Cloned Lives

Book excerpt: This debut sci-fi novel by the Nebula and Locus Award–winning author of The Shore of Women follows five human clones in an unforgiving world. Shock and outrage greet Paul Swenson’s announcement of the success of his latest and most controversial scientific endeavor. Having taken advantage of a brief lull in legislative restrictions, the renowned astrophysicist and a team of bioscientists have created five human clones—four males and one female—from Swenson’s own genetic material. From the moment Michael, Edward, Albert, James, and Kira Swenson are revealed to the world, they are viewed with hostility and suspicion. Growing up under the heavy yoke of specialness, the five exceptional human “experiments” have no one but each other to turn to for emotional support. Then tragedy strikes and everything falls apart . . . Now Kira and her brothers must follow their destinies down separate, divergent paths. Heading out into a world that never welcomed them, each clone is intent on pursuing knowledge, career, family—all the desired elements of a so-called normal life. But they cannot escape their shared past, because the true purpose behind Paul Swenson’s remarkable achievement remains shrouded in shadow. And his children are prepared to travel to the ends of the Earth and beyond for an answer to the question that has always haunted them: Why were we made?