Enjoyable but flawed

It was a good read, and I liked the way a couple of characters from her previous book, The Glass Hotel which I read recently, were woven in. 

But...there is a problem with writing fiction dealing with the next 300 years in that the tech fanatasy of space travel, moon colonies and beyond, seem now so unlikely on that horizon as to be unbeliveable. If you want that stuff for your plot it has to be set millenia in the future when the survivors of our current situation, or a replacement species, have had time to rebuild a civilization which can suport that stuff.

There also seems to me a problem with the whole simulation hypothesis as a hook for a plot. It's an entertaining idea to play with but at the end of the day its actually not very convincing - and if it were then so what. We experience life as being valid which is all that matters at the end of the day. And if you do pursue the simulation idea then the interesting question is not whether or not it is valid, but why, and to what end, are the future time lords running this simulation, or these simulations. what are they trying to achieve here.

So ultimately an unsatisfying book although very enjoyable in itself.

A Bright Penny in a Muddy Puddle.

Excellent writing and read on holiday in Ireland. Convincing plot and characters and milieu in 18th century London. If we assume the technical details of life in London and England at that time are accurate then it has an internal logic that convinces. Lily as a child and a young adult is well drawn and her actions are consistent with being a bright penny in a puddle of mud

Doppelgangers Unleashed

Using the simulation hypothesis as a hook (see also Emily St.John Michael's Sea of Tranquility) this keeps away from the sci-fi future stuff to explain what's going one but plays around with the consequences in our own time-line.

The question remains though as to whether it really would be that bad to discover we are in a simulation - would people really react that badly. The ending is arbitary - why would destroying the replication that was created by the anaomaly cause the simulation to shut down (if that is what happened?).

Overall a good read and engrossing with the multiple story lines for dopplganger characters.