The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Much of this world's history has been shaped by the constant attempts to shift the balance between the individual as an autonomous, self-directing, self-centered, and unique unit and the group society, where everyone's efforts go towards the general welfare, where the individual is merely a replaceable cog. This book takes this battle to the extreme, to where, via cloning, there really are no individuals, only copies, where anyone who disturbs the group is subject to extreme measures, from execution to severe behavioral/mind control to expulsion to the wilderness. True individuals come to be considered 'defective', as they cannot always accept the wishes of the group, they keep coming up with disturbingly new and different ideas, and they place themselves ahead of the group.

To bring about this society, Wilhelm starts with a fairly normal (for science fiction) scenario: due to man's constant pollution of the environment, new diseases appear, eventually either directly killing everyone (and almost all the land animal life also) or rendering them sterile. One group sees a way to save humanity by using cloning techniques, with some promise that after enough generations of cloning, some sexual reproductive capability will reappear.