An incisive 392-page novel about contrived evolution, evil ambition, impossible love; exploring how genetic engineering could corrupt future life. Already the question is not if, but how far cloning will go?
How will mankind evolve?
Will men become redundant? Sex obsolete? What would take its place? Females only, produced from female DNA?
From the loveless manufacturing process that cloning is, what kind of products might result? And if DNA is manipulated? Or mixed?
Will clones have a soul?
What's next? Devising preferential behaviour, adjusting personality, altering memory? Pre-empting the experience of life.
HUMAN STOCK extrapolates present-day environment/world order to World War 3 and devastation from which few survive. Evolving is a women-dominated social system with horror, love, hate, loss and the lust for power.
HUMAN STOCK... An Extreme Scenario.
HUMAN STOCK examines the potential consequences of human cloning in a world devastated by World War 3.
A story of survival amidst world devastation, contrived evolution through evil ambition, impossible love. How will cloning affect humanity?
It is the year 2030. A community in Darwin has survived worldwide destruction by nuclear and biological warfare, only to be ruthlessly dominated by women who use cloning as the preferred means of human reproduction. The women, seeking absolute power, manipulate DNA to perfect laboratory-made cloned human products devoid of love or soul. Is this the beginning of the evolution of life without sex?
Benjamin stealthily embarks on a course of discovery. He continues to escape their net, but lives in fear as he tries to foil their plans. Can he stop them before they change humanity forever? Will his love for two women be exposed? How can the three of them continue to exist outside the 'system'? Tension remains high as Benjamin's efforts take us through the horrors of believable consequences of cloning to a surprising and powerful end.
Excerpt
These clones were destined to spend their lives in a void, with no love or close emotional support. Benjamin surmised that severely stunted development both intellectually and emotionally, even without the treatment they had to endure, would be an inevitable consequence of the clone production system. An essential ingredient was surely missing. Processing a DNA sample with a female egg and implantation in a woman using cold laboratory techniques was mechanical in conception and implementation. The method had no place for love, no meaning such as being the product of a loving union between man and woman, nothing on which to establish bonding or the fundamental fulfilment of belonging as an integral part of a family, no true mother and father foundations. None of that existed under clone production. Instead, the process was that of systematically turning out products from a factory by copying the originals. With no emotion or love involved, it followed that emotionless, loveless products would result. The behaviour of clones throughout the day had been an exact portrayal of this scenario.
Professional Reviews
Robert N. Stephenson (Altair Magazine)
Human Stock delivers a powerful story and one that will keep the reader thinking well past the last word.
John Morrow's Pick of the Week
...thought-provoking... gives the reader a frightening insight into what could happen to the world as we know it.
Kurt von Trojan (author of 'Mars in Scorpio' and 'The Transing Syndrome')
A gripping doomsday scenario... will this be our future? A challenging first novel, playing sleight of hand with social convention.
This book seems to be very interesting. I will be looking to purchase it.
Reviewed by Robbie Whitlock
1/30/2002
Vaughan is My Uncle and as an X-Mas Prezzie I got given this book... I didn't start reading it till recent times...
I havn't quite finished it yet, but It is a REAL good book... I can't put it down...
It's stopping me from doing work at school... (I better get it finished soon)
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