"A Borrowed Man" a new science fiction novel from Gene Wolfe, the celebrated aut
hor of the Book of the New Sun series.
It is perhaps a hundred years in the fut
ure, our civilization is gone, and another is in place in North America, but it
retains many familiar things and structures. Although the population is now smal
l, there is advanced technology, there are robots, and there are clones.
E. A.
Smithe is a borrowed person. He is a clone who lives on a third-tier shelf in a
public library, and his personality is an uploaded recording of a deceased myste
ry writer. Smithe is a piece of property, not a legal human.
