The Echo Wife is insanely good and the premise insanely terrifying! Two of my favorite genres, Sci-fi and Domestic Thriller, collide in a story that is so brilliantly plotted and so wickedly inventive that I didn’t think the last of the twists could surprise me. So. Wrong.
Human cloning is explored in all the ways it could go wrong and what could happen if this knowledge were in the wrong hands. Evelyn Caldwell is an award-winning scientist in the field of cloning research. She is cold and unemotional, only wanting to spend her days in the lab with her research. Her ex-husband Nathan, also a scientist decides to use Evelyn’s research to clone an exact replica of her but one that is of a more, shall we say, compliant nature. This, of course, goes against not only moral ethics but legal, as well, so when Evelyn’s clone, Martine, kills Nathan who does she call? Evelyn! Evelyn, not wanting to be humiliated or to lose her grant money or status, decides to help Martine. Things just progress from here and get a little messy … literally.
This is such a compelling story with so many hairpin twists! It’s not just the thriller part that kept me reading but the actual moral dilemma that comes with the concept of cloning humans, for any purpose. Evelyn approaches it with such cold detachment, the disposal of ‘biomedical waste’ aka cloned humans that don’t make the grade is, partly, where the ethical dilemma comes in. When we meet Martine, she’s real and she’s alive. She has feelings and emotions, she’s not just a clump of unfeeling cells to be used at a scientist’s whim. So, yes, I was thinking of these things as I read/listened, too.
I’d highly recommend this one to any fan of the genre(s). It’s a quick read with a lot of shocking plot twists and will probably give you pause to think about some of todays scientific advancements.
Human cloning is explored in all the ways it could go wrong and what could happen if this knowledge were in the wrong hands. Evelyn Caldwell is an award-winning scientist in the field of cloning research. She is cold and unemotional, only wanting to spend her days in the lab with her research. Her ex-husband Nathan, also a scientist decides to use Evelyn’s research to clone an exact replica of her but one that is of a more, shall we say, compliant nature. This, of course, goes against not only moral ethics but legal, as well, so when Evelyn’s clone, Martine, kills Nathan who does she call? Evelyn! Evelyn, not wanting to be humiliated or to lose her grant money or status, decides to help Martine. Things just progress from here and get a little messy … literally.
This is such a compelling story with so many hairpin twists! It’s not just the thriller part that kept me reading but the actual moral dilemma that comes with the concept of cloning humans, for any purpose. Evelyn approaches it with such cold detachment, the disposal of ‘biomedical waste’ aka cloned humans that don’t make the grade is, partly, where the ethical dilemma comes in. When we meet Martine, she’s real and she’s alive. She has feelings and emotions, she’s not just a clump of unfeeling cells to be used at a scientist’s whim. So, yes, I was thinking of these things as I read/listened, too.
I’d highly recommend this one to any fan of the genre(s). It’s a quick read with a lot of shocking plot twists and will probably give you pause to think about some of todays scientific advancements.