12 Memorable Times Science Fiction Books Sent in the Clones

The Fortress at the End of Time, by Joe M. McDermott
McDermott’s new novel combines several irresistible sci-fi concepts, from the mysterious alien enemy all humanity is united in fighting against but hasn’t actually seen in a very long time, to the setting on the remote, despair-soaked space outpost the Citadel, where the suicide rate amongst posted crew is, let’s say, high. But it’s the treatment of cloning that lends the book its indelible, unsettling air of existential malaise. Instead of clones as the Other, or as pieces in a plot gambit, the main character and everyone around him are clones, their memories and genetic code transported across millions of light years into fresh bodies. They are uniformly unhappy about their fates and eager to get to their next “iteration,” never mind that a version of them will also continue to inhabit the worst space station in the galaxy. It’s brilliant stuff, flipping a familiar trope on its head.

The Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Bujold’s legendary space opera series has a lot of clones, and the complex and layered handling of them in-universe is one reason why fans love the books so much. In much of the universe, clones are regarded as siblings, with their own rights, will, and legal identities. On Jackson’s Whole, however, clones are used as replacement bodies for the rich—which involves the inelegant, terrifying necessity of removing the clone’s brain in order to sidestep those pesky moral concerns.

Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, by James Luceno
The Star Wars universe has been soaked in clones ever since the Clone Wars were cryptically mentioned in the original film (though the less said of Luuke, the better), but Luceno’s novel offers an interesting depictions of the clone troops. In the films, the clones are often shown to be lacking individual identities and with little will of their own. Luceno instead depicts clones who have evolved personalities and complex concepts of their existence—to the point that when they hear about the infamous Order 66, they choose not to attack the Jedi they have been working with. While the novel’s focus is Anakin Skywalker’s final inner transformation into Darth Vader (while cleaning up some loose ends left from the prequel films), the clones here are among the most interesting in the Star Wars universe (and lest we be scolded in the comments, we’d also not ethat the Clone Wars cartoon did a very good job giving voice to these uniform soldiers).

The Quantum Thief, by Hannu Rajaiemi
The copyclans of Rajaiemi’s universe are the implanted minds of the seven Sobornost Founders, who have replicated themselves in billions of bodies organized into clans. While this makes them immensely powerful—godlike—as they slowly take control of the known universe outside of independent Mars, there is something brilliantly disturbing about so many versions of just a handful of people acting as a huge, incomprehensibly large cabal.

Six Wakes, by Mur Lafferty
A locked-room mystery nestled comfortably inside a big-idea sci-fi premise, Lafferty’s latest is a interstellar page-turner with an innovative twist on cloning tropes. Societal and climate collapse drives humanity to send 2,000 cryo-frozen people to a distant, Earth-like planet on a ship crewed by six criminals who volunteer to be cloned again and again as they shepherd their precious cargo to its final destination. Every time the crew is cloned, they maintain their collective memories. When they wake up at the beginning of the novel, however, their former bodies are dead—brutally murdered in various ways; the ship is in shambles (gravity is off, the controlling artificial intelligence is offline, and they’re off-course); and their memories (and all other records) have been erased. The six have to clean up the mess—but they also have to figure out who killed them and why, and how to survive within a paranoid pressure-cooker of a ship.

Altered Carbon, by Richard K. Morgan
Morgan’s universe is centered on the technology that allows consciousness to be “sleeved” into new bodies, essentially allowing immortality. The fact that most people find the process of growing old more than once distasteful, electing to not be resleeved unless they can afford upgraded bodies, is just one instance of Morgan’s genius. Another is the way the protagonist, Takeshi Kovacs, winds up creating a second version of himself in another body—an illegal and problematic tactic he knows can’t be allowed to continue once he’s survived the climax. (Spoilers follow…) Both versions of Kovacs sit down and have a conversation about which of them needs to be destroyed. The dilemma is solved through a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors—easily marking the most awesome use of that game in all of literature.

Dune Messiah, by Frank Herbert
Herbert reportedly developed the concept of ghola in the Dune universe in order to bring Duncan Idaho back into the story, as he had become unexpectedly popular amongst fans. Ghola were originally depicted as near-resurrections, but as the Duniverse evolved, they became closer to literal genetic clones, though it is possible to restore memory in a ghola—including the memory of their own death—through various techniques. The ghola can also be controlled, a common concept in clones, but the great twist is they can only be controlled through hypnotism, a laborious and dicey prospect.

The Boys from Brazil, by Ira Levin
Perhaps the most brilliant Hitler Panic novel ever written, Levin’s premise of a scheme run by Josef Mengele to clone Hitler—and recreate the specific circumstances of Hitler’s life, including the precise age his father died, in order to engineer a second coming of the Führer—is so complex and insane, it makes for chilling reading. Everyone already believes the Nazis were capable of any sort of dark insanity, so this is exactly the sort of program you can imagine them getting into.

The Prestige, by Christopher Priest
Priest’s 1995 novel about dueling stage magicians includes one of the most horrifying uses of clones ever conceived of in fiction. While it’s difficult for anyone to imagine accurately how we might react to our own clone, one thing we can be reasonably certain of is that we wouldn’t spend months murdering our own clones every evening in order to pull off a magic trick. Or maybe we’re not certain of that, which leads this brilliant novel into horror territory.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Ishiguro’s horrifically beautiful novel turns on a familiar sci-fi premise: a near-future where clones are created in order to “donate” their organs to their originals. The three main characters are all clones, raised in an experimental school designed to humanize them and give them some dignity. What sets the book apart is the care and thoughtfulness with which Ishiguro explores concepts of indoctrination, love, and humanity, with language so lovely you can forget you’re reading about people born to die on the operating table.

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
One reason Huxley’s classic novel made such waves was the sheer number of ideas it contained—ideas that have been absorbed into the wider world of science fiction in the decades since, but which were incredibly bracing at the time. In Huxley’s universe, human reproduction is government-controlled using a process that ensures anywhere up to 96 individual babies are born from a single fertilized egg, all of them physically identical. The process is only used in the lower classes, the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons, and allows for the dystopian future Huxley creates to remain regimented and—above all—stable.

Kiln People, by David Brin
Brin’s imaginative sci-fi mystery has either a single narrator, or a whole host of them, depending on how you look at it. In a future where most people choose to never leave their homes, instead sending out cloned copies of their minds in disposable bodies to do their dirty work, their day jobs, or just run errands, investigator Albert Morris avoids risking his neck when on a case by sending a copy of himself to do the actual investigating, then return home, upload his memories, and promptly disintegrate. In addition to a fascinating engine for a mystery, as different clones are sent off to dig up evidence and track down different leads simultaneously, it’s also a great example of clever worldbuilding: depending on how many resources (i.e. how much capital) is spent on a clone, they have different lifespans and mental abilities, from the lowly green to the elite black. But what if you’re a green, and you aren’t happy with your lot in life? What’s a clone with one day to live to do?
What’s your favorite use of clones in science fiction?