Time Enough For Love (1973)
By Robert Heinlein
Cloning; Eugenics; Genetic engineering
Lazarus Long, oldest living member of the Howard Families, has become tired of his genetically-acquired and artificially-enhanced longevity, and seeks new adventures to justify his continued existence.
After 2,000 years of hard living, Lazarus Long (first introduced in Methuselah’s Children) decides to eschew artificial means of extending his life. The Howard Families – a community united by the originators’ participation in an eugenics project promoting longevity – cannot allow such potent genetic material to disappear from the common stock, and the Chairman kidnaps Lazarus before he can complete his suicide. The Howard Families are no longer unique, as cloned pseudobodies with “spare parts” and rejuvenation treatments can keep everyone alive indefinitely, but Lazarus is particularly prized for his inexplicable longevity. Initially reluctant to maintain life, Lazarus promises not to exercise his right to die as long as the Chairman can devise novel adventures for him. While Lazarus recounts amusing and shocking stories from his youth – including the story of “mirror twins,” who are genetically complementary zygotes from same-parent genetic material – the Chairman and his computer, Minerva, create a list of potential diversions for Lazarus. Two successful plans are a cross-gendered cloning of Lazarus, achieved through genetic engineering, and the implantation of Minerva’s artificial intelligence into a female body composed of ideal gene types. Lazarus’s adventures take him from Secundus to the new colony of Tertius, and finally, into the past as he time-travels to his grandfather’s heyday.
Lazarus has led a series of colonial expeditions over his lifetime, including the establishment of both Secundus and Tertius; each of these has reinforced Darwinian principles of selection, in that each migration culls the less capable or ambitious members of the community. Only the “best stock” can survive in harsh new frontiers, so colonization acts as a secondary – but no less effective – refining agent to the original eugenics plan which selected solely for longevity. Unlike Lazarus’s progeny, whose superior genetic line has been gradually reformed, Minerva selects the 23 chromosome pairs that will later become her physical form. The technological aspects of her transformation from computer to human are suspect – from the apparent mind-body disconnect, to the in vitro menarche that allows her to emerge a fully-functioning sexual being – but the concept invites questions on the nature of humanity. Minerva feels comfortable “borrowing” the chromosomes from various, unwitting donors because at this point of human evolution, genes have become communal property. The problem with this is that while these genes are preserved for their “superior” qualities for replication in future generations, the reproduction of only the “best” genetic material threatens the ecological balance maintained by Darwinian selection. One final, controversial aspect of the plot is the Longs’ engagement in voluntary incest. According to Lazarus, the Howard Families are the first to define incest in strictly genetic terms; because these families repeatedly interbreed to lengthen life spans, they had to be careful that the shared gene pools between breeding couples would have minimal deleterious consequences. Yet by the time Lazarus begins to sleep with his female clones, the entire genome has been mapped and genetic defects have been neutralized. Does the taboo of incest cease once the genetic ramifications are eliminated, and can social strictures be replaced by scientific probabilities?
Evaluation: The continued adventures of the Howard Families has its interesting moments, but for a more concise and engaging narrative, read Methuselah’s Children. While Heinlein addresses more extreme genetic possibilities in this novel, the plot is bogged down with (occasionally disturbing) “free love” philosophies.
– Natalie Champ