Sister Alice by Robert Reed

Sister Alice

Robert Reed

Not being a great fan of sci-fi I wasn't sure about this. It's set ten million years in the future, where cloned humans are immortal, have the power of gods but still remain flawed. However, I was completely hooked by the pace and inventiveness of the plot. Fantastic, imaginative and compulsive.

Extract
There were exactly one thousand families.

Nothing about their existence had come easily. Not their laws, not their restrictions, and not even their numbers. Ten million years ago, with the Great Wars still raging, an alliance of desperate leaders met on a frigid, barely-named world. Everyone who travelled there, enemies and friends alike, agreed about one vital issue: without substantial, immediate change, the human species would soon be extinct ... A war-weary prime minister sketched out the roughest imaginable plan for the future ... The Families would begin with a few carefully selected individuals, she explained. Each of those few would be given every imaginable power.

Parallels
  • The Stone Canal by Ken MacLeod
  • Broken Angels by Richard Morgan
  • Marrow by Robert Reed