Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is a science fiction novel by Kate Wilhelm, published in 1976. Parts of it appeared in Orbit 15 in 1974. It was the recipient of the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1977, and was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1976. The title of the book is a quotation from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73. Massive environmental changes and global disease, attributed to large-scale pollution, cause the collapse of civ... More

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is a science fiction novel by Kate Wilhelm, published in 1976. Parts of it appeared in Orbit 15 in 1974. It was the recipient of the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1977, and was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1976. The title of the book is a quotation from William Shakespeare's Sonnet 73. Massive environmental changes and global disease, attributed to large-scale pollution, cause the collapse of civilization around the world. One large, well-to-do extended family sets up an isolated community in an attempt to survive the coming catastrophe. However, as the death toll mounts, due to a disease and other causes, they discover that they are universally infertile. After discovering that the infertility might be reversed after multiple generations of cloning, the family begins cloning themselves to survive. It is assumed that after enough generations of clones have been created and fertility restored, that sexual reproduction will be become...

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