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Ah, but science fiction writer Ursula K. LeGuin has a remedy for that!

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In her outstanding short story titled “Nine Lives”, Ursula K. LeGuin introduces a "10-clone" – a group of ten people cloned from a scientist named John Chow. The 10-clone consists of 5 males and 5 females (LeGuin competently explains how a sterile female might be cloned from the cell of a donor male, but how the opposite – cloning a male from a female – could not be possible.)

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Each member of the clone is named “John Chow” (males and females included), except that their middle names are taken from the first 10 letters of the Hebrew alphabet: John Alef Chow, John Beth Chow, John Gimel Chow, John Daleth Chow, etc. The males and females have alternating alphabetical middle names (Alef, Gimel, etc. for the males; Beth, Daleth, etc. for the females), and each clone is informally referred to by his or her middle name.

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But, not to focus solely on the interesting naming pattern as suggested in this story, the story itself is a brilliant work of LeGuin’s – I personally consider it to be one of her best.

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Here’s a little background on “Nine Lives”:

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http://www.nvcc.edu/home/ataormina/scifi/works/stories/ninelives.htm

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-- Nanaea