Cloning - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802755550 ISBN 13: 9780802755551

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

I was born in Boston, MA in 1938. I studied math, biology, chemistry, and philosophy (B.A., Swarthmore,1959) and have a Ph.D. in biophysics (Brandeis, 1966).

I have taught biophysics, biochemisty, physics, biology, chemistry, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, math, creative writing, a course on the nuclear arms race race, in which I said in 1985-87 that the most likely attack on the U.S. would involve not ICBMs, but terrorists striking multiple sites simultaneously--c.f. 9/11/01) and another on "Provocative Writings by and About Scientists." I was on the faculty of SUNY at Buffalo (Biophysics and Theoretical Biology), the Univ. of GA at Athens (Physics), and the Univ. of MO-Columbia (Biochemistry).

My talent--and curse--is that I read and watch everything the same, scientific articles, textbooks and fiction, noticing fine details. The reasons I wrote "Cloning" include the *many* scientific errors in Michael Crichton's "Andromeda Strain"--and Crichton has an MD from Harvard. Also in Rod Serling's TV movie "Doomsday Flight." Both came out in the late 1960s. I wondered how hard it could be to write a novel without mistakes. Although I wrote it quickly, "Cloning" has shown over three decades to have no errors. Only the element of telepathy should be considered fantasy, and who knows if it may still be shown to exist?

I am an artist, and a good (amateur) photographer--especially on trips to Morocco, Spain, the Netherlands, France and Germany, Mexico and Peru. I designed a computer typeface. I am an audiophile and musician (guitar) and performed as a folksinger in the early 1960s. My tastes include classical guitar, baroque (classical up through Mozart), folk music, bluegrass, blues, and some jazz.

I am making progress on a much larger and literarily superior second novel, provisionally titled "Moment of Inertia" (a double play on words), set in the 1980's. It contains an abundance of dark humor, some science, and some science fiction--as of today.

Aus dem Klappentext

CLONE (Klon), n. Biol. A group of genetically identical organisms derived from a single individual or cell by asexual reproduction. By common use, a member of such a group. [-------------

From the inside flaps of the original 1972 Walker & Co. hardcover edition, reproduced on the inside flap of the 1975 Robert Hale & Co. U.K. hardcover edition:

Bizarre, recurrent dreams haunt Paul Kyteler's nighttimes, causing the middle-aged molecular biologist to commit himself to a mental institution for observation in the fear that he is losing his sanity.

A young musician and a waitress wish to marry and Carolyn Peck, Paul's ex-wife and a lawyer, goes to court to fight for their right to do so.

From these incidents develop two plots that enlarge and intertwine, producing a story that is at once a mystery, an examination of the question "What is a person?", a look into the future of bio-medical research, and a parable on man's treatment of man.

The time is fifty years into the future, and two radical advances have been made in the development of the human race. The first is to serve man: androids, who exactly mimic man--in thought and feeling, appearance, and even hopes and aspirations--have been created to perform the tasks considered too menial for man. The battle that Carolyn wages to secure the right of an individual human and android to wed grows into a larger battle for the recognition of androids as the equals of humans [as persons]. The second advance is a monument to man's egoism: cloning makes it possible for a man to have an exact [genetic] replica of himself produced. [Of course, it would be a baby.] Paul, unknown to him, is a member of a clone.

CLONING occupies a place in the vanguard of the new science fiction--science fiction that develops from accurate science, more prophetic than fantastic.

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From the back cover of the 1974 Pinnacle paperback:

WAS PAUL INSANE?

The men stripped the mannequins, tossing their clothing into the fire. There were no seams visible in their lifelike bodies. They had fingernails and hair and genitalia. Paul looked at their faces, all frozen in blandly content expressions, their glass eyes looking quite real.

Next the men threw the mannequins into the fire. As the hair caught fire, there was an overwhelming sulphurous stench. Then the odor of burning meat. Paul watched the mannequins being consumed. Their facial features ran, and their mouths slowly opened. They began to scream, first one, then another. A little girl was calling for her mommy.

Paul ran to the fire and lifted her out. He looked at her and saw that she was just a plastic shell, now partly charred. But then she put her arms around his neck and drew her burned face near his. Paul s heart began to race; he felt like vomiting. He pulled himself free and threw her back into the fire

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From the back cover of the 1978 Pinnacle paperback:

To sleep--perchance to dream...

Nightmares haunted Paul Kyteler, distinguished molecular biologist--dreams of shatteringly vivid reality, dreams of love, of violence, dreams that the EEG tests indicated came from sources outside himself.

Scientifically logical about his ordered existence, Paul could not account for the recurring dreams, or his lifelong revulsion toward androids, or his totally unscientific obsession with his own mortality.

And then, on a trip to Europe, Paul's mind, as well as his body, was taken over by the psyche of a man he had never known--a man who died a violent death. For Paul and the dead man were clones, "twins," along with the many others whose passions and emotions he was forced to share, as they shared his, through the common bond of the single cell that gave them life.

And, finally, Paul Kyteler was a peace with himself and the woman who loved him, for he found out who--and what--he was...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0802755550
• ISBN 13: 9780802755551
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: WordUnited GmbH; distribution@wordunited.com; ; Theodorstrasse 105; DUSSELDORF; 40472; Deutschland