Tears in Rain (edition 2012)

This was an entertaining science fiction mystery that was as much an exploration of what it means to live with an expiration date as mystery. Bruna Husky is a replicant. Replicants were created to do the dangerous, undesirable tasks in life. They were created to have a limited lifespan. Bruna was a combat rep and, after her term of service was over, she became a detective.

She gets involved in a case that gets more and more complex when a fellow rep comes to her apartment and tries to kill her. The rep had been injected with false memories that told her to kill Bruna. Bruna gets involved in investigating the growing conflict between replicants and normal humans.

The book was filled with interesting characters from the man who created Bruna's memories and was also accused and then acquitted of murdering his rich uncle to the police detective who was raised by a replicant. Bruna doesn't know who she can trust as each of those men try to convince her that the other is not trustworthy. There are also a couple of alien characters in the story - Maio who slept with her and can now read her mind and Bartolo who is an alien pet with a penchant for eating anything in sight.

The strongest character, of course, was Bruna herself who is constantly counting down the days of her life. She is very aware of the passage of time as she counts down to her expiration date. Replicants live about ten years and then die of a terrible systemic cancer. Bruna has decided that the best way for her to get through life is by not getting close to anyone else. She once loved a fellow replicant and watched him die. But she still makes friends.

One of her best friends in Yiannis who is an archivist and who cared for her when her lover died. Parts of the story, especially the world-building, are seen in archival documents that Yiannis reads and edits. We see the anti-replicant plot building through those archival documents.

Science fiction readers will enjoy this story both for the strong characters and the complex world-building. My only complaint was that the identification of the villain of the piece seemed to come without warning and to be of little importance. Bruna's attitude toward life took center stage. ( )

This engrossing, thought provoking, Blade Runner inspired, Sci-Fi detective novel by Spanish author Rosa Montero held me from beginning to end. With thorough world-building, multi-dimensional characterizations, and a detailed and suspenseful plot, Tears in Rain explores the complexities and psychological tensions of living in a futuristic, climate damaged world peopled with humans, replicants and aliens. Normally I am wary of translations, but in this case I felt no story element was missing, including the joy of being able to sink into the text.

Replicant Detective Bruna Husky knows she only has about ten years total to live, a fact that runs through her mind several times a day. Created by humans for combat, she is strong, smart and fast, but the melancholy she sometimes feels can cause her to be rash and self-destructive. Every replicant has 500 implanted memories of a childhood that didn’t actually exist, false memories that are meant to make their short lives more comfortable, but in Bruna’s case knowing they aren’t real just makes her wary. When hired by a radical replicant rights group to investigate a series of suspicious, headline grabbing, murder-suicide deaths of replicants which are turning public opinion against her species it becomes personal for Bruna. She has an engaging and well-drawn Star Wars bar assortment of friends and acquaintances, but as she gets closer to the truth it becomes harder for her to know who to trust. ( )