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THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS by Gene Wolfe

THE FIFTH HEAD OF CERBERUS

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Pub Date: May 31st, 1972
Publisher: Scribners

Three loosely interdependent novellas, which reveal from time to time, the zigzag planetary travel of Earth scientist John V. Marsch. Among the multitudinous clones on Sainte Croix, Marsch confronts a son-duplicate about to kill his father; on Sainte Anne he pursues the vanished aboriginals and the elusive, probably Earth-derived, ""Shadow People""; and finally he is suspended forever in a society where absolute power equals absolute truth. An extravagant mosaic of plausibilities and it all could take place within a mass consciousness between abo and clone. . . or in the head of J. V. Marsch? Dazzling if sometimes blinding.