Was the stirring Gerda smiling ever so slightly? Rubric's eyes darted back and forth from stirring Gerda to tantruming Gerda. The other Gerda just watched, slowly stirring the plaster so it wouldn't thicken and harden. Rubric was startled at how genuine the Klon's dictated emotions seemed to be. She balled her hands into fists and shook them at Rubric. The other Gerda, the one who hadn't slapped Rubric, threw down the cloth she was using to rub emollient on the bird. 'Gerda, throw a tantrum,' Panna Stencil Pavlina ordered. They do everything for their human counterparts. And in order for humans to have a more meaningful life free from menial labor, Klons are created. All children are created and raised in giant tubes until they are able to be born. In this future society, women do not even give birth anymore. In the distant future, male children are born with something wrong with them that ultimately causes them to become what the women call 'Cretinous Males.' They are physically and mentally weaker to a large degree, making them giant children essentially. Women not only run society, but they ARE society. Review: Imagine a world where men do not exist. As they face the unthinkable, the only thing they have left to believe in is their love for each other. The Doctors who rule Society want to silence Rubric and Salmon Jo. Their friends won’t believe them, and their teachers won’t help them. But when Rubric and Salmon Jo break into the laboratory where human and Klon babies are grown in vats, they uncover a terrifying secret that tears their idyllic world apart. In their all-female world, non-human slaves called Klons do all the work. She’s dating Salmon Jo, a brilliant and unpredictable girl. Sixteen-year-old Rubric loves her pampered life in the Academy dormitory. What does it take to survive in a world built on lies?

Swans and Klons by Nora Olsen