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Liked It “An awesome book. Well written and thought provoking.” see full review » see other reviews » |
Didn’t Like It “I really wanted to like this because there are so few female writers of SF, let alone good SF, but I had a hard time getting through it. Plot seemed to drag, I didn't really care for the characters, and although the idea of cloning to save the the last survivors may have been a fresh idea in the...” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“An awesome book. Well written and thought provoking.”
Margie52 wrote this review 2 weeks ago. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Excellent speculative fiction about clones and stuff.”
Leif wrote this review Thursday, November 5 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Massive environmental changes and global disease, attributed to large-scale pollution, cause the collapse of civilization around the world. One large, well-to-do extended family sets up an isolated community. However, as the death toll mounts (due to a variety of causes) the family begins cloning themselves to survive. This is due to universal infertility. It is assumed that as time passes, fertility will return and sexual reproduction will be possible once again. However, when the clones come of-age, they reject the idea of sexual reproduction in favor of further cloning. The original members of the community, too old and outnumbered by the clones to resist, are forced to accept the new social order.
Wendy B wrote this review Wednesday, July 15 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
As time passes, the new generations of clones are weaker (physically and mentally) than their predecessors. Since they are cloned in groups of 4-10 individuals, they grow to depend on each other enormously, and lose all sense of individuality. They become afraid of being alone in any way, and eventually lose all sense of creativity. In one part of the novel, a snowman is made, and the clones are unable to identify it as a man, seeing only snow. Towards the end, the community is found to have been wiped out entirely due to natural disasters, but mainly by the destruction to the mill, which had been the energy source the community had depended on to survive. Only a few select people had survived, and among them was a man named Mark, who had foreseen the death of the community and had prepared for it.
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“I've been listening to this while I drive. It's an interesting premise: what happens when humanity dies and all that's left are clones? I found myself wanting to know more about what happens to David, whether Molly and Ben really end up together, and why Barry seems so protective of Mark when the others aren't. Good book. I'm not sure I would have kept reading if I hadn't been listening to it on CD. Lots of description. Little dialogue.
Raspberry M wrote this review Saturday, May 9 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Ok. I finished it last week. It's one story that's stayed with me. I even told my husband a summary of it (I rarely do this).”
“An awesome, early book about the dangers of cloning. Not to be missed. Kate is the bomb. ”
Phil wrote this review Wednesday, April 29 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“My favorite sf book involving cloning. ”
Betsy Eubanks wrote this review Friday, April 3 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“I really wanted to like this because there are so few female writers of SF, let alone good SF, but I had a hard time getting through it. Plot seemed to drag, I didn't really care for the characters, and although the idea of cloning to save the the last survivors may have been a fresh idea in the 70s it certainly isn't in the 21st Century where the issue is being debated in real time. Maybe we should be writing less about how to save humanity from the apocalypse and thinking more about how to prevent it.
Michelle L wrote this review Thursday, February 26 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I'm also sort of tired of reading SF old or new where the scientists always come off as the badies. They take things too far, or they are too blinded by their own power to see their own flaws, or the old are unwilling to learn from the new. Certainly some people are like this, but science is about the search for truth, about the investigation into the unknown, and good science requires all kinds of restraint to be done carefully and achieve accurate outcomes. I wonder if people like Wihelm or other authors who portray scientists in such a poor light have ever spent any time in a lab, or ever done any scientific experiments themselves, even like a science fair project? Maybe facing the end of the species would cause anyone to act a little nuts, but your average scientist is usually a fairly grounded person dealing in logic and reason.
Having said this, I would like to read The Infinity Box which I've heard really good things about. I only picked this pook up because of the post apocalyptic theme and because the library didn't have the other title. ”
“Progressive tale of what could be if cloning became our last option. Told from the point of view of three different main characters from three different time periods, the reader is given a first hand view of the beginning and reasons for the experiment, the start of its demise, and the reasons for its failure. The characters are enjoyable and human, even when they are far from human in so many ways. All and all an engaging story.”
amorra7 wrote this review Thursday, June 12 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“I like what reviewer carol c said about this book being gentle - even though it starts with apocalypse! It is. Then the clone thing comes in. But all of that seemed to me just a vehicle for exploring the core of what it means to be human.
kteliz wrote this review Friday, January 4 2008. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
Reading this book in my early 20s made me think about the human experience and what makes us special and unique. I wouldn't say it is written exquisitely, but the images and key ideas about humanity have stayed with me. I think it is a beautiful book. ”““Where late the sweet bird sang…,” named after a Shakespeare sonnet, is known as a science fiction classic. This is a lovely, gentle title for a somewhat gentle story, even though it’s a tale of the end of our world - and its ultimate regeneration. This is about a group of families who plan for the coming destruction; they set aside a safe place and resources. Eventually, they find they must clone themselves to reproduce the human race. The story follows through several generations. The cloning causes degeneration of people – not moral so much as intellectual, though the morality of groups of like-clones does not exactly adhere to that of individual humans. It takes an actual, non-cloned human to find a path to restart the world. This book was written in the eighties, so that many of the ideas presented have since been revisited many times. I recall reading that it was innovative in that it combined science with a humanistic perspective. The style is poetic, but not unusual or futuristic; the story is told from the point of view of its various characters over the years, characters with normal emotions and concerns. Although there are many end-of-word novels, the one that comes to mind for comparison purposes (maybe because I read it recently) is THE ROAD by Cormac McCarthy. “Where late..” creates a world that is fully realized, with trees and flowers and people with emotions. Even the radioactive parts of this world have color. By contrast, THE ROAD is unrelentlessly bleak – the prose is bleak. (As good a way to describe McCarthy as any.) Although both end on notes that are probably no less optimistic than the other, McCarthy’s book doesn’t make you feel much better – Wilhelm’s does.[”
Carol C wrote this review Sunday, October 28 2007. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
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