The Human Son

by Adrian J Walker

Five hundred years in the future, Earth is a paradise... without us.

The Earth was dying, and only the Erta could save it. Created by humans to be genetically superior, hyper-intelligent and unburdened by the full range of human emotions, they succeeded by removing the cause: the human race.

Years later, the Erta are faced with a dilemma – should they reintroduce the rebellious and violent Homo Sapiens to the Earth? And if they do, will all their work be undone?

To find their answers, they decide to raise just one child: a sole human to determine if they should once more inherit the Earth.

But Ima, the quiet and clinical Erta selected for the task, finds that there is more to raising a human than she expected. As she grows to love the child in her care, only one question remains: is humanity truly a lost cause, or is there hope for them yet?

• ISBN10: 1781087881
• ISBN13: 9781781087886
• Publish Date: 17 September 2020 (first published 28 April 2020)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 1 July 2024
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Solaris
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 480
• Language: English

Reviews

[shannonmiz]

You can find the full review and all the fancy and/or randomness that accompanies it at It Starts at Midnight

This book... it spoke to me, okay? Not only about what it means to be a human being, but what it means to be a parent. And this isn't to say you won't love it if you aren't one, but it just made it extra special for me, I think. In this story, a species of lab-grown Erta are tasked with restoring Earth to its pre-human state. They've succeeded, but now have a decision to make: Does humanity deserve a second shot at existence? 

How do they decide this? By grabbing a human embryo out of the lab, and growing it, of course! Ima is a scientist through and through; she assumes she will have no issues at all unbiasedly raising said human child. All Erta have been engineered to take out the "worst" of human traits, and are both genetically built and trained from birth to forgo emotion and respond to logic. Ima has done this for centuries, and doesn't see this being a problem. 

But as every parent knows, Ima is wrong. And we, the reader, get to undertake this incredible journey with her. Not only is the child not hers biologically, he isn't even her species. Ima and the rest of the Erta are about to find out how very little that matters. 

This book attempts (and I think does an incredible job) of defining humanity. What makes us who we are, as both a whole and individually? Are we doomed to fight and pollute and kill? Or are we more than that? I won't be telling you anymore about this book, because you need to discover these answers for yourself. But you can be assured that you will find an incredibly powerful, emotive story. It's beyond morally gray, and will examine both Erta and human history and politics. How we're different, how we aren't at all. And, it has a ton of fun, light-hearted moments that are such a perfect balance for the grittier bits.

Bottom Line: I fell completely in love with this book, with heart seeping out of every page. Gorgeous writing, complex characters, and a very dynamic world made this one of the best books of the year.