In James Patrick Kelly’s new novel Mother Go, a young woman makes her way across the solar system, trying to flesh out an identity for herself, made all the more difficult by the fact that she’s a clone of a famous space explorer. It’s a wonderfully exuberant space opera, and it’s something of an experiment: it’s only available as an audiobook.
Set in the 22nd century, Mother Go follows Mariska Volochova, a girl raised on the Moon by a surrogate father. She’s the clone of a famous spacer, Natalia Volochova, and has been genetically modified to go into a state of hibernation in the long transit times between the wormholes that allow for interstellar travel. But Mariska rejects the legacy that the woman she’s cloned from has established...
