Author: Kate Wilhelm

This book could just as easily be placed in the disaster category. It is a story about cloning, but the reason for the development of clones is a collapse of the world economy and the eventually killing off of most humans due to plagues which sweep the planet.

Wilhelm explores the possibility that cloning of humans could have unexpected side effects...in this case, a sharing of emotions and some thoughts by the groups of clones, a kind of telepathy. The experiences of one human who thinks as an individual are then brought into the mix, with questions of what makes a human really a human being, individualism vs. group thought, and how diversity is key to survival.

Even though this was written in 1976, the arguments are relevant to today with the fact of human cloning not so very far off. I think the most compelling idea in this novel is that we often do not know where a scientific discovery will lead, what its consequences might be in the future.