★An excellent example of sophisticated science fiction that is more concerned with emotion than technology, Glass Flowers addresses artificial intelligence, memory, identity formation, and the sometimes blurry line between what is true and false, with the motif of the double as a secondary theme.

“In the evenings, I sit on a chair at the end of the corridor and I wait. Théa has to be deeply asleep for the process to work. When it’s time, I go over to her and I open the bedside table drawer. Behind the pill jars, I find the transfer cable. I lift Thea’s hair and carefully plug the cable behind her ear. I plug the other end behind mine. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I start the data transfer.”

Thea is a sick, bedridden young girl. To help her regain a sense of normalcy, her parents have acquired an auto-memory android who looks like Thea and “attends” events for her—events the clone then secretly deposits into the girl’s subconscious after dark. Everything goes according to plan until the night Thea wakes up and lays eyes on her double...

EVE PATENAUDE is an author and illustrator, as well as a linguistic and editorial proofreader. She illustrated two graphic novels published by XYZ: Papier bulle and Le plus petit sauveur du monde, the latter of which won the 2023 Governor General’s Award.