Talissa Adams decides to be a surrogate for a couple who are unable to have children. The Parn Institute instigate the IVF treatment but decide to interfere with genetics
When Seth is born, he is different. Researchers delve and probe into 'what he is'.
Are we right, as humans, to interfere or should nature be left alone?

I thought the concept was very interesting, but found the writing dull. This meant I didn't engage with the characters, especially Seth, who I didn't feel was that different - lots of people are like him. The techincal explanations were long-winded and unnecessary, yet the morality of what was done wasn't really dealt with. I think this book could have been so much more.

Set in the near future, this novel explores some challenging ideas around what it means to be human. Talisa, an American academic, agrees to be a surrogate mother for an English couple in exchange for funding to continue her career development. But the super-rich owner of the institute that is to carry out the procedure plans to execute an outlandish plan. Experimental and corrupt, it is to have huge consequences for Talisa, the parents and Seth, the child.

It's definitely best not to give too much away here, so suffice to say it explores the genesis of some of the challenges each of us might have to deal with in our lifetime – challenges we’d all rather not have to address. There’s a good deal of very technical talk here which sounds authentic (though I really have no idea if that’s the case) and in part it states the case for the ‘experiment’. So it’s part a story how things play out, particularly for Talisa and Seth, but it’s also a discussion on the positive and negative aspects of how humans have to this point evolved.

As I’ve previously experienced with this author, the writing is really strong; Faulks certainly knows how to string words together. I was particularly drawn to Seth, a boy and then a young man who is just a bit different to others. The developing relationship between he and Talisa is, though, a bit odd – uncomfortable and somewhat spooky. But it’s certainly an eye opening piece: a mix of science and history, woven into a story of people living in a world that has moved on from where we are at present. This new world made me smile too, with its predictions as to what developments we might expect as the 21st century progresses. If the author set out to tease the minds of his readers, to make us ponder on the conundrum of what we are and how we got here, then I do believe he succeeded.

This book is set in the near future and centres on the ethical and moral issues arising from an attempt to recreate a hybrid Neanderthal/modern man.
I found this book difficult to read because I couldn't work out how realistic the biological science was. I also felt that it was integrated into the plot in a rather clumsy way, relying on rather unrealistic expository conversations between the characters. I think it is difficult for authors to write about science in a way that is convincing in context yet assumes no prior knowledge in the reader - Richard Powers is very good at this but it can be a problem for many novelists.
This was disappointing as I have greatly enjoyed Sebastian Faulks' earlier books.
Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Whilst enjoyed this book I didn’t like it as much as previous novels by Sebastian Faulks. Faulks takes a new direction with this story set in the future. Whilst the parts describing genetics and the combining of DNA from separate species were very interesting I did find the storyline quite far fetched. I also didn’t really like the relationship that developed between Talissa and Seth.

the seventh son

Talissa Adam is looking to fund her post doctoral research in USA and thinks she has the solution. The Parn Institute will pay her to act as surrogate for a couple in England. They tell her they are researching IVF but the unscrupulous billionaire owner, Parn, really has a life changing experiment in mind.

Seth, the baby, is the result but he is soon seen to be different from other children. As an adult this becomes a very real problem for him.

An interesting story but I found it difficult to engage. Some of the events seemed very unlikely to me, especially near the end of the novel. And there was an added layer of discomfort as the reader considers these.

I cannot say I enjoyed this novel. Well written as you would expect from Faulks but it just did not engage me. There were echoes of John the Savage from Brave New World by Aldous Huxley so if that is your kind of reading you might enjoy this.

I read a copy provided by NetGalley and the publishers but my views are my own.

Sebastian Faulks has written a very thought provoking book with this one. Certainly one of his best, for me. It is difficult to tell too much about the plot without giving too much away but it is set in the near future - 15-40 years from the present. Life is different, but also much the same as we know it. Scientists are still pushing the boundaries of what is ethically acceptable and thereby lies the basis of this story. Very well written with interesting characters and a steady progression through the plot. It will be a book that stays with me for a very long time, especially the ending. With thanks to NetGalley, Random House and the author for the e-ARC to read and review.

It's 2030 and Talissa, an American graduate needs finance to support a PhD. She studies ancient humanoid species and in a journal reads about the Parn Institute financed by a billionaire who is offering remuneration to surrogate mothers. Talissa travels and stays in London for a year and has a baby for a lovely, down to earth couple. However, unbeknown to any of them, Parn has bribed the head scientist to exchange the sperm in order to carry out a genetic experiement and monitor the child born from it.

I thought the premise was really great for this novel and I was interested to see how it would play out. Overall I enjoyed the book but I felt the prose was rather cold and disconnected which I also felt with Ian McEwan's recent novel, Lessons. I also felt that like Lessons, The Seventh Son had a lot of dead ends and extraneous details and stories that distracted from the main plot and it was never quite clear to me exactly what Parn hoped to find out. It's a long book and I felt a little let down after finishing it.

In the days of genetic investigation, and the hopes of some to resurrect lost species, such as those in Jurassic Park, Sebastian Faulks investigates this further.
His imagination is phenomenal, his writing is superb.
The storyline fits together well, and he gently nudges the reader into knowing where he is going.
I love this style of writing, and the author is a genius of this genre.
Another gem. I never get tired of reading this author's books.
Thank you for a wonderful, stimulating book, and thanks to the publisher for an advanced reader's copy for honest review.

I haven't read any other Sebastian Faulks books or seen any of the films based on the books so maybe the things I found difficult are part of his style. I found the book to be very choppy with abrupt changes of topic and I seemed to detect different styles within the writing with some of it almost like a textbook.

I don't know much about either genetics or the history/development of humans but there is a lot of info about it in this book - in fact, i thought there was too much. I don't know enough about the subject matter to know if the long explanations are meant to be satirical or funny but I didn't enjoy reading them.

I found it all quite meandering until about 80% through it when we started to concentrate on Seth (or Ess as he so cutely called himself when he was young). I was very interested in his attempts to avoid discovery but just as it was getting good, it finished in what I felt was an abrupt and unsatisfactory way.

i would also suggest that if an inability to plan or to understand consequences is characteristic of neanderthals, then a lot of young men today should be getting their DNA tested.

There are moments in the book which shocked me, such as when the journalist suggests that Seth is not a man and does not have the same rights as "humans". It would never occur to me that people could think that way but it does make you think I suppose about what exactly makes a person human. For example, when they ask Seth how it feels to be him, how can he (or indeed anyone) explain - each of us only knows what it is to be ourself, we have nothing else for comparison.

The blurb says that the book "asks the question: just because you can do something, does it mean you should?" for me, this is not a dilemma - the answer is "no". I am inclined to feel that genetic experimentation is immoral and that scientists go too far in the pursuit of knowledge, regardless of the effect of their experiments. Anyway, even if we can, what is the point of bringing aurochs etc., back? Not only are they gone, the world they inhabited is gone. Why do scientists seem to feel that humanity has the right to meddle with other species just to benefit humans?

Perhaps I am dense but I also fail to see how the birth of the seventh son changes everything.

All in all, a disappointing read which did not match the description in the blurb.

This was an interesting storyline. Whilst it was futuristic, it was not in a spacey/roboty way. Really thought provoking and loved the vision of the future portrayed in places.

I felt so sorry for Seth our main male character as I can’t imagine not feeling feelings but also not being aware that other people felt feelings or had dreams. I did however envy his sense of animal awareness as I wish I could understand what my dog is thinking!

Our other main character again I felt for as she gave up her relationship and feel that she never fully knew what to do with herself after that initial London visit.

Talissa has agreed to be a surrogate mother for a childless couple in exchange for funds for her university degree.
Behind the scenes in the IVF clinic there is an experiment planned that she knows nothing about.
I liked the storyline and the characters in this book but I found the science a bit hard to understand in parts.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK Cornerstone for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

A powerful novel about what it is to be human. The Parn Institute works with genetics and is experimenting with resurrecting long-dead species, including human species. Through the institute, a couple have a baby through IVF with Talissa as their surrogate. As the child grows up, it becomes apparent that he is subtly different from his peers…

This novel is intelligent but emotional, a book that engages both your brain and your heart.

Having been impressed by Sebastian Faulks' previous books I was really looking forward to reading this new release. Unfortunately it did not meet my expectations.
Set in the near future the main premise of the story was the substitution of the fathers sperm that was going to father a surrogate mother, Talissa with a Neanderthal sperm generated from ancient DNA.The son born of this union was Seth and he was observed for many years by the Institute responsible for his birth. Talissa was given a lock of Seth's hair by his parents , and being an anthropologist got a contact to check the DNA profile and finding out the truth about Seth's birth. She confronted the institute who said they would not let the identity come out.Somehow it did and Seth and Talissa went on the run , ending up on a remote Scottish island, The supposed political choices that had been made by the U.K and separately Scotland , appear, as things are at the moment,mildly ludicrous.

A different genre of book for me which I enjoyed.
First book by this author that I have read.
Thanks for the opportunity to read & review this book.

Sebastian Faulks is a good storyteller and this is a great story. Talissa needs money to complete her post-doctorate research and comes across a document from a clinic in London seeking surrogate mothers. She contacts them and is drawn in by the research aspects of the project which eventually turn out to be not quite what they seemed! The Institute involved, run by Luke Parn a wealthy billionaire, has found a way of extracting Neanderthal DNA in such a way that it can be used to produce a child. That is secret, corrupt and illegal but it happens!

Talissa’s child, the hybrid, is called Seth and the adoptive parents Alaric and Mary bring him up as their own. From here, Sebastian Faulks begins to enquire into a whole series of what ifs?

The story is well researched, the science is explained and there’s an idea about how and why other and crafty species, especially those who had developed self-awareness, crossbred the Neanderthals into extinction. There’s an interesting side debate into whether that self-awareness increased the possibility of mental illness in the species. The ethical aspects are always there but not overplayed.

What the book does really well is to introduce these different threads into a convincing narrative. As readers, it is possible to understand the motivation of Talissa in the first place but also to see how she is more likely than some people to develop her own suspicions. Luke Parn does his best to keep things under wraps but in the end it becomes chaotic, leading to a sad but perhaps inevitable climax.

It’s a topical, relevant read but also a well told story and, as everyone knows, if something becomes scientifically possible someone, somewhere, is going to have a try at doing it.

I am not actually sure how I feel about this book. It started well as a futuristic tale of IVF and then developed into, in my opinion, a strange scientific experiment. There were issues brought up which did make you think but overall it didn’t wow me. The characters were well presented, the writing was good although there were some scientific explanations which were too difficult for me to understand fully and I felt I would have needed a degree in anthropology to decipher them.

All in all, nicely written, it had the potential to be a good read but for me it fell short and the ending was bizarre.

This is a book that raises so many questions but is at the same time a super read. Set in the very near future - it starts 2030 - Talissa, an American academic, decides to travel to London to become a surrogate mother to fund her career in history and anthropology. Her decision has life-changing consequences because at the Parn Institute where the procedure is going to be carried out, a billionaire is not planning to play by the rules. The child, Seth, is born, handed over to his adoring parents and Talissa returns to the US, but she still has contact with the family and as years pass, bonds develop. It is difficult to say more without giving away huge spoilers, but when the truth is revealed what happens next is frightening. There are all sorts of issues here, nature versus nurture, a person's right to choose, what it means to be human. The characters of Talissa and Seth are really well drawn and I felt attached to them. As for the scientists, there is a part that can see the reasoning behind the actions, how they believed that their actions would be for the good of mankind in relation to cures for mental illness and I can't decide if Parn is Elon Musk-esque or Bill Gates-esque. Some of the science I found a little heavy going at times, but the story grips and I felt a sense of fear as it progressed. This piece of speculative fiction could have been melodramatic in other hands, but this author knows his craft. A super novel that feels not too far from reality.

This novel set in the near future follows the life of a child born by IVF. It is thought provoking but slightly unrealistic in my opinion as the characters are not fully developed and unrealistic. There are large blocks of text scientific in nature which are difficult to follow. Whilst the novel was well written and kept me engrossed, the ending was unsatisfactory and confirms that science fiction is not for me

It is hard to review this novel without spoilers, but as I got a review copy (thanks Netgalley and the publishers) I don't want to ruin the story for future readers.

The novel is set in the near future, between the USA and a London - shabbier and poorer in 2030 suffering the after effects of Brexit. A young academic agrees to become a surrogate mother to earn enough money to pursue her research interests. This means moving to London for a time and leaving the man she loves, who later develops a severe mental illness, one of the themes of the novel. The other themes are around the power that immense wealth brings (wealth of the order of Elon Musk or
Zuckerberg), human experimentation and what it means to be human.

For the first three quarters of the novel I thought that this is purely a novel of ideas rather than character and plot, indeed the characters feel rather two dimensional, but I ended feeling moved by the story and action.

An interesting read.