clone n.

Most of us pretend to abhor the narcissistic motives that would impel a clonist, but he (or she) will pass just that predisposing genotype intact to the clone. Wherever and for whatever motives close endogamy has prevailed before, clonism and clonishness will prevail.

The clone, five males and five females, had got done in a couple of minutes what a man might have got done in twenty: greeted Pugh and Martin, had a glance at Libra, unloaded the boat, made ready to go. They went, and the dome filled with them, a hive of golden bees. They hummed and buzzed quietly, filled up all silences, all spaces with a honey-brown swarm of human presence. Martin looked bewilderedly at the long-limbed girls, and they smiled at him, three at once. Their smile was gentler than that of the boys, but no less radiantly self-possessed. ‘Self-possessed,’ Owen Pugh murmured to his friend, ‘that’s it. Think of it, to be oneself ten times over. Nine seconds for every motion, nine ayes on every vote. It would be glorious!’

Those most likely to replicate themselves will be those who are most narcissistic, and…the clones they produce will also be narcissists.

His last book…offered thematically rich, intersecting plotlines reaching from the 19th-century South Pacific to a far-future eco-nightmare peopled by clones.