Author Description

What if, at age 24, you were brought into a room at a medical center where your parents introduced you to your droid siblings? One is a virtual twin of yourself, a brilliant scientist and inventor whose accomplishments exceed yours to date. The other is an emotionally tortured enby who has accomplished little and questions its own humanity.One droid is the simulation of your original genome. The other of the genome your parents had modified in you. How would you react?Replicas is the story of Melissa Shipton, a woman born on 24th-century Earth together with two droids who share her genetic profile. It's a time when humans have colonized seven Earth-like exoplanets in nearby star systems and plan to settle an eighth one. Shipton becomes an anthropologist and botanist studying life on worlds she has never visited.Shipton's complex and tragic relationships with her droid siblings and her same-sex spouse ultimately drive her to become a settler on one of the exoplanets. On this journey, she redefines herself as a scientist, a parent, and a lover.