Part 1 / The First Awakening - The Dormire Crew
1 This is not a pipe_15
2 Diamonds_41
3 Depth_58
4 Failure_65
5 Spy Captain Teapot_80
6 Joanna's Story_94

Part 2 / The Second Awakening - Ian
7 36,249 seconds of unconsciousness_107
8 There is no sleep in hell_109
9 Life is cheap_118
10 Captain Katrina's Story_130
11 Bebe_145
12 The universe is always 5pm_168
13 Missing Pieces_180
14 Bebe, Making a Pig_201
15 Yadokari_218
16 Hiro's Story_227

Part 3 / The Third Awakening - Hiro
17th Cavalry Joke_247
18 Maria's Story_256
19 Too much blood for him_279
Paul's Story_306
21 What Ian Discovered_316
22 Much more than five_323
23 Wolfgang's Story_331
24 Collapse_341

Part 4 / The Fourth Awakening - Former Captain Katrina
25 Cicada_355
26 Maria's Story_371
27 Criminals_394
28 Ian's Story_408
29 Trust_414
30 Be careful when making wishes_421
31 Hiro's Story_433

Part 5 / The Fifth Awakening - Celebrating Life
32 connections_445
33 The Value of Life_474

Part 6 / The Sixth Awakening - Minoru Takahashi
34 Deus Ex Bebe_483

Stories of large spaceships sailing between stars are one of science fiction's favorite themes.
It's mainly about transporting immigrants who arrive on a planet similar to Earth and try to start a new life.
Since interstellar travel typically takes hundreds of years, the psychological bias or anxiety that something can happen during a time span approaching centuries in a confined space is the secret to the enduring popularity of the "space colony" concept.

The most primitive way is to just survive on a spaceship for generations.
The story of how, after several generations, they forgot their original purpose and their civilization regressed to a near-medieval state is one of the many masterpieces of the 'Space Immigration' series.
Since then (as if the novel had been a real-life failure), cryonics has been accepted as an essential element of the journey.
If you live your whole life in such a small space, something is bound to happen.

Still, the problem remains.
So who will steer the ship? Of course, in a world where AI has been invented, or where advanced navigation programs exist, everything could be left to the computer.
But can we really leave everything to artificial intelligence?
At least he needs a real human to discuss it with.
I'm talking about the captain.
And a few other humans to do the maintenance.

Here's Sixwake, the story of a state-of-the-art space colony ship.
Let's consider a criterion for a moment. SF receives higher scores when it inherits the work of its predecessors in the same industry and develops better ideas (extrapolates).
According to him, Six Wake is a work that deserves a high score.
The six crew members who maintain the immigration ship are cloned humans.
Cloning does not mean mass-producing humans as if they were being clawed out.
There is only one reason for 'cloning' a human being.
The clone's previous body dies.


Then, his most recently backed up memories are transplanted into a new body (a younger body of the same human being whose DNA perfectly matches his previous body) and he is revived.
It's the kind of immortality that cyberpunks love.
Memories, knowledge, and personality live forever, changing bodies.
Having lived this way for hundreds of years, cloned humans can relatively easily handle long-term spaceflight, and when physical and mental aging occurs, they can simply 'die' and be reborn.
Because your new body is always healthy, and your mind backup can be chosen from the last time you were mentally healthy.
It certainly seems like a reasonable approach.
Plus one point for good setup.


And plus one point for the introduction, which completely betrays that setting.
The novel is a mess from the very beginning.
In a clone regeneration chamber full of corpses, new clones are born simultaneously, and immediately after birth, they witness their 'previous selves' lying dead and covered in blood.
Why did I die? I don't remember.
Because the backed up memories stopped around the time of departure from Earth.
Who deleted the latest backup data?


How did the perpetrator who erased this AI-linked data evade AI surveillance? It was technically challenging, but logically simple.
I turned off the watcher.
So, Sixwake is a story about six newly born crew members on a spaceship where nothing is working properly.
One of them killed his comrades in the past, deleted their memory backups, and even crashed their AI.
It may not be just one person.
But there's a bigger problem.
The most recent memory is of the launch of the spaceship, so no one remembers who was responsible for this mess that occurred decades later.
Even the criminal himself.


The six newly minted crew members are suspicious of each other and fear that they may be the culprit.
Even if they have no memory, there aren't many people in the world who would fear that they might have killed someone.
But each of the ship's crew members had a secret.
The lowest level of secrecy is that they are all ex-convicts.

In this bizarre setting, the search for the culprit of a murder (a sort of locked-room murder) soon leads the characters to explore their own pasts.
There are many scenes in "Six Wake" that recall the past, and these flashbacks don't feel awkward.
First of all, it is natural for crew members with no recent memories to go back to their roots to find the motive for the crime.
These flashbacks naturally complete the story's backstory by explaining the impact of the clones' development on humanity, while also providing pieces of the puzzle surrounding the massacre aboard the spaceship.
More precisely, it provides 'motivation'.


Many of the six crew members have reasons why they would (or should) kill their comrades (or some of them).
The setting and character development are well-connected, and the character development provides a steady stream of additional information to the murder mystery.
It's been a long time since I've seen a work with such a tightly organized setting and story.
At first, I wondered if there was any need to go into such detail about the past, but it was very neat to see all these settings being recalled and used to progress the story.
Plus one point for the author's ability to demonstrate magical organizing skills.

And the picture that is completed when all these puzzles are put together is quite cool.
It's not a surreal development in the style of a Japanese Shinhonkaku that ends with a thrilling "You're the culprit!", nor is it a typical drama that says, "That person wasn't a bad person at one time..."
Dilemmas and ethical issues are at play, and these issues are directly linked to the most important setting of Six Wake.
The drama built up in the novel raises questions about the novel's main devices.
In a good way, it's a very exemplary development.
I'm sorry I can't talk much with you because of spoilers.
Plus one point.

Certainly, 『Six Wake』 is not a work with an original idea or particularly philosophical implications.
It's different from science fiction that pursues greatness.
But this novel feels like looking at a well-crafted piece of design.
Something neat, practical, purpose-built, and free of clutter.
21st-century sci-fi fans, don't miss Sixwake, a clever piece that knows exactly what it's talking about and how to tell it: a locked-room murder game set aboard an interstellar colony ship.