Cloning - in Science Fiction

In Science Fiction

Cloning has been used in countless science fiction works throughout the years. Human cloning is usually most popular, mainly due to fact that it brings up controversial questions of identity. For example, in Aldous Huxley’s prescient novel Brave New World (1932), human cloning is a major plot device that not only drives the story along but also makes the reader think critically about what identity means; this was picked up fifty years later in C. J. Cherryh’s novels Forty Thousand in Gehenna (1983) and Cyteen (1988). Kazuo Ishiguro's 2005 novel Never Let Me Go centres on human clones and considers the ethics of the practice. Another book that embodies the ideas of cloning is "The House of the Scorpion" which explores the rights of human clones and organ harvesting, set from the eyes of a clone. Also a local short novel "Containing God" by S.M.Wasi Haider similarly engulfs the ideas of cloning and the ethics, lust and problems revolving around the topic, emphasizing the idea that creating life gives people the false sense of divinity:

"As we gazed upon our creation we knew we had created more than just a replica, we had created life. We were more than just mere men we were Gods." (Page 20, Paragraph 3)

Star Wars portrays human cloning in Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, in the form of the Grand Army of the Republic, an army of clone troopers. The Expanded Universe also has numerous examples of cloning, including the Thrawn trilogy, The Hand of Thrawn duology, and Clone Wars-era media.

Besides these the concept of cloning has also been widely applicated in various anime including the famous anime Pokemon in which the Pokemon Mewtwo was created as a result of cloning technique using Mew cells from a discarded eyelash.