What do you think?
Rate this book
Cloned Lives
Cloned Lives Sargent, Pamela
320 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1976
5 people are currently reading
110 people want to read
About the author
Pamela Sargent
162 books208 followersPamela Sargent has won the Nebula Award, the Locus Award, and has been a finalist for the Hugo Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Sidewise Award for alternate history. In 2012, she was honored with the Pilgrim Award by the Science Fiction Research Association for lifetime achievement in science fiction scholarship. She is the author of the novels Cloned Lives, The Sudden Star, Watchstar, The Golden Space, The Alien Upstairs, Eye of the Comet, Homesmind, Alien Child, The Shore of Women, Venus of Dreams, Venus of Shadows, Child of Venus, Climb the Wind, and Ruler of the Sky. Her most recent short story collection is Thumbprints, published by Golden Gryphon Press, with an introduction by James Morrow. The Washington Post Book World has called her “one of the genre's best writers.”
In the 1970s, she edited the Women of Wonder series, the first collections of science fiction by women; her other anthologies include Bio-Futures and, with British writer Ian Watson as co-editor, Afterlives. Two anthologies, Women of Wonder, The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s and Women of Wonder, The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s, were published by Harcourt Brace in 1995; Publishers Weekly called these two books “essential reading for any serious sf fan.” Her most recent anthology is Conqueror Fantastic, out from DAW Books in 2004. Tor Books reissued her 1983 young adult novel Earthseed, selected as a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, and a sequel, Farseed, in early 2007. A third volume, Seed Seeker, was published in November of 2010 by Tor. Earthseed has been optioned by Paramount Pictures, with Melissa Rosenberg, scriptwriter for all of the Twilight films, writing the script and producing through her Tall Girls Productions.
A collection, Puss in D.C. and Other Stories, is out; her novel Season of the Cats is out in hardcover and will be available in paperback from Wildside Press. The Shore of Women has been optioned for development as a TV series by Super Deluxe Films, part of Turner Broadcasting.
Pamela Sargent lives in Albany, New York.
In the 1970s, she edited the Women of Wonder series, the first collections of science fiction by women; her other anthologies include Bio-Futures and, with British writer Ian Watson as co-editor, Afterlives. Two anthologies, Women of Wonder, The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s and Women of Wonder, The Contemporary Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the 1990s, were published by Harcourt Brace in 1995; Publishers Weekly called these two books “essential reading for any serious sf fan.” Her most recent anthology is Conqueror Fantastic, out from DAW Books in 2004. Tor Books reissued her 1983 young adult novel Earthseed, selected as a Best Book for Young Adults by the American Library Association, and a sequel, Farseed, in early 2007. A third volume, Seed Seeker, was published in November of 2010 by Tor. Earthseed has been optioned by Paramount Pictures, with Melissa Rosenberg, scriptwriter for all of the Twilight films, writing the script and producing through her Tall Girls Productions.
A collection, Puss in D.C. and Other Stories, is out; her novel Season of the Cats is out in hardcover and will be available in paperback from Wildside Press. The Shore of Women has been optioned for development as a TV series by Super Deluxe Films, part of Turner Broadcasting.
Pamela Sargent lives in Albany, New York.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 20, 2025
Le Guin's short story about ten clones in 1969, "Nine Lives" was published in Playboy using her initials. Le Guin was not yet "woke" and Sargent's novel was her first, but this novel is a deeper exploration of variability among clones.
It was not easy, even in the 70s, to find SF written by women or with women as characters. I had read Sargent's incredible collection, Women of Wonder (1975), and snagged this novel the instant it appeared and it has survived several purges of my shelves since. I was not disappointed by the many fine authors Sargent introduced me to in her anthologies. This novel, though troubling, was also provoking and smart as best I can recall from forty-odd years ago.
It was not easy, even in the 70s, to find SF written by women or with women as characters. I had read Sargent's incredible collection, Women of Wonder (1975), and snagged this novel the instant it appeared and it has survived several purges of my shelves since. I was not disappointed by the many fine authors Sargent introduced me to in her anthologies. This novel, though troubling, was also provoking and smart as best I can recall from forty-odd years ago.
Read
December 15, 2023It’s not easy facing up to your flaws. Especially when you see those flaws reflected back to you in the actions of your genetically identical siblings… This one grew on me. A real banger!
May 13, 2020
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
"There is a reason that Pamela Sargent’s Cloned Lives (1976) has been overshadowed by Kate Wilhelm’s clone-themed Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976), which garnered a Hugo award and a Nebula nomination, released the same year. While Sargent’s vision is painfully melodramatic and descriptive to a fault [...]"
"There is a reason that Pamela Sargent’s Cloned Lives (1976) has been overshadowed by Kate Wilhelm’s clone-themed Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (1976), which garnered a Hugo award and a Nebula nomination, released the same year. While Sargent’s vision is painfully melodramatic and descriptive to a fault [...]"
December 1, 2025
review of
Pamela Sargent's Cloned Lives
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 30, 2025
Somewhat to my surprise, I've already read 4 bks by Sargent before this one: The Sudden Star (1979), Earthseed (1979), Watchstar (1980), & Venus of Dreams (1986). Even more to my surprise, I've only reviewed 2 of those: Watchstar ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/69... ) & Earthseed ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17... ) - wch means that I read the other 2 no later than 2007 since I've reviewed every bk I've read since then. That means that I have roughly a 20 yr relationship w/ reading this author's work.. &, yet, I STILL can't claim to know it at all. I can't make a single intelligent statement about it from memory. & it's been 12 yrs since I last wrote a review about it. Since we're Goodreads 'friends' (wch means close to nothing since we don't know each other at all - but I still have a fondness for the connection, regardless of how tenuous it is) I make a point of reading her work if & when I come across something in a used bk store - but, there you have it, I apparently don't run across her work very often even tho it's widely distributed by mainstream publishers. Well, from this point forward I'll make a more concerted effort to find & read & review her work. One of the reasons for this decision is that I liked Cloned Lives very much, apparently it made more of an impression on me than did the other 4 I read. Cloned Lives was written in 1976, as far as I can tell, this is her 1st novel, written when she was 28.
"He found himself thinking again about Hidey Takamura's proposed project. Hidey, a geneticist, had long been chafing under the restrictions of the moratorium on genetic engineering. Hidey's field was not the only one affected; the twenty-year moratorium on certain types of scientific research, put into effect by committees of scientists working with the United Nations, applied to other fields as well. But the biilogical scientists had been the focus of most of the hysteria and fear people felt, so they were under more stringent regulations. By 1980, there was a moratorium on almost all genetic research." - p 17
An interesting premise: a moratorium comes temporarily to an end & some scientists take advantage of this to make human clones who become celebrities of sorts. The bk follows their lives. The choice of who to clone from is important.
"["]I don't want an egomaniac, and I'm afraid that's what many gifted people are. You're a brilliant and compassionate man. You're aware of your faults as well as your gifts. I've known you for more than thirty years and I've seen how you act in different situations. You are also, unlike others, capable in many fields.["]" - p 19
Society is in the throes of people who believe it's the time of the apocalypse:
""Everything is running down," the man whispered. "By midnight it will have stopped. The dead will be resurrected. What a sight!["]" - p 21
This future has an automatic highway, something that's been predicted by other SF writers too. So far, instead, we have the robot cars. At one time they were all over the place in Pittbsurgh, where I live, but they're gone now, out of favor w/ the local government.
"Jon drove the car out of the station's parking lot toward the new stretch of automated highway. Jon punched out his destination and the car moved along the access ramp, shooting out automatically into the stream of traffic.
""You can relax now," Paul said. Jon was still watching the highway attentively, holding the steering wheel with his hands.
""I still don't trust these highways," Jon said. "I'd rather stay prepared for an emergency.["]" - p 28
Of course, what's interesting for many or most of us who love SF is seeing what the author envisions. In this case, it's the legal wrangling that the father of the clones is challenged by.
"Paul had gone to court to establish his right to bring up his children, defending that right against a move to declare the clones wards of the United States government." - p 82
As w/ today, there're bk lovers (me) & people who prefer the new reading gadgets. What they don't seem to realize is that a bk is there for you to read w/o its needing electricity to power it.
"He put down his trowel, sat back and looked over at Kira. She was seated under one of the trees, reading a book. She held the small flat microfiche projector in her lap with one hand, turned a small knob on the projector with the other. Jim still preferred the feel of a book in his hands. He enjoyed turning the pages and liked the smell of print and old paper. He had insisted on keeping the books in Paul's library, even though they took up more space than the tiny bits of tape he could have purchased to replace them." - p 139
When I read about the turning of "a small knob on the projector" I imagine microfilm instead of microfiche. Of course, referring to "tape" throws both off. 'Microtape' might've been a better word choice.
& what about cloning non-humans?, you ask:
"Kira too had time on her hands. Takamura had gone to Kenya to advise its scientists, who wished to clone needed animals for wildlife preserves." - p 140
Of course the clones are going to have sex w/ each other - but what if a non-clone were to result from the union? Wd that break a family tradition?
"He felt his penis stiffen. He let go of Kira and stood awkwardly in front of her, arms dangling at his sides. She did not move away but continued to stand with her arms around his shoulders. Her face was pale in the moonlight. She tilted her head to one side. Don't move away, her eyes seemed to say, don't retreat. She moved closer to him and kissed his lips gently." - p 144
I move onto the philosophy of one of the clones:
"Mike hoped he would live to see the day when the world was no longer divided into poor and wealthy, with the wealthy hoarding their riches and defending them with weapons that themselves took much of the wealth. He did not feel altruistic. He simply found it wasteful and unproductive to conceive of a world in which human minds were wasted and the more fortunate had to worry about others. Better to give everyone a chance and then let a person make his own choices and decisions." - p 172
Sargent surprised me w/ this next part:
"The Lagrange space colony was a cylinder almost four miles long and one mile in diameter. It was located at the L5 libration point, a location where the gravitational forces of the Earth and Moon cancelled each other out. Lagrange, at L5, was on the moon's orbital path but situated 240,000 miles behind the moon; it would remain fixed in its relative position between Earth and Luna." - p 260
Why wd I be surprised? B/c I associate fictionalizing the Lagrange space colony w/ one of my favorite SF writers: Mack Reynolds. It was while I was reviewing Mack Reynolds & Dean Ing's Trojan Orbit that I realized that the Lagrange project was something that was actually in the planning stage in the 1970s:
"What I didn't realize is that, apparently, Reynolds was writing about something actually incipient:
""L5 is the fifth Lagrangian Libration point. But what are libration points? They are locations where a spacecraft may be placed so as always to remain in the same position with respect to the Earth and the Moon.
""The French mathematician, Lagrange, in 1772, showed that there are five such points. Three of them lie on a line connecting the Earth and Moon; these are L1, L2, and L3. They are unstable; a body placed there and moved slightly will tend to move away, though it will not usually crash directly onto the Earth or Moon. The other two are L4 and L5. They lie at equal distance from Earth and Moon, in the Moon’s orbit, thus forming equilateral triangles with Earth and Moon. The Sun is in the picture, and it disturbs the orbits of spacecraft and colonies. It turns out (from an extremely messy calculation done only in 1968) that with the Sun in the picture, a colony could be placed not directly at L4 or L5, but rather in an orbit around one of these points. The orbit keeps the colony about 90,000 miles from its central libration point.
""But what has people excited is not what orbit might be used, but rather what could be done there. Space industries in high Earth orbits could manufacture solar power satellites (SPS) from lunar or asteroidal resources. Each SPS could deliver twice as much low cost, environmentally safe energy to Earth, via microwaves, as the Grand Coulee Dam, and forty five of them could meet the total present electrical power needs of the U.S.
""This activity would create tens of thousands of jobs in space as well as on Earth within as short a time as 15 years, and getting tens of thousands of us living and working in space is the goal of the L5 Society." - https://nss.org/what-is-l5/
"For more information go here: https://nss.org/l5-news/ ."
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
One of the clones, the only female, Kira, is on the moon:
""I'm so foolish," Jane continued. I didn't even tell any of you what happened to Edgar, I suppose it's history of a sort, everyone will know soon, He was given some new medical treatment, they've been working on him for months. He looks at least fifteen years younger and his arthritis isn't nearly as bad. It's your sister that's responsible, Al, the doctor or whatever she is."
"Al was immediately attentive. "Kira? Is she here?"
""She's been here for a while." Jane shrugged. "Lord, I would have told you straightaway. But I thought you knew."
"Kira had grown even thinner." - p 264
All in all, I really enjoyed this & found it to be particularly wise for something written by a 28 yr old. AND, as is often my practice, I've told you almost nothing about it in order to avoid spoiling it.
Pamela Sargent's Cloned Lives
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 30, 2025
Somewhat to my surprise, I've already read 4 bks by Sargent before this one: The Sudden Star (1979), Earthseed (1979), Watchstar (1980), & Venus of Dreams (1986). Even more to my surprise, I've only reviewed 2 of those: Watchstar ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/69... ) & Earthseed ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17... ) - wch means that I read the other 2 no later than 2007 since I've reviewed every bk I've read since then. That means that I have roughly a 20 yr relationship w/ reading this author's work.. &, yet, I STILL can't claim to know it at all. I can't make a single intelligent statement about it from memory. & it's been 12 yrs since I last wrote a review about it. Since we're Goodreads 'friends' (wch means close to nothing since we don't know each other at all - but I still have a fondness for the connection, regardless of how tenuous it is) I make a point of reading her work if & when I come across something in a used bk store - but, there you have it, I apparently don't run across her work very often even tho it's widely distributed by mainstream publishers. Well, from this point forward I'll make a more concerted effort to find & read & review her work. One of the reasons for this decision is that I liked Cloned Lives very much, apparently it made more of an impression on me than did the other 4 I read. Cloned Lives was written in 1976, as far as I can tell, this is her 1st novel, written when she was 28.
"He found himself thinking again about Hidey Takamura's proposed project. Hidey, a geneticist, had long been chafing under the restrictions of the moratorium on genetic engineering. Hidey's field was not the only one affected; the twenty-year moratorium on certain types of scientific research, put into effect by committees of scientists working with the United Nations, applied to other fields as well. But the biilogical scientists had been the focus of most of the hysteria and fear people felt, so they were under more stringent regulations. By 1980, there was a moratorium on almost all genetic research." - p 17
An interesting premise: a moratorium comes temporarily to an end & some scientists take advantage of this to make human clones who become celebrities of sorts. The bk follows their lives. The choice of who to clone from is important.
"["]I don't want an egomaniac, and I'm afraid that's what many gifted people are. You're a brilliant and compassionate man. You're aware of your faults as well as your gifts. I've known you for more than thirty years and I've seen how you act in different situations. You are also, unlike others, capable in many fields.["]" - p 19
Society is in the throes of people who believe it's the time of the apocalypse:
""Everything is running down," the man whispered. "By midnight it will have stopped. The dead will be resurrected. What a sight!["]" - p 21
This future has an automatic highway, something that's been predicted by other SF writers too. So far, instead, we have the robot cars. At one time they were all over the place in Pittbsurgh, where I live, but they're gone now, out of favor w/ the local government.
"Jon drove the car out of the station's parking lot toward the new stretch of automated highway. Jon punched out his destination and the car moved along the access ramp, shooting out automatically into the stream of traffic.
""You can relax now," Paul said. Jon was still watching the highway attentively, holding the steering wheel with his hands.
""I still don't trust these highways," Jon said. "I'd rather stay prepared for an emergency.["]" - p 28
Of course, what's interesting for many or most of us who love SF is seeing what the author envisions. In this case, it's the legal wrangling that the father of the clones is challenged by.
"Paul had gone to court to establish his right to bring up his children, defending that right against a move to declare the clones wards of the United States government." - p 82
As w/ today, there're bk lovers (me) & people who prefer the new reading gadgets. What they don't seem to realize is that a bk is there for you to read w/o its needing electricity to power it.
"He put down his trowel, sat back and looked over at Kira. She was seated under one of the trees, reading a book. She held the small flat microfiche projector in her lap with one hand, turned a small knob on the projector with the other. Jim still preferred the feel of a book in his hands. He enjoyed turning the pages and liked the smell of print and old paper. He had insisted on keeping the books in Paul's library, even though they took up more space than the tiny bits of tape he could have purchased to replace them." - p 139
When I read about the turning of "a small knob on the projector" I imagine microfilm instead of microfiche. Of course, referring to "tape" throws both off. 'Microtape' might've been a better word choice.
& what about cloning non-humans?, you ask:
"Kira too had time on her hands. Takamura had gone to Kenya to advise its scientists, who wished to clone needed animals for wildlife preserves." - p 140
Of course the clones are going to have sex w/ each other - but what if a non-clone were to result from the union? Wd that break a family tradition?
"He felt his penis stiffen. He let go of Kira and stood awkwardly in front of her, arms dangling at his sides. She did not move away but continued to stand with her arms around his shoulders. Her face was pale in the moonlight. She tilted her head to one side. Don't move away, her eyes seemed to say, don't retreat. She moved closer to him and kissed his lips gently." - p 144
I move onto the philosophy of one of the clones:
"Mike hoped he would live to see the day when the world was no longer divided into poor and wealthy, with the wealthy hoarding their riches and defending them with weapons that themselves took much of the wealth. He did not feel altruistic. He simply found it wasteful and unproductive to conceive of a world in which human minds were wasted and the more fortunate had to worry about others. Better to give everyone a chance and then let a person make his own choices and decisions." - p 172
Sargent surprised me w/ this next part:
"The Lagrange space colony was a cylinder almost four miles long and one mile in diameter. It was located at the L5 libration point, a location where the gravitational forces of the Earth and Moon cancelled each other out. Lagrange, at L5, was on the moon's orbital path but situated 240,000 miles behind the moon; it would remain fixed in its relative position between Earth and Luna." - p 260
Why wd I be surprised? B/c I associate fictionalizing the Lagrange space colony w/ one of my favorite SF writers: Mack Reynolds. It was while I was reviewing Mack Reynolds & Dean Ing's Trojan Orbit that I realized that the Lagrange project was something that was actually in the planning stage in the 1970s:
"What I didn't realize is that, apparently, Reynolds was writing about something actually incipient:
""L5 is the fifth Lagrangian Libration point. But what are libration points? They are locations where a spacecraft may be placed so as always to remain in the same position with respect to the Earth and the Moon.
""The French mathematician, Lagrange, in 1772, showed that there are five such points. Three of them lie on a line connecting the Earth and Moon; these are L1, L2, and L3. They are unstable; a body placed there and moved slightly will tend to move away, though it will not usually crash directly onto the Earth or Moon. The other two are L4 and L5. They lie at equal distance from Earth and Moon, in the Moon’s orbit, thus forming equilateral triangles with Earth and Moon. The Sun is in the picture, and it disturbs the orbits of spacecraft and colonies. It turns out (from an extremely messy calculation done only in 1968) that with the Sun in the picture, a colony could be placed not directly at L4 or L5, but rather in an orbit around one of these points. The orbit keeps the colony about 90,000 miles from its central libration point.
""But what has people excited is not what orbit might be used, but rather what could be done there. Space industries in high Earth orbits could manufacture solar power satellites (SPS) from lunar or asteroidal resources. Each SPS could deliver twice as much low cost, environmentally safe energy to Earth, via microwaves, as the Grand Coulee Dam, and forty five of them could meet the total present electrical power needs of the U.S.
""This activity would create tens of thousands of jobs in space as well as on Earth within as short a time as 15 years, and getting tens of thousands of us living and working in space is the goal of the L5 Society." - https://nss.org/what-is-l5/
"For more information go here: https://nss.org/l5-news/ ."
- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
One of the clones, the only female, Kira, is on the moon:
""I'm so foolish," Jane continued. I didn't even tell any of you what happened to Edgar, I suppose it's history of a sort, everyone will know soon, He was given some new medical treatment, they've been working on him for months. He looks at least fifteen years younger and his arthritis isn't nearly as bad. It's your sister that's responsible, Al, the doctor or whatever she is."
"Al was immediately attentive. "Kira? Is she here?"
""She's been here for a while." Jane shrugged. "Lord, I would have told you straightaway. But I thought you knew."
"Kira had grown even thinner." - p 264
All in all, I really enjoyed this & found it to be particularly wise for something written by a 28 yr old. AND, as is often my practice, I've told you almost nothing about it in order to avoid spoiling it.
April 5, 2021
This was one of the best, most thoughtful SciFi novels I have ever read, hence the 5 star rating.
I picked this book off the shelf of a used book store completely arbitrarily. I had no knowledge of the author.
I was very pleasantly surprised by this compelling story about cloned "children" of a prominent scientist, taking place in the 2000 to 2037 time period. For a futuristic story written in 1976, it was particularly interesting to see the author's perception of what life was going to be like 25 to 30 years in the future, a future that we are living now. I was struck and moved by the strong depictions of the clones, individuals in their own right, with personal struggles with identity, with each other, and with "normal" humans.
The book examines thoughtfully the profound effect that scientific advances in creating and prolonging life could have on how humans value their own lives and others.
I will read more from Pamela Sargent. She is thoughtful and imaginative.
I picked this book off the shelf of a used book store completely arbitrarily. I had no knowledge of the author.
I was very pleasantly surprised by this compelling story about cloned "children" of a prominent scientist, taking place in the 2000 to 2037 time period. For a futuristic story written in 1976, it was particularly interesting to see the author's perception of what life was going to be like 25 to 30 years in the future, a future that we are living now. I was struck and moved by the strong depictions of the clones, individuals in their own right, with personal struggles with identity, with each other, and with "normal" humans.
The book examines thoughtfully the profound effect that scientific advances in creating and prolonging life could have on how humans value their own lives and others.
I will read more from Pamela Sargent. She is thoughtful and imaginative.
June 8, 2021
For my tastes, there was way too much time spent on the characters.
The book was written in the mid 1970s, much of it takes place in 2020 +- 20 years.
The science fictional elements were interesting, automated highways, colonies on the moon, colony ships and the beginnings of Star Trek replicators.
But you could have made the 5 main characters quintuplets, not clones and the story would have been the same.
I did like the writing style so I will try some of her other books.
The book was written in the mid 1970s, much of it takes place in 2020 +- 20 years.
The science fictional elements were interesting, automated highways, colonies on the moon, colony ships and the beginnings of Star Trek replicators.
But you could have made the 5 main characters quintuplets, not clones and the story would have been the same.
I did like the writing style so I will try some of her other books.
March 30, 2009
Started off well, but I really disliked some of the clones, so I didn't really enjoy the chapters from their perspective. I also didn't like the ending. I would read something else by her though.
September 23, 2025
This is Pamela’s debut novel and it’s complicated to review as it’s a collection, a fixup, and a novel all at the same time. 3 sections have been previously published as short stories/novellas: Father (Amazing, Feb 1974), Clone Sister (Eros in Orbit 1973), and A Sense of Difference (And Walk Now Gently Through the Fire, 1972). They have apparently been substantially reworked for this book, but I haven’t read the originals so can’t confirm.
The book has 7 ‘chapters’ with the titles being a name and a date. The first chapter is clearly one of the previously published stories. It is also the best bit and I’ll go on about it in more detail shortly. Sadly the bulk of the book, chapters 2 through 5, are slice of life episodes from a dysfunctional Brady Bunch family. All of the potential built up in the first brilliant chapter is lost to melodrama.
The final 2 chapters, 6 and 7, are better, and I suspect cover the other previously published stories. There’s still a lot of family melodrama, but new ideas are bought into the story. But the style has also unfortunately changed. The first chapter explored ideas through the story. The end chapters have people sitting around delivering the ideas through slabs of exposition slotted between the melodrama.
It should be pointed out though, I did read the whole book. The prose is excellent. The description and characterisation is well above average. It’s just sad the characters aren’t likeable. They all have persecution complexes and blame the world for their failings as people, despite no evidence of them being persecuted in the book.
This book was such a let down after the brilliant opening, but I will read more of her work as her actual prose is excellent.
The book is almost worth reading just for the first chapter/story, which I’ll now expound on.
1. Paul: 2000
It’s the eve of the millennium and a global moratorium on cloning is about end. It’s the opportunity Paul’s geneticist friend has to do his cloning project before new government clampdowns.
The first interesting thing to note is this book was written well before Dolly the sheep was cloned. It even predates the first ‘test tube baby’ who wasn’t born until 1978. But this section amply reflects the general panic of the uninformed over both these events, as well as stem cell research.
The millennial setting was clearly deliberate to reflect the supposed end of days being ushered in. It doesn’t mention the Y2K computer panic which didn’t start until the late 80s. Nobody in the 70s gave it a second thought. The millennial panic described is slightly more extreme than I actually remember it, but is still a fairly good forecast of societal stupidity.
There is one 70s prediction of the year 2000 which is sadly wide of the mark, the manned Lunar Base which is so mundane a place it’s being used as an astronomical observatory. If only. But with the Apollo program only having just wrapped up it wasn’t an unreasonable extrapolation.
Pamela invents a whole technology of ectogenetic chambers (ie artificial wombs) and synthetic placentas and other reproductive tech in order to bring the clones to term. There’s just enough detail for it be convincing, yet not so much you can see the cracks in tech. It has exactly the right balance.
Both arguments for and against cloning are presented in a fairly even-handed way, but the story has social backlash against genetic experimentation from every quarter, except the scientific. I found this a little biased and unrealistic. There are always some people in favour of a new technology. Their absence from the story was noticeable.
The story focuses on cloning and the doner is male therefore the clones are male, exact genetic duplicates. However 2 of the clones are modified to be female. From a story perspective it’s a reasonable variation, but it raises a whole different set of ethical considerations which are totally ignored. Making 2 of the embryo female means they aren’t clones, but genetically modified humans. It is precisely all these ignored issues that Ken MacLeod delves into with his book ‘Intrusion’ which I read by pure coincidence a couple of weeks ago. None of the issues surrounding modifying humans are ever examined in the book, though a lot of the science mentioned at the end is about that and inaccurately shoved under the cloning umbrella.
The book has 7 ‘chapters’ with the titles being a name and a date. The first chapter is clearly one of the previously published stories. It is also the best bit and I’ll go on about it in more detail shortly. Sadly the bulk of the book, chapters 2 through 5, are slice of life episodes from a dysfunctional Brady Bunch family. All of the potential built up in the first brilliant chapter is lost to melodrama.
The final 2 chapters, 6 and 7, are better, and I suspect cover the other previously published stories. There’s still a lot of family melodrama, but new ideas are bought into the story. But the style has also unfortunately changed. The first chapter explored ideas through the story. The end chapters have people sitting around delivering the ideas through slabs of exposition slotted between the melodrama.
It should be pointed out though, I did read the whole book. The prose is excellent. The description and characterisation is well above average. It’s just sad the characters aren’t likeable. They all have persecution complexes and blame the world for their failings as people, despite no evidence of them being persecuted in the book.
This book was such a let down after the brilliant opening, but I will read more of her work as her actual prose is excellent.
The book is almost worth reading just for the first chapter/story, which I’ll now expound on.
1. Paul: 2000
It’s the eve of the millennium and a global moratorium on cloning is about end. It’s the opportunity Paul’s geneticist friend has to do his cloning project before new government clampdowns.
The first interesting thing to note is this book was written well before Dolly the sheep was cloned. It even predates the first ‘test tube baby’ who wasn’t born until 1978. But this section amply reflects the general panic of the uninformed over both these events, as well as stem cell research.
The millennial setting was clearly deliberate to reflect the supposed end of days being ushered in. It doesn’t mention the Y2K computer panic which didn’t start until the late 80s. Nobody in the 70s gave it a second thought. The millennial panic described is slightly more extreme than I actually remember it, but is still a fairly good forecast of societal stupidity.
There is one 70s prediction of the year 2000 which is sadly wide of the mark, the manned Lunar Base which is so mundane a place it’s being used as an astronomical observatory. If only. But with the Apollo program only having just wrapped up it wasn’t an unreasonable extrapolation.
Pamela invents a whole technology of ectogenetic chambers (ie artificial wombs) and synthetic placentas and other reproductive tech in order to bring the clones to term. There’s just enough detail for it be convincing, yet not so much you can see the cracks in tech. It has exactly the right balance.
Both arguments for and against cloning are presented in a fairly even-handed way, but the story has social backlash against genetic experimentation from every quarter, except the scientific. I found this a little biased and unrealistic. There are always some people in favour of a new technology. Their absence from the story was noticeable.
The story focuses on cloning and the doner is male therefore the clones are male, exact genetic duplicates. However 2 of the clones are modified to be female. From a story perspective it’s a reasonable variation, but it raises a whole different set of ethical considerations which are totally ignored. Making 2 of the embryo female means they aren’t clones, but genetically modified humans. It is precisely all these ignored issues that Ken MacLeod delves into with his book ‘Intrusion’ which I read by pure coincidence a couple of weeks ago. None of the issues surrounding modifying humans are ever examined in the book, though a lot of the science mentioned at the end is about that and inaccurately shoved under the cloning umbrella.
October 28, 2017
For herself, Kira could envision years of meetings, of battles, of communications on the subject, of administrative work to grant this alternative to everybody, of helping to formulate goals. Even if the choice were rejected at first, simply knowing it was there would in time bring people around to accepting it, then moving to implement it in accordance with their goals. The moratorium on research had died, not because people thirsted for new knowledge and techniques, but simply because they lost a few of their fears while at the same time realizing that they could benefit from the new discoveries personally. Human selfishness, she thought again, somewhat cynically, will accomplish what years of well-reasoned philosophical and practical arguments could never do
February 9, 2024
Long. A little dated, but amazing how much we've seen happen that's in it since it was written. a ton of research went into this book.
August 25, 2023
After the end of a moratorium against biologigal experiments that lastet some decades, a brilliant scientist hastily starts to create clones of his friend Paul who is an ingenious physicist.
Sargent's debut novel. For that is was rather good. She takes her role as an SF writer very seriously: Take social and scientific developments and project them into the future, examining them from all sides. Unfortunately it is sometimes a bit academic and the fun is missing. She has put a bit much on her plate: cloning, rejuvenation, immortality, resurrection of the dead, interstellar flight, matter-conversion.
Sometimes less is more. But a solid effort nonetheless
Sargent's debut novel. For that is was rather good. She takes her role as an SF writer very seriously: Take social and scientific developments and project them into the future, examining them from all sides. Unfortunately it is sometimes a bit academic and the fun is missing. She has put a bit much on her plate: cloning, rejuvenation, immortality, resurrection of the dead, interstellar flight, matter-conversion.
Sometimes less is more. But a solid effort nonetheless
May 6, 2024
I read this years ago and thought I remembered it but rereading it now was a whole different experience. Cloned Lives weaves an intricate tale that follows the lives of several clones as they grapple with their identities, relationships, and place in a near-future society that both values and fears them. While some of the science may now feel a bit dated, the book's themes and insights remain relevant even today as we navigate the ethics of emerging biotechnologies.
September 10, 2013
The author tells a story about cloning people who are at the top in their field and why you can't clone an exact copy of a human. Awesome and must read.
April 29, 2015
1985 grade D+
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews