THE EXEMPLAR

In Chetwynd’s speculative YA novel, a contemporary Harvard student awakens to the startling news that he now is a clone of his former self living in the year 2090.

Will Herndon, a 19-year-old Harvard student in 2025, unexpectedly wakes up one day to a transformed planet 65 years after he went to bed. Climate change, war, and social dysfunction in the 21st century have led to a carbon-choked, resource-depleted world. Scientists are still fighting for civilization’s survival in an environment of 130-degree temperatures and crippling shortages. Human procreation has become regulated: Dwindling families can win the right to continue their lineage only via a contest called “the Crucible.” Clans that are down to their last members can re-create their best-equipped ancestors as “Organic Human Facsimiles” to engage in contests of academic, physical, and moral prowess. These “Exemplars,” resurrected from DNA taken at optimum ages, are given only highly edited microchip memories of what their lives were really like; anything negative would be a “distraction” as they compete in the contest, which is avidly followed by live audiences and those spectating from their heat-resistant dwellings. Will (the only Black competitor) is one such enhanced clone of a long-ago original. As Will studies for the Crucible, he is disturbed by strange dreams, unanswered questions, and the gaps in his knowledge. Why do some Crucible faculty react emotionally to Will Herndon’s name? Why is his aged grandfather still alive, and being very evasive? (“Will’s heart was beating fast...could it be that everyone—from his grandpa to Amy—were trying to protect others from him? He knew himself. Or he thought he knew who he was at his core.”) The dilemmas and identity questions posed by the author are compelling ones, if somewhat familiar (and yes, The Hunger Games (2008)gets name-checked). YA SF readers might also note resemblances to the Maze Runner series by James Dashner—this novel’s climax is literally a maze run—and a cold-case mystery at the hot-climate narrative’s heart is resolved off-page. But at least this cli-fi dystopian thriller wraps up in one relatively compact volume.

A novel premise elevates this otherwise familiar-feeling dystopian YA yarn.