October's here, bringing with it Ooorah's birthday cheers. October 3rd's the day, when our beloved mothership saw the light on Wattpad. Happy belated birthday, Ooorah!! 🎂 🥳

As the month of kindness moves on, this month's theme is dedicated to the throngs. The Unoriginals. The Fakes. The Duplicates. The Replicas. The Clones.

Cloning is more than a science fiction genre as it is stretched across every possible art form and sub-genre. Stretched across every possible medium and fleshed out by the most fascinating writers in the world, it's uncanny to see how this genre has numerous minds discover themselves visualising the future, only to end up conceding on the same results.

Fundamentally biological, cloning is different from plenty of other scifi tropes as it is based on the procreation abilities of real living things. A lot of scifi stories end up asking the question about the consequences of cloning, if science allowed humanity to have their replicas. Questions in stories like these open interesting facets which tends to repeat across multiple, diverse tropes in the cloning multiverse.

It's important to note that cloning as a genre raises concerns of ethics, morality and beliefs. There are a lot of contrasting points of view regarding the cloning and the cloned.

The Double, a 1846 novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky tells a story of a man who awakens one day to find someone who looks exactly like him, but only living his life much better than he ever could. With the premise not even close to science fiction, Dostoevsky doesn't feel the need to justify the clone's character. In retrospect, the tale established Clones as one of the substantial subgenres of science fiction. It was terrifying to imagine having a lab-grown person supplant and perfect the imperfect life of the main character. Like what was the compulsion to do so without a thought to the implications of the nature of the soul.

The second season premiere of Charlie Brooker's pioneering compilation Black Mirror's "Be Right Back" shows the individual ramifications of AI cloning a deceased beloved as a coping mechanism. The female main character devastated after her boyfriend's death, finds a perfect clone replacement of her loved boyfriend. Only for her to be put off by its perfection, which has her ultimately locking it away.

In my opinion, it's our imperfections that make us perfect and loved. They are an indelible part of our personality, showing what truly makes us human.

On the other hand, Riley Stearns' "Dual"(2022) has a terminally diagonised woman swapped by her replica. To assert her place and get her original life back after an astonishing come back, he has to battle with her perfect clone. A classic "you vs you" concept. Even though this trope is cliche, it's still used to address the themes of individuality and self-realisation.

We also have Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World", where all those beneath the top two social castes are scientifically cloned in large numbers for slavery. In giving them less mental capacity, the clones are relegated to have an unfulfilled life committed to doing manual labour.

It's an illusion to think that cloning creates a duplicate of the person/animal being cloned. Research has demonstrated that cloned animals have been found to not only be different personality trait-wise, but also entirely physical patterns (a cat cloning experiment found the clone cat to have a different coat pattern than the cat it was cloned from). This is due to the fact that not only genetics, but the natural habitat also contributes in a big way to evolve a person.

I present a couple of recommendations:

House of Suns by Alastair Reynolds

Summary: Alastair Reynolds' House of Suns is a space opera that explores the ethics of cloning on a grand scale. The book follows the journey of a group of cloned human beings known as "shatterlings" who travel the galaxy and interact with various other sentient beings. The book raises questions about the nature of identity and the value of individuality, as the shatterlings face challenges that force them to confront their own existence and the choices they have made.

Great North Road by Peter F. Hamilton

Summary: Peter F. Hamilton's Great North Road takes place in a future where cloning is a common practice, used for everything from organ transplants to military purposes. The book focuses on the story of detective Sidney Hurst, who is investigating a string of murders that seem to be linked to a cloned soldier. The book raises questions about the ethics of cloning for military purposes and the implications of creating a class of beings that are designed solely for combat.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Summary: Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go is a dystopian novel that explores the ethical implications of cloning in a very personal way. The book follows the story of Kathy, Ruth, and Tommy, who are students at an English boarding school that is not what it seems. The book raises questions about the value of life and the treatment of clones as disposable commodities, as the main characters struggle to come to terms with their own existence and the role they are meant to play in society.

Imperial Earth by Arthur C. Clarke

Summary: Arthur C. Clarke's Imperial Earth is a novel that explores the implications of cloning for political purposes. The book is set in the 23rd century, where the ruling elite on Earth are all clones of a single man, Duncan Makenzie. The book raises questions about the nature of power and the ethics of creating a ruling class that is genetically identical, as the main character, Duncan's son, struggles to find his place in a world where he is seen as little more than a copy of his father.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Summary: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is a classic dystopian novel that explores the implications of cloning for a society that values conformity above all else. The book is set in a future where human beings are created in factories and conditioned from birth to conform to a specific social hierarchy. The book raises questions about the value of individuality and the role of science in shaping the human experience, as the main character, Bernard Marx, struggles to come to terms with his own identity in a world that values sameness above all else.

Found a couple of Wattpad stories:

ALTERNATES by HayleyNatasha

Summary: When former Royal Marine Mackenzie O'Connor's wife Aurelia is killed mysteriously in a car accident, his world begins to unravel. He finds out her life as a London Doctor was not all that it seemed, working for the mysterious Alternates Institute. Mackenzie is recruited by MI6 to investigate the Institute and to find out more about their human cloning called the 'Alternates Programme'. But whilst there, he discovers much more than he ever imagined.

The Imposter by haferness3

Would you doubt your own sanity if you were suddenly blamed for certain events that you had no idea were happening?

At first, Dayna thinks everyone is playing a horrible joke on her -- blaming her for doing things she wouldn't normally even think of doing. To add onto that, the new guy at school hates her guts for reasons she doesn't understand. But then, she realizes something just isn't adding up. She's blamed for things she's quite sure she didn't do and between taking detentions, to making out with other girls' boyfriends and getting arrested, Dayna has had enough. She wants to know who is impersonating her and why. Fed up with the situation, she confides in her robotic scientist parents who shamefully admit that they had created a perfect clone of her...that somehow managed to escape.

Amid the huge mess her life has become, she meets Kyle, who is an agent assigned to her to keep her safe from her so-called clone. He is also the new boy at school that has an unadulterated hatred for her. Kyle is more man than boy, who has a cynical outlook at life, and a very black and white way of looking at things. As the school term ends and she graduates, Dayna finds herself having a very interesting summer filled with planning, strategizing, and an unknown attraction towards Kyle. In the end hard decisions will have to be made.

But who will win? Dayna or Dayna?

Project Eden by melissamydarling

Summary: Death isn't permanent. Not for Eden.

The moment she dies, her consciousness downloads to the nearest clone waiting for her at Save Points across the globe. The ability to overcome death is helpful when you work as an international courier relaying top-secret information that everyone wants to get their hands on-including some willing to murder for it.

When Eden awakes from her most recent death, this time as a seventeen-year-old Native American girl, she's greeted by the adorkable Zachary, a genius not yet out of his teens-and a terrible liar. She knows he's keeping something from her, but she decides to trust him anyway and drags him along on her next mission: Locate a scientist gone AWOL who might have discovered a cure for dementia. Eden must track him down before the bad guys can eliminate him and use his life-changing research to make themselves rich at the expense of dementia patients worldwide.

As she and Zach make their way through Central America, she begins to question whether she's working FOR the bad guys and not against them, like she's always believed. When Zach comes clean with his own secrets, Eden isn't sure who to trust anymore. Maybe not even herself, because in the end, she is the biggest secret of all and the people in charge will do anything to keep her from learning who-and what-she really is.

Feel free to share your own favourite clone stories in the inline comments here-->

I'll meet you in December with an exciting theme and a new article. This is me, Nab, signing off for now. Stay safe and stay happy! ❤️

Nablai