House of Suns
by Alastair Reynolds
Cover Artist: Chris Moore
Review by Ernest Lilley
Ace Hardcover ISBN/ITEM#: 9780441017171
Date: 02 June 2009 List Price $26.95 Amazon US / Amazon UK / Show Article /
Clone a thousand copies of yourself, some male, some female, all immortal. Download all your experiences into them and turn them loose on the galaxy to see what they can see. Have a meetup every couple hundred thousand years to share galactic gossip, grievances, and memories. Hide yourself among the clones, and don't tell anyone which you are, even yourself, because it no longer matters. Stir well. Wait for something interesting to happen... From official release/information:
Product Description: Six million years ago, at the dawn of the star-faring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones, which she called shatterlings. She sent them out into the galaxy to observe and document the rise and fall of countless human empires. Since then, every two hundred thousand years, they gather to exchange news and memories of their travels.