Colony of Clones

Colony of Clones, the second book in an evocative sci-fi trilogy, explores the perilous politics bubbling up in an experimental community of human clones.

Rex and Dago, cloned from iconic historical figures, grapple for control over their fledgling settlement isolated from the outside world. Brilliant outcast Ator, cloned from Galileo, challenges the colony’s questionable doctrine before being banished by its authoritarian leader.

The clones, copied from the bone shards of ‘genetically superior’ personages, grow up ingrained with a heightened sense of superiority, entitlement and independence. But as clones based on long-dead people struggle to find identity and purpose, fissures split wide open and they find themselves navigating a world that is anything but certain.

When visitor Jake is brought to the secretive colony by the increasingly paranoid Dago, he bears uneasy witness to the psychological distress catalysed by experimental human cloning devoid of ethics. Dago’s own sister Mary grapples to break free from the trauma of being a clone caught out of time.

Probing the devastating ramifications of playing god in a lab, Colony of Clones examines human cloning through an absorbing character-driven narrative full of intrigue, thought experiments, and moral complexity.

This is Megan Egglestone’s second novel in a trilogy that imagines what it would be like to be a clone growing up in a small colony founded in Woomera, Australia. In this novel, the author probes the boundaries of science, ego, and id through a narrative of hero quests grounded by facts in the time of climate change.

As a fine art artist and dog lover, she exhibits her artwork in competitions and shows and breeds her Wire-Haired Dachshunds. She resides in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, Australia, where she shares her life with her four Wire-Haired Dachshunds.