"Who am I?" "Am I who I think I am?" The unease inherent in such ancient philosophical queries has been exploited by sf authors in very many ways, ranging from melodramatic banality to genuinely subtle questioning of the nature of our sense of selfhood. Identity is lost or confused, usually temporarily, inAmnesia scenarios. It is juggled in stories ofIdentity Exchange andIdentity Transfer, and eroded or sometimes enhanced byMemory Edits. Its uniqueness is threatened in a variety ofDoppelganger tropes ranging fromClones (where the sinister import of a similarity no greater than that of identical twins tends to be exaggerated), artificially created doubles,Matter Duplication, self-encounter viaTime Travel or transfer betweenParallel Worlds, andUpload leading to the possibility of multiple softwareAvatars. Uncertainty about aCyborg's true identity is central toWho? (April 1955Fantastic Universe; exp1958) by AlgisBudrys; GeneWolfe offers a thoughtful examination of theClone identity issue in the first part ofThe Fifth Head of Cerberus (fixup1972), the nature (and presentation, and concealment) of identity being indeed central to any Wolfe novel featuring a first-person narrator.

Some standard revelations of hidden identity have becomeClichés through overuse. A protagonist may prove to be secretly aRobot, as in Philip KDick's classic treatments "Impostor" (June 1953Astounding) and "The Electric Ant" (October 1969F&SF); anAlien, as in A Evan Vogt's "Asylum" (May 1942Astounding); or – very frequently – aSuperman, as invan Vogt'sThe World of Ā (August-October 1945Astounding; rev1948; vtThe World of Null-A1953 dos), whose hero also suffers from partialAmnesia caused by aMemory Edit. RogerZelazny deploys most of these shifts, accompanied by a lecture on the frailty of identity, in an early scene ofCreatures of Light and Darkness (1969).

Criminal personalities are destroyed and therapeutically rebuilt in AlfredBester'sThe Demolished Man (January-March 1952Galaxy;1953), RalphBlum'sThe Simultaneous Man (1970) and RobertSilverberg'sThe Second Trip (1972); the latter's plot turns on the partial survival of the "bad" identity. Outside the realm ofCrime and Punishment, further recreated identities feature in JamesBlish's "A Work of Art" (July 1956Science Fiction Stories as "Art-Work"; vt inScience Fiction Showcase, anth1959, ed Mary Kornbluth), in which the musician Richard Strauss (1864-1949) is artificially and temporarily reincarnated in the body of a volunteer; and MarcelTheroux'sStrange Bodies (2013), one of whose similarly (but more cruelly and involuntarily) recreated personalities is that of SamuelJohnson. Both tales lead the victims to a desolating awareness of not being real; of possessing the mannerisms but not the essence of their originals.

Those who assume a false identity may find it becoming reality, as in MaxBeerbohm's fantasyThe Happy Hypocrite: a Fairy Tale for Tired Men (October 1897The Yellow Book;1897 chap), whose protagonist's debauched face is transformed by the (literal) wearing of a saintly mask. The flawed actor-hero who doubles for a politician in Robert AHeinlein'sDouble Star (February-April 1956Astounding;1956) ultimately grows to equal and replace his model. The Jewish hero looking forChrist in MichaelMoorcock'sBehold the Man (September 1966New Worlds; exp1969), the protagonist seeking a minor Victorian poet viaTime Travel in TimPowers'sThe Anubis Gates (1983; rev1984) and the man searching for his lost religious mentor in GeneWolfe'sBook of the Short Sun (1999-2001) all find themselves standing in for, and in various ways becoming, the objects of their quests.

Some form of Cartesian duality, with identity somehow independent of the body that sustains it, is frequently assumed in sf – rationalizing the immortal-soul concept of mostReligions. CliffordSimak'sWay Station (June-August 1963Galaxy as "Here Gather the Stars";1963), whoseMatter Transmission is reallyMatter Duplication with travellers' surplus (and lifeless) bodies left behind, posits a future scientific proof that identity is indivisible and follows the transmitted body. Eric FrankRussell'sSentinels from Space (November 1951Startling as "The Star Watchers"; exp1953; vtSentinels of Space1954 dos) rationalizes the soul as the mature energy-being of which our corporeal existence is merely the larval stage; BobShaw similarly imagines human survival in energy form as "egons" inThe Palace of Eternity (1969) while Philip JoséFarmer does the same (albeit at a much lower level ofTranscendence) with "sembs" inTraitor to the Living (1973) – leading in all these cases to the possibility of purely rationalReincarnation.

Splitting or fragmentation of identity is dealt with in many more or less metaphorical sf/fantasy stories, perhaps most famously Robert LouisStevenson'sStrange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), where the split is achieved throughDrugs. A more literal split, with personality fractions occupying separate physical bodies, is found in ItaloCalvino'sIl Visconte dimezzato ["The Cloven Viscount"] (1952) and RobertSheckley'sThe Alchemical Marriage of Alistair Crompton (December 1958Galaxy as "Join Now" as by Finn O'Donnevan; vt "The Humors" inStore of Infinity, coll1960; exp1978; vtCrompton Divided1978). Conversely, AlfredBester's "Fondly Fahrenheit" (August 1954F&SF) portrays a single deranged personality flickering between two individuals, one anAndroid, and BrianAldiss's "Let's Be Frank" (1957Science Fantasy #23) imagines a growing subset of humanity whose single personality is scattered through many bodies as a linkedHive Mind. Multiple identities (seePsychology) share the body on a rota system in WymanGuin's "Beyond Bedlam" (August 1951Galaxy), emerge under pressure ofTorture in Lois McMasterBujold'sMirror Dance (1994), and are cultivated as useful mental enhancements in Walter JonWilliams'sAristoi (1992) – where a rogue identity that refuses to join the hero's internal consensus proves to be his salvation. Identities are routinely split and merged in suchUpload-aware fictions as GregBear'sEon (1985), DavidBrin'sKiln People (2002; vtKil'n People2002), CoryDoctorow's "I, Row-Boat" (Fall 2006Flurb) and GregEgan'sIncandescence (2008). Identities are systematically eroded into products of a pervasiveMedia Landscape in RayLoriga'sRendición (2017; trans Carolina de Robertis asSurrender2019).

NigelDennis'sCards of Identity (1955) is a dark comedy based on the notion that identity is fragile and that charlatans can impose new identities on their victims by sheer persuasiveness. Thomas MDisch's "The Asian Shore" (inOrbit 6, anth1970, ed DamonKnight) charts the unexplained transformation of an American's identity into that of an undistinguished Turk. Identity is directly modified by electrical or electromagnetic intervention in VincentHarper'sThe Mortgage on the Brain (1905), in JackChalker'sThe Identity Matrix (1982) and – plausibly and unpleasantly – in ScottBakker'sNeuropath (2008). GregEgan has written several disturbing explorations of the theme; these include "Learning to be Me" (July 1990Interzone), which focuses in detail on the process ofUpload, "Mister Volition" (October 1995Interzone), which deconstructs the very concepts of identity and free will, and "Reasons to be Cheerful" (April 1997Interzone), whose protagonist becomes able to program his own emotional states. PeterWatts'sBlindsight (2006) draws extensively on neurological research to mount (as does the already-citedNeuropath) a strong attack on the comforting sense that identity and self-awareness are central or even useful to our existence. JohnScalzi'sThe Ghost Brigades (2006) andThe Last Colony (2007) feature an imperfectlyUplifted alien species which has been given intelligence but not self-awareness: in the second book they acquire a prosthetic sense of identity via brain/computer interfacing. A similar problem, here unsolved, afflicts the highly intelligentRobotVillain of Barrington JBayley'sThe Rod of Light (1985). [DRL]

see also:Memory;Ruritania.

further reading

• Daniel C Dennett and DouglasHofstadter, editors.The Mind's I: Fantasies and reflections on self and soul (New York: Basic Books,1981) [anth: stories and essays: hb/René Magritte]
• DouglasHofstadter.I Am a Strange Loop (New York: Basic Books,2007) [nonfiction: hb/William Frucht]

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