is a topic for another book. The only major hole for me was the treatment of 'the baby.' It never became fully formed and was sort of an afterthought. I was never sure of that was intentional. The fact that Evelyn forgot that they would have to deal with the baby was a bit of a 'breaking the dream' moment for me but maybe that was just a reflection of Evelyn's self centredness.

Great read. Brilliant premise and made me think, which I always like.

[Colleen]

Allison wrote: "Side note...when Martine was pregnant and we learned that wasn't supposed to happen...did anyone else think this was gonna go the route of Jurassic Park?"

..."

Yes, definitely. Because we never actually see the baby, and it is always weirdly unreal, I was always waiting for that moment when we get to see it and it is actually a monster.

[Bonnie]

I am going to finish watching the interview with Sarah Gailey that Sarah D. posted in the other thread. That might brighten my outlook so I don't just lambaste away willy-nilly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdCXI...

[Oleksandr]

My review https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I liked that the book made me think, just like mentioned above about what other could have changed in me if they were able to make my clone

[Alan]

Martine shouldn't be, but is. Without legal status she is basically an undocumented "alien". This was in the back of my mind even though it wasn't the purpose of the book.

[Oleksandr]

Alan wrote: "Martine shouldn't be, but is. Without legal status she is basically an undocumented "alien". This was in the back of my mind even though it wasn't the purpose of the book."

That's definitely ah important part of the story, but it isn't new - to recall just Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? as one example. It reminded me a bit of one novel by Ukrainian Soviet SF writer Владимир Савченко, where experimental clones were created, experimented on and destroyed by turning them back to the protoplasm, from which new ones were made

[Oleksandr]

Sarah wrote: " I’m no scientist so maybe it’s possible or will be in the future but it required a lot of suspension of disbelief on my part."

I'd say it is impossible on our current level of understanding, but this is a case of 'what if' novel, so suspension of disbelief is needed. While (not currently possible) molecular or atomic level printing can give a clone that is a copy at a given period of time when one made a scan (also molecular or atomic level) of their body

[David]

Evelyn seems locked into the (male) ethic of reciprocity (mostly Kant) that her programmed “specimens,” being immediately incapable of moral agency, create no personal obligation as moral patients. (I think she sees that they only have potential moral agency if she doesn't opt for the kill-switch.) Martine seems locked into the equally restrictive ideology of the (female) Ethics of Care, defined by the necessity of interpersonal relationships.

I think of myself as fluid, individual consciousness locked into the moment and dependent on blood flow to my brain. I identify with parts (only parts) of who I was in the past. I may or may not actually be there in the past (I may or may not actually be there in the future, as well). So experience is only a part of my consciousness if I recognize it. Programming might constrain consciousness, like being housed in a brain that requires oxygenated blood, but if it isn't "seen," then it isn't a part of that consciousness.

[YouKneeK]

I finished reading the e-book late yesterday evening. Sorry, normally I would fully read the thread before posting, but I only had time to skim through it. I apologize if I’m repeating somebody without acknowledging them, or asking questions that somebody already provided a logical answer for. If I get some time later this month, I’ll try to go back and read more thoroughly!

1. What did you think of the clone concept?

Like many, I had doubts about the realism of the science, but without any actual knowledge to back up my doubts. However, I found it easy enough to suspend my disbelief on that aspect of the book. I liked the concept of clones, and the author explored some interesting questions with the way she presented it, but I probably would have enjoyed a different sort of clone story more than this one.

2. What questions or themes do you think this book was exploring?

The author’s acknowledgements at the end made it pretty clear that abuse and its effect on the victim (and to some extent the abuser) was a big theme. And definitely some explorations of the idea that a victim of abuse may someday perpetuate that abuse. It was disturbing but not surprising to see Evelyn starting to fill the role of her father at the end of the book, with Martine filling the shoes of her mother and the baby likely to eventually fill her own shoes from her childhood. Another body destined for the gravegarden, I guess!

There were also a lot of explorations about what makes somebody a “real” person, what makes somebody unique, etc. These for me were the more interesting aspects of the story. I also enjoyed speculating how I might react if a clone of myself entered my life, especially if she were made to be a little “better”, with some of my flaws suppressed or good qualities enhanced. (But without all the marital drama, since I’m not married. And hopefully with a lot fewer dead bodies.)

3. What did you think of the plot and characters?

The characters were flipping idiots. The plot depended on the characters to be flipping idiots. This annoyed me to no flipping end. The characters kept being flummoxed by obvious repercussions of their decisions that had been apparent to me from the moment they started discussing/implementing a plan. Then they’re like, “Oh, how did we not think of that?” That’s what I wanted to know!

If the book had continued any longer, Evelyn and Martine would no doubt be shocked a few years down the road at how they failed to consider that somebody might stumble upon all the bodies in the garden where Nathan and Martine lived. CloneNathan doesn’t know they’re there, so he doesn’t know he has anything to hide. Either he’s going to need to work in the garden, or he’s going to hire somebody to work in the garden, or he’s going to get a new wife who works in the garden, or he’s going to sell the house and the new owners will work in the garden. Sooner or later somebody is going to work in that garden and dig deeply enough to find dead bodies!

Which, now that I think of it, why didn’t Nathan program Martine to be terrified of gardening or something so she’d never find the bodies? That would make a whole lot more sense than some of his other choices, such as programming her to only be able to sleep during certain times. Things happen, people miss sleep, and then they need to catch up on it in order to be pleasant, well-functioning people.

The characters were all horrible people who did horrible things and I didn’t really enjoy reading about them. I never understood or sympathized with Evelyn’s choices. If I had been in Evelyn’s situation, discovering her husband had made a clone of her without her help and breaking a bunch of laws, I would have gone to the appropriate authorities and confessed everything I knew. I do understand that she was afraid the scandal would affect her career, and there was probably the issue of her pride that her husband felt he needed to make a “better” version of her, but the long-term consequences of not telling would be far worse if the truth came out after she’d actively participated in hiding Nathan’s activities. I also felt like there should have been more difficulty with keeping things a secret which weren’t adequately portrayed in the book. And why wasn’t there more of an outcry from people who were trying to find out where Nathan was after he was killed and before they made the clone? Even if he didn’t have any close friends, he did have a job, right? Surely they expected him to, you know, show up and do stuff occasionally?

I could go on and on with my complaints, but this is already too long and I have things I need to do. :p

4. What worked or didn't for you?
See above. :) Basically the concept was interesting, but I didn’t like the implementation. I rated it 2.5 stars based on my low enjoyment level, but rounded up to 3 on Goodreads because it was never a slog. I was never really bored by it, just annoyed.

[Leticia]

I finished it now. This book was amazing, well written, with multi layered characters and very profound themes. Not an easy read, it does contain scenes with domestic violence, but it's a book out of the comfort zone and with food for thought of the utmost importance.

It's also a book where you see that the author went deep into her own experiences to write, so each word of it was earned.

[Mike]

YouKneeK wrote: "I finished reading the e-book late yesterday evening. Sorry, normally I would fully read the thread before posting, but I only had time to skim through it. I apologize if I’m repeating somebody wit..." I had a similar reaction to the book.

[David]

My initial reaction to Evelyn was that she seemed excessively whinny. I thought that maybe Gailey was going to tell the story through its antagonist, and that was interesting. Finally, I realized that Evelyn was just the pater familia for everyone around her (including the incompetent and ineffectual Nathan). That was interesting too, given her ever-so-slight softening as the narrative ends.

[Leticia]

This wasn't an easy read but I liked how it discussed very important themes in a deeper way.

[Daniel]

Even with the horrors of Evelyn’s family-of-origin, I still, basically, enjoyed the writing, unfolding of plot and the story, overall.

I did find the science unbelievable but that was gut feeling, since I don’t have the knowledge, and gave up on Googling to try to connect dots. Suspending disbelief let me just enjoy the story.

I’m of the opinion that, of course, human clones are human - that someone’s genetic material coming from another human being, rather than the process of plain-old-fertilization, is immaterial. These clones have adulthood accelerated to occur in just a few months of development, with “nurture” infused via various treatments along the way, but nothing that takes away from their innate humanness.

I agree with those who found Evelyn unlikeable. I found her abhorrent; in summary, I had issues with her ego. Like, major issues. She needed to feed that beast all the way through the end, no epiphany, no change. And the dispatching of clones when she no longer found them useful? Shades of Josef Mengele. Bad scientist. Bad human.

Some of her devotion to Evelyn-supremacy may have been a defense mechanism related to her family-of-origin; however, it was not explicit in the book, leaving us to decide just how much to temper her horribleness with sympathy.

Nathan leaving his marriage that way was of course terrible, but with Evelyn’s constant disparagement of him, apparently going back quite a ways, I had little flashes of sympathy. Yet he cloned her, then murdered the clone. Wash, rinse, repeat. 12.5 times. Hmm, yes… bad human.

Martine started as an innocent, having killed Nathan 1.0 in self defense, if not by accident. Her desire to kill Nathan 2.0 made sense, given her fears and her exposure to Evelyn’s attitudes about the value of clone life - Martine’s head must have been spinning.

I’m a bit surprised Evelyn never extended Martine’s sub-human status to Violet - but also a little relieved.

I’m a horror fan, so the blood and the bodies did not turn me off - there was enough that I would say this is mostly a horror book, with a science fiction theme.

It was thought provoking - I don’t know if the author felt the same way about Evelyn that I did, but it was some serious commitment to keep writing from the POV of a POS and it kind of fried my brain.

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Daniel, I just want to copy paste almost everything you said!

As a reminder to all who've read this, it's on the short list for a group discussion on the Virtual Book Club:

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

If you'd like to discuss this, please go vote for it as a book and come join us as we mull and muse over the offerings of this book!

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Daniel wrote: "Even with the horrors of Evelyn’s family-of-origin, I still, basically, enjoyed the writing, unfolding of plot and the story, overall.

I did find the science unbelievable but that was gut feeling,..."

Agree!

[David]

Daniel,

Martine was capable of deception, and I'm not sure we should give a lot of credence to her report on Nathan's death. As for some of the early Evelyn clones, which were physically unviable, was Nathan supposed to keep them on life support until they died of natural causes (whatever that might be)?

[Brian]

I just finished this book. I kept expecting to have the reveal that Eveyln was a clone, which obviously never happened. Am I the only one?

I never connected with the book. The characters make insane choices that do not feel grounded in any reality. If they are going to make such preposterous choices, then go all in. Make it even more ridiculous. This book feels like it was trying to ride the fence, and it never really succeeded on either fronts.

[Daniel]

David wrote: "Daniel,

Martine was capable of deception, and I'm not sure we should give a lot of credence to her report on Nathan's death. As for some of the early Evelyn clones, which were physically unviable..."

We can certainly doubt Martine’s story but I suppose I chose not to; I needed some kind of counter to the MC, for a sense of relief, and felt for Martine because I saw her as a human denied of her humanity - one more victim of prejudice I couldn’t help but to side with.

As for the potentially inviable clones - I interpreted them as fully adult, allowed to grow into deformity, so I didn’t find any “compassionate euthanization” here. YMMV and I can understand giving Nathan credit for treating the inviable clones with some kind of dignity. Before embarking on his quest to manufacture the “perfect wife”, I think he suffered a great deal from his actual wife’s contempt, and I felt for him in that regard. But whether I count 12 or only 6 of the Evelyn clones as evidence for judging him harshly, it’s not making much difference.

Further, IMHO, the big challenge of human cloning is the inevitability of mistakes - humans created who suffer in our pursuit of science. I’m a “go science!” kind of guy, but am cautious when the subjects are human.

[David]

While the clone's growth is organic, it's rapid enough that "growth," in the sense of childhood development, doesn't quite work. It's more like the adult clone "precipitates." Nathan and Evelyn have both bought into (too easily for us, but apparently not from the extant social perspective underlying the narrative) the notion that a clone's sole value is in reference to its previously defined purpose. If it can't fulfill the purpose, or if the purpose is fulfilled and the clone no longer needed, then the clone has no value (to the society, or to those who might continue its nurturance). This ignores the fact that a clone (unlike an undeveloped fetus) might nurture itself. This attitude toward the clone may be the narrative's biggest hole: The actuality of human clones is supposed to be esoterically held, and yet there seems to be social support for seeing them as non-persons (not even three-fifths of a person). How many people in the narrative's background actually know about the clones? There would seem to be a lot of them. So why aren't they receiving more oversight? In particular, doesn't a nosey neighbor ever look in Nathan's back yard?

[Daniel]

The mentions of compartment syndrome, artificial amniotic fluid and HGH made me think the clones grew real fast, not formed as adults, but I do remember there were some lines that could suggest adult “precipitation” - I suppose I couldn’t suspend disbelief enough for them to really sink in. I don’t think it changes my feelings about killing someone.

I don’t know what “esoterically held” means.

There was a lot of secrecy around Evelyn’s work, and urgency about hiding Martine’s existence; I assumed society as a whole didn’t know about the cloning, although that goes against her apparently public award at the beginning. So I’m not sure what beliefs society held in the universe of the book.

[David]

The initiated seem to know all about human cloning—even some Assistant Professor gets it right after only twelve previous attempts. Similarly, the method of assembling an atom bomb, say, while esoterically held, at least initially, is also commonly, if crudely, understood today. Think of all those lab techs, floating through Evelyn’s research program. I’m surprised there aren’t any number of Stepford villages floating around.

Ascent with modification is a painful, violent process. The pain of elimination (samsara) affects us all, while the benefit of a particular ascent—asymptotically approaching some innate, übermensch vision of putative, biological perfection—positively affects only a negligible subset of the generation that suffers. I’m sure that Evelyn (and Nathan, maybe in his more lucid moments of self-justification) might consider the painless (never-conscious, on the part of the victim) elimination of the less-fit an improvement on nature.

[Bonnie]

David wrote: "While the clone's growth is organic, it's rapid enough that "growth," in the sense of childhood development, doesn't quite work. It's more like the adult clone 'precipitates.'"

Hi,
^What does this part mean, can you rephrase? Clones precipitate>?

[David]

Daniel wrote: "If we are to believe Evelyn..."

Evelyn may not be the best judge of her own excellence. Most of us tend to think we're relatively more accomplished than the people around us, because we see our own work up close, and everyone else's at a distance.

Bonnie wrote: "David wrote: "'It's more like the adult clone 'precipitates.'""

Like crystal precipitates from a solution, in a chemistry experiment.

[Bonnie]

Bonnie wrote: I am going to finish watching the interview with Sarah Gailey that Sarah D. posted in the other thread. That might brighten my outlook so I don't just lambaste away willy-nilly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdCXI...

I took notes and will paste in here. Interviewer is Tochi Onyebuchi.

Themes:
Artificial women, the synthetic, the manufactured woman, filtered through the Male Gaze (Android, clone, robot, replicant). You wrote straight through that! The man (Nathan) said, what are my priorities, what do I want her to have?

Gender of voices - writing in 2018, more female-voiced female-named little disks in our homes, serving us. Women's function in our home? Paris Metro has different voices for different directions; or UK deciding male / female voices for instruction. What are we conditioned to associate with men or women's voices?

Personhood - injected into book. Humanity is a plot point. Ex Machina - Agency; the android wanted to escape her cage. How much do you choose who you are, vs. being programmed in some way?

Self-determination - Evelyn thinks to be a person you need to choose who you are; a Person chooses. She programmed people. "You aren't a person because I told you what you want." Children have to learn critically, not just Parrot what their parents think...

Identity - how much do you choose, do you ask questions about who you are? Evelyn needs to do more separation. Evelyn should confront what makes her a person (Martine being so close to her, like her).

Self-discovery - what does she love? (Watching Martine breastfeeding, and having a question answered, even if she hadn't asked those questions before.) Discover who you are, discover who you want to be.