Well, if I had to die, I guess I could settle for this. Bob lives in the future, and in that world, you can have your body frozen and preserved. I think we’ve heard this one before. But, in this version of that scenario, Bob gets to live forever–but not the way you would ordinarily think of it.
He has no body. Just his brain. And not really, even that–his brain circuity has been converted to a software program, and his body, including the brain, has been destroyed. So, he’s alive, but only in thought. Fortunately, while he was frozen, technology had advanced to the point where scientists were able to enhance his program to the point he could hear, see, and talk, via software interfaces to appropriate hardware.
On the down side (like this isn’t bad enough), the earth has has been decayed by war and stupid government leaders. And he’s now owned by the state. And is being prepped to be an instrument of the state in two modes. He’s going to be sent into space to colonize humanity, but because other nation factions want to make sure only their countrymen survive, he must battle them for ownership of whatever planets they end up reaching.
Bob has a big advantage though, in the fact that his program can also interface via radio waves, with little robot helpers that can perform actions for him, including building things, like weapons of war, duplicates of themselves, and even other spaceships and clones of himself (voila–the title).
But Bob has competition–the other nations have duplicated their own version of Bob and have sent them into space, too. The rest of the book involves Bob fighting these enemy constructs, and exploring space. Since he is essentially immortal, he has no problem with journeys to other star system that can take hundreds of years.
What will Bob discover in his journey among the stars? Will he survive? You will be entertained.