‘The Seventh Son’ by Sebastian Faulks
Another genius stroke from the literary master Sebastian Faulks.
‘What is it to be human?’ … Can fortune and powerful positions decide to create something more and will it better humanity? These are the lofty themes in The Seventh Son.
Sebastian Faulks has created an imagined future and the ethical boundaries are stretched to accommodate man’s pursuit of science in the year 2030 and beyond.
The riches from wave-generated power and bio-tech developments have made Lukas Parn a wealthy man and yet, his hunger for research seems insatiable. What drives his pursuit? Together with Dr Malik Wood and Delmore Redding, Parn Institute was created offering genome studies and fertility services. This provides the perfect smokescreen for his ultimate plan…
Alric and Mary Pedersen have arrived at the idea of parenthood rather late and need Parn Institute’s IVF program. Young twenty-six-year-old Talissa Adam is seeking a financial solution to fund her post-doctoral research and further her career in anthropology. In a rash decision, Talissa replies to an advertisement in the Parn Institute Quarterly seeking surrogates for a new IVF study – the payment was lucrative. The cold-hard result of the transaction is Seth. A much-loved son for Alric and Mary and Talissa gets on with her life.
Enter the world of genome studies, geneticists, researchers, labs and the specialist subject of paleoanthropology. The combination of these with power and wealth creates a game that innocent players did not know they were participating in and the results play out.
Seventh Son flirts with a sci-fi theme but I wouldn’t place it wholeheartedly in that genre. It is a plausible futuristic tale and will confront all you understand of ethics and humanity. ‘Just because it can be done, should it be done?’ Those that read the non-fiction books by Yuval Noah Harari will find Seventh Son intriguing.
“If AI had raised questions about the ability of electronic circuitry to replicate human thought, then the next question, naturally, was what made human beings such paragons. Or as Parn put it: ‘How come sapiens is so sapient?’.”
Available in store and online.
ISBN 9781529153217
