REAWAKENING

Teenage clones who can open Portals to alternate timestreams wrestle with interpersonal and political issues in this sequel to Wakers (2022).

Now adults, Laz and the newest Ivy wake up in the cluster of worlds to which their earlier versions, OrigiLaz and Ivy-O, and another pair of clones, Laz-Zero and Ivy-Zero, led humanity’s survivors in the trilogy opener. They settle down for nice long chats with some of the survivors, with each other, and with the enigmatic liaison officer, Ron Smith. Embedded in the midst of all the arguing and repartee is some action, including the gunning down of a band of child-killing terrorists and an incident in which Laz punches a young prankster who appears naked in Ivy’s bed so hard that he needs facial reconstruction. But these events and various expressed opinions come off as afterthoughts. By the end, there are new hints about the nature of time and the multiverse, which may be talked out in the trilogy closer. Unfortunately, snarky main characters aren’t sufficient, in the absence of a meaningful plotline, to carry readers through hundreds of pages of their chewing over why they were made, what to do about it, and whether they should marry. References to “race mixing” (“Isn’t that a good thing?” asks Ivy) notwithstanding, the lack of cues for the central cast signals that they are to be read as white.

A self-indulgent, hopelessly talky tangle, at best readable only in small doses.