The Seventh Son by Sebastian Faulks

A child will be born who will change everything. Tech billionaire Lukas Parn has an ambitious plan. Behind the doors of the IVF clinic in his London institute, a daring switch is made. Young academic Talissa Adam believes she is simply carrying a child for a grateful family, but the baby inside her is different from any living human. The boy, Seth, grows up unaware, though his parents note that he’s different: he can’t make plans, is unaware of danger and seems to have at least one extra sense. But as Seth becomes a man, the truth about him is revealed and the world starts to hunt him down.

Our September BookBubbles Book Club choice, this is in many ways an uncomfortable read, raising issues around medical ethics and research, what is possible versus what is right and the human stories at the centre of any such scientific experiments. Set in the very near future, it is close enough to our experience to feel real, yet at the same time with enough difference for the advances in day to day life and medicine to feel other but not impossible. And that makes it all the more unsettling.  I didn’t find any of the main characters particularly warm or relatable but in its way that facilitated an intellectual distance, curiosity and considered response to the main premise and the possibilities and issues it suggested. A well-written exploration of what might be and a novel that really makes you think about the issues explored on many different levels.

Overall score: tbc

Range: tbc