âA Modern twist on the story of David and Bathsheba.â
Set in a future where clones are seen as second-class citizens and Normals are threatened by their own creation, Scarlet and her Mate Dagmar must fight for their own freedom and survival. Scarlet was created to be the vessel for an aging actress's brain when she reached maturity. But when her creator dies before the transplant can take place, Scarlet is sold to a clone breeding farm, and only narrowly escapes a terrible fate to rejoin her mate Dagmar and his band of âwildâ clones.
Desperate for a different future, Scarlet joins her mate Dagmar and his band of 'Wild' Clones, who have rebelled against their mastersâ and are trying to build their own society. But when their leader, Napoleon, makes a deal with the illegal Portal gatekeepers to find a world for the Free Clone Colony of Halcyon, Scarlet discovers there is a heavy price for her dream of freedom. Napoleon wants Scarlet. She will be forced to choose between her mate Dagmar whom she loves or giving in to Napoleonâs demands.
âA Modern twist on the story of David and Bathsheba.â
Set in a future where clones are seen as second-class citizens and Normals are threatened by their own creation, Scarlet and her Mate Dagmar must fight for their own freedom and survival. Scarlet was created to be the vessel for an aging actress's brain when she reached maturity. But when her creator dies before the transplant can take place, Scarlet is sold to a clone breeding farm, and only narrowly escapes a terrible fate to rejoin her mate Dagmar and his band of âwildâ clones.
Desperate for a different future, Scarlet joins her mate Dagmar and his band of 'Wild' Clones, who have rebelled against their mastersâ and are trying to build their own society. But when their leader, Napoleon, makes a deal with the illegal Portal gatekeepers to find a world for the Free Clone Colony of Halcyon, Scarlet discovers there is a heavy price for her dream of freedom. Napoleon wants Scarlet. She will be forced to choose between her mate Dagmar whom she loves or giving in to Napoleonâs demands.
EARTH in the 24th century was a mess. Instead of an advanced culture reaching out in space to other planets, it had degenerated into a world of chaos. The often-predicted movement of the global plates changed the entire topography of the planet, helping to destroy countries and governments. Two thirds of the coast range of North America slid into the oceanâs embrace, causing massive destruction of the heavily populated cities along its shores. To add to Earthâs woes, a series of global pandemics devastated the populated countries in Europe, the Americas, Africa, and the orient. In an attempt to regain control of the cities, governments initiated martial law, and established a draconian response to the rioting caused by panic and shortages of food, power and other necessities.
  Industrial giants took advantage of the pandemonium caused by the economic and social upheavals to take biosciences in directions previously forbidden. They learned how to create human clones and began marketing them to consumers who could afford to purchase them, introducing a form of slavery according to some advocates of human rights. Other groups declared the clones were abominations and should be destroyed. The Clone Breeders declared the clones were nothing more than artificially created biological machines and exempt from human rights laws.Â
  Large companies like the Parallel Genetic Agency (PGA) were the leading lights in the new industry of human Cloning. It was to them that Dorothea Dandridge, once a big name in the vid industry, went when she conceived the idea of creating a clone in her image and transplanting her brain into it when the body reached maturity. Since she didnât want to relive either her childhood or adolescence over again, she determined the transplant would take place when Scarlet (aka Six) was in her twenties. Since what Dorothea planned was still illegal (the status of Clones and what rights, if any, they were entitled to, being undecided) and she wanted no barriers to resuming her role as an aspiring actress, she saw to it that (Six as the makers dubbed her) Scarlet (a self-chosen name, allowing her to pass as normal while she grew out of adolescence) was educated to move in society as a normal human and Dorothea ordered them to not mark the DNA with the usual clone makers identifying symbol.
  Scarlet Jones had always known she was a clone. It had been drilled into her that her choices were not her own. She spent the first years of her life at a clone breeding farm where she was educated to move in normal society.Â
  The Clone Farm where Scarlet was created was located in the hills above San Demos, California. Her embryo was decanted in the nursery section, and she lived there with other young clones until she was ten years old. While there, she met a large variety of other clones created and bred for different uses. The Farm used numbers and letters to designate each clone, but many of the clones developed their own names which they used among themselves. A young man who called himself Dagmar Ironroar was who Scarlet remembered best. He and the others in his group were destined to become cage fighters in the televised gladiator games. Dagmar was very intelligent (he had also been bred for strategy and leadership) and he was kind to the lonely girl.
  Most clones were not educated beyond what they needed to know for the specific tasks they would perform as adults. Scarlet was an exception. The young clones who shared her dormitory were fortunate the PGA employees were too lazy to prevent them from sharing the education program provided for her. Her owner, Dorothea Dandridge, had required a very specific educational curriculum; Scarlet was taught dancing, tumbling, English literature, and drama. She learned how to walk and speak by watching old videos of her owner, who was a famous actress.
  Until she was seven years old, she saw her owner once a year. When she turned eight, the views became twice a year. When she was ten, she was moved out of the clone farm and into her ownerâs home. She hadnât been given an opportunity to say goodbye to any of her companions, and in any case, Dagmar and the others had moved on some time ago to a compound where they received further training in fighting skills.
  When she arrived at the Dandridge estate, Scarlet was met by two women, Miss Simpson, a gaunt, middle-aged woman, who would oversee her new lessons, and Lydia Smithers, a younger woman with kind eyes.
  âPick a name from this list,â she was ordered. It was a list of famous actresses from 19th century earth. The name âScarletâ caught her eyes.Â
  âThis one,â she said.
  The new teacher, whom she had been told to address as Miss Simpson, nodded. âVery well, your name is now Scarlet. You will no longer answer to Six, do you understand?â
  Scarlet hesitated. âIâm not sure.â
  âShe needs a last name as well,â Miss Dandridge said. âSomething common that will be difficult to trace.â
  âWhat about Jones?â Simpson asked.
  âYes, that will do,â Miss Dandridge nodded her head of thinning hair. Once a tall, beautiful blond, she was showing her age. She leaned heavily on her ornate cane.
  âTeach her well,â she said, turning to leave.
  Scarlet looked after her, puzzled.
  Miss Simpson walked around Scarlet, studying her. âI donât see a resemblance, myself,â she said.
  âIâve seen the photos; she is very like her at that age,â said Lydia Smithers, entering the room. She laid out a set of clothes on the bed.
  âChange into those, Miss Scarlet,â she said.
  âThis is Smithers,â Miss Simpson said. âShe will be tending your clothes and teaching you how to dress.â
TWELVE YEARS LATER, Scarlet was told she was going to be given a chance to exercise her nascent acting skills. A studio was re-making Spartacus, and she was to play the role of Varinia, the love interest for Spartacus.
  âDoes the director know Iâm a clone?â she asked hesitantly.
  âYes,â Miss Simpson said. âAll the actors will be clones. I understand Spartacus and the others will be played by a group of cage fighting clones. The director wants the fight scenes to be authentic.â
  Scarlet was delighted to realize the leader of the cage fighters was a childhood friend. âDagmar?â she asked when she was introduced to them, âDo you recognize me?â
  He stared at her. His appearance had certainly changed, she supposed hers had as well. He was now over six foot tall, with heavily muscled shoulders, arms, and legs. Glittering tattoos ran up his arms and over onto his back and chest. He had shaved his hair.
  âSix?â he asked cautiously.Â
  âItâs Scarlet now,â she told him. âI go by Scarlet Jones. My owner insisted I get accustomed to a human sounding name.â
  âWell, you look different,â he said, his eyes going over her superb figure, revealed by the toga costume she wore as a slave girl, her beautiful face, and long, honey-blond hair.
  He eyed her. âHave you read the script?â
  âYes,â she said. âI understand we are to be lovers in the vid.â
  âYes,â he said. âHave you done something like this before?â
  Scarlet shook her head. âThis is my first time. Iâm a little nervous.â
  He grinned at her. âMaybe we can get together and practice before we have to perform it on camera.â
  âMaybe,â she agreed.
  Between scenes Scarlet spent most of her free time with Dagmarâs group. The other clones were a little suspicious of her, but soon became friendly. Two of the women, Nara Kildevil and Eyja Deatheye were also veteran cage fighters. Both women were as tall as Scarlet, with smooth muscles. Like the three men, they had been tattooed with glittering patterns of mythical animals. Both womenâs faces were tattooed around the eyes to give the illusion of a mask. Two of the other men, Killian Wolfcrest and Hogun Silverthorn, were large, like Dagmar and also carried tattoos. The five of them had often competed as a team in the televised games. Like Dagmar, both men had shaved their scalps, but Hogun was blond, and Killian was very dark-skinned; his tattoos barely showed unless he was under the studio lights.
  Pursuant to their plan of rehearsing the sex scenes they would be required to perform on camera. Scarlet and Dagmar arranged to meet at her secret place, an abandoned shell of a house just off the edge of the Dandridge estate. Scarlet had discovered it the first year she had spent in the Dandridge home. The house had a basement which was mostly intact. Over the years, Scarlet had managed to furnish it with an old mattress, pillows, and blankets as well as an old chair she had repaired. The place also had what she considered her secret hidey-hole: a loose panel near the fireplace, she had hollowed out to keep things she didnât want anyone to know she possessed.
  The night she and Dagmar arranged to meet to ârehearseâ their sex scene, she had filched a bottle of wine and some leftover finger foods from the larder.Â
  It was wonderful, but afterwards, Scarlet turned over and cried.
  âWhatâs wrong?â Dagmar asked, blaming her distress on his sexual performance. Like most men he had a very personal view of anything sexual. âWhat did I do wrong?â
  Scarlet sat up, wiping her eyes. âNothing. You did it perfectly.â
  âThen why are you crying?â
  âBecause I donât want to lose this. Iâm going to die soon. I hope I will take this memory with me.â
  âWhat?â
  âI wasnât supposed to know, but in three weeks, the old hag is going to have her brain transplanted into my body.â
  âWhat? I didnât think that was possible.â
  Scarlet wept harder. âIt might fail. But it doesnât matter. Donât you see, Iâll be just as dead.â
  âAre you sure?â
  Scarlet pulled a Kleenex out of the box on the bed and wiped her eyes. Her nose was running so she blew it. âYes, Iâm sure.â
  âWhat happens to your brain afterwards?â
  âWhat usually happens when a Normal uses one of us for spare parts! I think itâs called medical waste.â
  âI didnât want to tell you yet, but the team and I have a plan. Weâre going to escape. Come with us.â
  She shook her head. âWeâll just be caught.â
  âWeâre good. We know how to blend in. Weâll teach you.â
  âYou fool, all of us have a tracking device implanted when weâre decanted. They can use it to find us.â
  He frowned at her. âWhere did you hear that? Maybe itâs a lie.â
  âItâs not.â She pulled her hair off her neck turning her back to him. âItâs located under the skin, here.â She took his hand and brought his fingers to her hairline. âFeel that? itâs the implant. You have one too.â
  âIf it was implanted, it can be taken out,â he said stubbornly.
  âHow?â
  âWeâll cut it out,â he said.
  She stared at him. âCan you do that?â
  âWe wonât have to do it ourselves,â he said. âI think we can force the team doctor to take them out. Heâs a little afraid of us anyway.â
  âOh,â she said. âUmmâwonât he tell your owner?â
  He shrugged. âIt wonât matter. By then we will be gone.â
  âYouâll need money,â she said thoughtfully. âI think I know where we can get some.â
  âWhere?â
  âThe old woman hoards money because she doesnât trust the banks. She has a stash hidden in the atticâWhen I was a child I hid there for some reason. While I was hiding, I saw her get some cash out of it.â
  âThat would mean going back to her house,â he protested. âI had thought you would simply disappear with us.âÂ
  âThey wonât do the operation until the twenty-fifth of this month. Itâs some kind of special date for her. Iâll have time to get the money.â
  âWhat makes you so sure she will wait until then?â
  âSheâs very superstitious. Before sheâorderedâme created, she had an astrological reading done. It said she would be reborn on the twenty-fifth. Iâm confident she will wait until then.â
  Because he didnât want to deal with the regulations concerning transporting clones, their owner, Jackson Robards, had rented several three-bedroom trailers in a motor home park about a mile from the studio. He told the owner of the park they were extras in the movie. Because he wanted his clone teams to pass as human, Robards provided relatively loose supervision of them, relying on the team doctor who was also staying in the trailer park, to keep an eye on them.Â
  Robards had been willing to lease his fighters to make the vid because the producer offered him a lot of credits.
  âYour fighters will add a note of reality to the fight scenes in the vid,â the producer explained to Jackson. âItâs the main reason I am willing to pay your exorbitant rental fees.â
  Subsequently, the director cast Dagmar as Spartacus and another clone, Scarlet Jones as Varinia, Spartacusâs love interest in the vid. Hogan had been cast as Antonius and Killian as Gracchus. The two women were cast as extras who alternately played slaves or gladiators.
  Unfortunately for the director and the producer, the premise of the movie (Spartacus) had unintended consequences: itâs theme of rebellion against slavery resonated so strongly with Dagmar in particular, he became determined to escape their captivity, and swayed the others to his viewpoint. They all knew that while their present situation was comfortable, it would become less so as they grew older. Clones typically didnât have a long lifespan. When they reached middle age and their usefulness declined, they would be âretiredâ or destroyed.
  The trailer park where Jackson had located Dagmar and the others was only about four miles from the Dandridge estate.
  After he left Scarlet, Dagmar made the run back to the park at an easy jog. When he arrived back at the three-bedroom trailer he and five other fighters were living in, he found everyone asleep but Hogun Silverthorne, who was lying on the couch reading a book acquired from a local free library. The third man on their team, Killian Wolfcrest was asleep in one of the rooms. Hogun and Killian shared unofficial second in command duties. Like Dagmar, Hogan was big, about six foot four with tattoos of mythical animals on his chest, back and forearms. They hadnât been consulted about the tattoos; Robards thought it made them look more intimidating so after he purchased the men at auction, he ordered it done. The three men had been bred specifically to fight in the televised gladiator games. Their owner, Jackson Robards, had invested heavily in the televised version of the games and wanted his own teams of fighters. Over the next few years, Robards had purchased several women fighters as well: Eyja Deatheye and Nara Kildevil had immediately paired with two of Dagmarâs inner circle, Hogun Silverthorne and Killian Wolfcrest. Robards was indifferent to the relationship which developed between Eyja and Hogun and Nara and Killian, other than to ensure the women were supplied with birth control patches.
  Hogun looked up from his book. âWell? Did you speak to her about coming with us?â
  âI did,â Dagmar said grimly. âSheâs on board, but she pointed out an obstacle we didnât know about.â
  âWhatâs that?â
  âFeel up under your hairline at the base of your neck. Is there a small lump there?â
  Hogun set the book aside and did as instructed. âYes, I feel it. What is it?â
  âItâs a tracking implant. Weâll have to get them taken out before we escape, or Robards will be able to haul us right back.â
  âWe all have these?â
  âYes. According to Scarlet, they were implanted just before we were decanted.â
  âWell, that sucks. Can we take them out ourselves?â
  âI thought we would just make Dr. Leoni do it.â
  Hogun nodded. âHe would do it, but heâll talk afterwards. You know that.â
  âNot if heâs dead.â
  âWhoâs dead?â Eyja Deatheye, who usually shared Hogunâs bed, stood in the doorway, frowning at them. She was tall for a woman, almost six feet, with heavily muscled arms and legs. She wore her white-blond hair in a short bob.
  âHow long have you been standing there?â Dagmar asked.
  âNot long. Your jabber woke me up. Whatâs going on?â
  âSit down, Eyja,â Hogun sat up and patted the couch beside him.
  Yawning, she came over and snuggled up beside him, tucking her bare feet up under her.
  âWe were discussing our escape plans. We need to remove our tracking implants before we leave so we canât be traced.â
  She rubbed her eyes. âWhat implants?â
  Hogun took her hand and guided it to the lump on the back of her neck, rubbing the implant. âFeel that? Itâs the implant.â
  âHow do we get rid of it?â
  âThatâs what we were just discussing.â
  âWeâll need money too,â Eyja said practically. âHow do you plan to get some?â
  âScarlet says the old woman has a secret cache of coins and bills.â
  âIs she going with us?â
  âYes,â Dagmar said. âI want to do it soon. They will finish up the crucifixion scenes day after tomorrow. I overheard the director say he intended to spend several weeks editing the vid. I want to be gone as soon as weâre done filming.âÂ
I was instantly intrigued by the premise of Gail Daley's book Cloned Ambition, which is the latest in a series but can be read as a stand alone novel. I am a huge fan of works of science fiction/fantasy and always enjoy a strong female protagonist.
Basically, after a series of disasters, the Earth is no longer a hospitable place for those humans ("Normals") who are not wealthy and for clones who are bought and sold and often raised to provide a replacement body for a rich client.
The reader is introduced to Scarlet, destined to be the vessel for an aging actress and currently being educated and trained at a facility for clones and we also meet her childhood friend Dagmar. At the age of ten she is sent off to live with her "owner" and then the story jumps ahead ten years.
After the actress unexpectedly dies, Scarlet is sold and ends up reuniting with Darker and a romantic partnership ensues. As their clone group struggles to achieve freedom and start anew in a different and fresh colony, a lot of action and drama occurs. Will they achieve their goals? Can Scarlet avoid the clutches of Napoleon, a clone leader who is infatuated with her?
The author clearly has a vivid imagination and has created a detailed world with many of the popular science fiction themes. There are travel portals and classic examples of good and evil both amongst the clones and the "Normals" and many readers of this genre will enjoy this saga.
That said, the novel could use some proofreading and editing. There are many grammatical issues such as misspellings and incorrect capitalizations and sentences that could benefit from a better flow. The ten year time jump between Scarlet at age 10 and at age 22 is a bit abrupt and jarring and leaves out a good chunk of her most formative years.
Lastly, this reader found some of the dialogue to be a bit stilted and unnatural and sometimes inappropriate to the character. The novel will hold the interest of the reader and is sufficiently engaging - it generates a desire to see how it ends and who lives and who dies.