“The Future Happens Twice” is an exciting science fiction novel about a clandestine government program aimed at sending frozen embryos, surgically split into duplicates, in order to make identical twins for a 42,000-year voyage to an earth-like planet orbiting a star 82 light years from earth.   The scientists working on the project have reservations about their involvement in something that is obviously illegal and something many of them think is immoral also.

Browne has put together an interesting story with good characterization of his main characters and a plot line that goes through many, many surprising twists and turns.   The really interesting part is that the government plans a simulation of the voyage in an underground facility with four unsuspecting children raised from birth to eighteen thinking they are on a real voyage through interstellar space.   Once the government deems the simulation successful, the government plans to drug the children and move them to a hospital with a phony story about an accident, post-traumatic shock, and amnesia.   Some of the scientists are very concerned about the moral implications.

Since the government knows that this ambitious project is both illegal and immoral, there is an elaborate cover-up to prevent the public from finding out until after the government has had a chance to launch the real starship.   The scientists hired into the program are sworn to secrecy before they realize what the government is doing.   Some of them have difficulty dealing with the duplicity of the government and the moral and legal consequences for them should news of this program leak out too early.

Matt Browne is very well informed about what can already be done in science and what is still in the realm of possibility, and he has a good perception of what is morally correct and legal.   He uses his knowledge to make “The Future Happens Twice” sound plausible and to portray human concerns about experiments like this.   Even if you are not a devotee of science fiction, you will enjoy this gripping novel and learn quite a bit about science as well.