60 Years of Sending in the Clones

“Nine Lives,” in The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories, Volume Two: Outer Space, Inner Lands, by Ursula K. Le Guin
First published in Playboy in 1968 under the name U.K. Le Guin (the magazine was worried that a female author would make its readers nervous), “Nine Lives” is about what happens when most of a clone-group is killed in an accident, leaving only one survivor. Le Guin has said that the story is as near “hard-core” or “wiring-diagram science fiction” as she ever gets, but, being a Le Guin story, it grows and deepens from there into a fascinating reflection on selfhood.

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, by Kate Wilhelm
Published in 1976, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is the Hugo-winning tale of an Earth ravaged by environmental destruction and people who turn to cloning in order to survive. When a wealthy family discovers that they have become infertile, they introduce cloning under the assumption that sexual reproduction will eventually become possible again. Instead, when the clones become adults they elect to continue cloning, and a new kind of society begins to form, where ideas like individuality lose their relevance…

The Cloning of Joanna May, by Fay Weldon
What happens when a husband discovers that his wife is engaging in an extramarital affair? Well…hopefully not what happens in 1989’s The Cloning of Joanna May, in which he has the lover killed, divorces the wife, and then raises a bunch of secret clones in her image with the idea that one could take her place. (I imagine you need to pause here to make a horrified face. I’ll wait.)
If you’re really jonesing for some televised clone action, there’s an early 90’s ITV adaptation featuring the Twelfth Doctor himself as the murdered lover.

Spares, by Michael Marshall Smith
In the grim future of Spares (1998), the rich have an awesome health plan: clones. Those who can afford it are cloned at birth, allowing them to use their clones as organ farms, and ex-cop Jack Randall has just gone on the run with seven of the spares. Compared to works like Blade Runner, A Clockwork Orange, and the hard-boiled detective novels of Raymond Chandler, Spares is a gritty, disturbing, and occasionally hilarious look at a brutal world that’s just a little too familiar.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Never Let Me Go is a beautiful, terribly sad story set in a world where clones are raised with the sole purpose of becoming organ donors for “normals.” Centering around three clones, the story follows them from their childhood at a strange English boarding school, to adulthood, while they struggle with friendship, love, and their ultimate fate. The book was adapted into a 2010 film starring Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley, and Andrew Garfield.

Great North Road, by Peter F. Hamilton
This massive 2012 near-future thriller has it all: wormholes, murder cases, alien planets, and enormous clone dynasties. When police detective Sidney Hurst discovers that the body that was just dragged from the river is actually a member of the large and powerful North clone family, it reopens a decades-old murder investigation and forces Sid into a world of danger and political intrigue. Great North Road was named one of Publishers Weekly‘s Best Books of the Year.
What’s your choice clone story?