Originally published in Playboy magazine (it was reprinted in The Wind's Twelve Quarters), the story uses human cloning to explore perceptions of self and other.

[1] Le Guin also disclosed that the inspiration for "Nine Lives" came from a chapter in Gordon Rattray Taylor's 1968 book, The Biological Time Bomb.

[1] In November 2012, "Nine Lives" was published in a two-part collection of short stories Le Guin released called The Unreal and the Real.

Volume two, where "Nine Lives" was published, was titled Outer Space Inner Lands and focused more on Le Guin's non-realistic stories.

[4] Other critics regard "Nine Lives" as being more "straight" Science Fiction, that doesn't challenge ideas of perspective or weave in messages.