Works of Thy Hands

Works of Thy Hands is a novel by American science fiction writers Gayla Bain Sill and January Taylor. The Chinese edition, translated by Ke De and Zhu Lianfen, was published in December 1999 by Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House in its Golden Eye Science Fiction Series. The story opens with what appears to be a perfect victory: athlete Bernice wins the women's decathlon, and her record and radiance make her the center of attention. Behind that glory, however, lies a genetic research project sponsored by the Eden Foundation—the "Edenites" bred by Dr. Katherine Jeananne. These beings are not born of a pair of parents; instead, genes from thousands of willing donors are gathered in test tubes and recombined into a so-called "perfect masterpiece." The Edenites have 48 chromosomes, while ordinary humans have only 46; they are claimed to be incomparably superior in physique, intellect, and spirit. The question then surfaces: are they legally and ethically "human"? When the Edenites are so outstanding, who would still want to be an ordinary mortal? Will true humans one day be replaced by the masterpieces they created? Driven by suspenseful plotting, the novel probes identity, reproductive ethics, and humanity's self-definition, and is one of the earlier Chinese-language science fiction novels on cloning introduced to Chinese readers in the late 1990s.