Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm

[yewtree]

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm is a beautiful book, well-crafted and thought-provoking. The characters are well-drawn, the shift of power from humans to clones is convincing, the prose is lyrical, the characters engaging (except for the poor degraded breeders). The only thing is, she doesn't go into quite enough detail about how the telepathy between the clones works, although an analogy is offered in the form of the rapport that exists between twins. But the return to individuality and the explanation for it is convincing, even if the explanation has been simplified for a non-psychology audience. It is interesting that Wilhelm does not envisage the possibility of temporary subsumption in a group mind followed by a return to individuality. The title comes from the fourth line of Shakespeare's Sonnet 73.