Voice, the character of the narrator, is everything when it comes to prose. It is even more so when writing in the first person, and Meredith has it in spades. It's gruff, powerful, with a cynical edge; it screams "noir thriller" without aping the tropes. Characters and concepts are introduced skilfully, providing information without weighing down the narrative with excessive exposition. On the whole, a convincingly written thriller; the science-fiction element, in the form of the practice of cloning oneself, becomes almost a natural part of the scenery, slipped in with such ease that one doesn't realise one's disbelief has been suspended to accommodate it.