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tasha5492's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
susz's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
ayeheartbooks's review
2.0
As someone who loves sci-fi, and as someone who thinks the human species deserves to go extinct, I initially went into this book thinking I would love it. I was wrong.
While I love the premise and base plot idea, I was generally disappointed by the way this book was written. This book was written with too much emotion, and even too much kindness. Despite being one of the most clinical Erta, Ima is easily swayed by her love (emotions) for her "child." It also takes Ima most of the book to even bother to do anything to find out the "truth" about the lies she is being alerted to earlier in the book. But what really irked me was that despite being "born" with endless knowledge, Ima never picks up a single book or does any other kind of research on early childhood development, nor anything for early childhood education. The only thing she taught Reed was vocabulary. He could have learned so much at such an earlier stage than being sent to school around the age of 5 (or was it 7? I can't quite remember). What a waste of potential.
And when I speak about the story written with too much kindness, let me give you an excerpt for example: 'Did she hate her parents because they lied to her?’ I asked. ‘No. They were still her parents, they had still given her a blissful childhood, wiped her bottom clean, bounced her on their knees and all that. They had never meant to be complicit in the planet’s downfall. Still a good father, still a good mother.'
When Ima asks Oonagh asks about Dr. Nystrom's parents, Oonagh claims they were not complicit. Except for, hello, they were more than complicit, they helped in the downfall of the planet. Even IF Dr. Nystrom's parents didn't start their "firm" until after the age of 25; that would have been around the year 2000. By that time, climate change was a definite threat, if not yet confirmed. Anyone actively working to show "big oil" in a pleasant light was more than complicit, they knowingly benefited from it. But we are supposed to overlook that because they were good parents? Sorry, no. Dr. Nystrom can "not hate" her parents for lying to her and for helping destroy the planet, but as the reader I was more than a little irked by lack of anger or even responsibility given to her parents.
So, yeah, I was just generally let down by the lack of action taken by the main character and the kindness with which we (the reader) are supposed to overlook the glaring mistakes that humanity makes.
While I love the premise and base plot idea, I was generally disappointed by the way this book was written. This book was written with too much emotion, and even too much kindness. Despite being one of the most clinical Erta, Ima is easily swayed by her love (emotions) for her "child." It also takes Ima most of the book to even bother to do anything to find out the "truth" about the lies she is being alerted to earlier in the book. But what really irked me was that despite being "born" with endless knowledge, Ima never picks up a single book or does any other kind of research on early childhood development, nor anything for early childhood education. The only thing she taught Reed was vocabulary. He could have learned so much at such an earlier stage than being sent to school around the age of 5 (or was it 7? I can't quite remember). What a waste of potential.
And when I speak about the story written with too much kindness, let me give you an excerpt for example: 'Did she hate her parents because they lied to her?’ I asked. ‘No. They were still her parents, they had still given her a blissful childhood, wiped her bottom clean, bounced her on their knees and all that. They had never meant to be complicit in the planet’s downfall. Still a good father, still a good mother.'
When Ima asks Oonagh asks about Dr. Nystrom's parents, Oonagh claims they were not complicit. Except for, hello, they were more than complicit, they helped in the downfall of the planet. Even IF Dr. Nystrom's parents didn't start their "firm" until after the age of 25; that would have been around the year 2000. By that time, climate change was a definite threat, if not yet confirmed. Anyone actively working to show "big oil" in a pleasant light was more than complicit, they knowingly benefited from it. But we are supposed to overlook that because they were good parents? Sorry, no. Dr. Nystrom can "not hate" her parents for lying to her and for helping destroy the planet, but as the reader I was more than a little irked by lack of anger or even responsibility given to her parents.
So, yeah, I was just generally let down by the lack of action taken by the main character and the kindness with which we (the reader) are supposed to overlook the glaring mistakes that humanity makes.
noonebuthappy's review against another edition
3.0
I really wanted to like this, but I do so only partly. The writing style is good, the general idea and some of the world building interesting. Unfortunately, the whole premise of those highly rational beings that are irrational all the time did annoy me and made the reading experience irritating. The plot is also kinda meh (some twists, but nothing gripping) and the characters didn't click for me. All in all 2.5 stars, but I will try another book by this author in the future.
sonjaha's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
sisimka's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
4.5
grudgemental's review against another edition
4.0
Good story, compelling narrative and still a good sci-fi backdrop to the whole narrative
katyla's review against another edition
5.0
Loved this book! Beautifully written, very well crafted, and an insightful, sometime humorous, look at the potential and possibilities of humanity. A celebration of humanity in all it's splendour, the good and the bad, and ending with hope for a brighter future.
david_agranoff's review against another edition
5.0
I interviewed the author and talked at length about this book.
Check it out:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/pfdw-35-interview-adrian-j-walker-author-human-son/id1524359471?i=1000508190278
https://youtu.be/KEc_1lq0Yug
At the risk of sound hyperbolic, The Human Son is a beautiful example of powerful, thoughtful, and carefully crafted speculative fiction. It is kind of impossible not to think of this novel without taking massive swings at the nature of humanity, parenthood, and the existence of the species itself. On the surface, this novel is CLI-FI set five and a half centuries from now after the last breath of a single human was taken in Sweden.
Don’t be too sad about it this happening, it was the plan, besides you and I are not exactly doing enough to prevent this future. Are we?
The Human Son is the third novel I have read by Adrian Walker who I discovered like many other people - when Stephen King tweeted that he had a great find at the Toronto airport. That book was Walker’s novel End of the World Running Club. It is a nerve-racking suspense-filled novel that feels like a journey for the reader as much as the characters. The book is almost 500 pages but it is a quick read and the story cooks. Once the main characters take off on their run that drives the story, the journey not only explores survival but themes of family and the limits of endurance.
I also read Last Dog on Earth which I liked but I had a hard time with large sections of the book being in a dog’s first-person narrative. It pushed my suspension of disbelief a little too far. That said Walker won my attention fully with Running Club. Also, the elevator pitch of A Dog’s Purpose meets The Road is pretty crazy awesome.
Walker really enjoys the end of the world. Those first two novels are more fun suspense-driven but here Walker delivered a thoughtful masterpiece of Sci-fi. What Walker brings is narratives that are driven by deeply felt emotional moments. In Running Club, this really invested the reader. This story doesn’t have the action and suspense driving it, however, that doesn’t matter I was fully engaged. It could be that the themes hit my buttons but I was still very invested in the characters. The theme of family biological or otherwise appears to be the thread that ties Walker’s work together.
I do come to this book from a weird angle. In many ways, The Human Son is about parenthood, and environmentalism, as a person who did choose not to have children in part because of ecological reasons this book hit me differently than most. It is about parenthood and in that sense, I can intellectually understand but I am sure some of that feeling is lost. I think the balance of frustrations and joy that are the yin and yang experience of growing a human is a huge part of this story.
The majority of the characters are from a subhuman species the Erta who was genetically engineered by some of the last humans with the purpose of rehabbing the earth to make it livable again. The Erta is hyper-intelligent, strong, and don’t have to deal with as many emotions and hangs as we do. They specialize and over their long lives, they accomplished their goals.
For 500 years they lived in a small community in Sweden and managed to fix the climate crisis and now they have a dilemma. Should they reintroduce the human race? The test will be Reed one human boy and he will be raised by an Erta Ima. Her specialty was cleaning the sky, and now her work is done. After years of traveling by Balloon, her new purpose raises the lone human.
Thus begins a journey of motherhood that is at times both alien and very relatable. There are moments of very natural parental reaction. The conflict of the final act is unavoidable. Despite being predictable but since I was invested and into the story it still worked perfectly for me. Of course, some of Erta objects to the human child. After seeing the paradise earth has become it is not a surprise that some of Erta don’t see the value in the human race. Not to say there is not a twist or surprises but the path there is clear.
On a technical level, the prose of this novel is tricky, slipping naturally from second person to first person and back and forth. The reason is Ima is writing this book for Reed. Normally I am not a huge fan of first-person and one of those reasons is a bit of a problem here. We know Reed and Ima survive for her to write and for him to read it. That said the way the story is told to Reed and the reader by proxy is so wonderful I fell into the flow of the novel easily.
The debate over Reed bubbles up on page 336 when Benedikt who is Erta admits that the child was engineered with challenges that made failure more likely. Ima experiences the challenges most parents feel when their child faces natural challenges. The differences between the Erta and flawed humans because the basis of the debate.
“Don’t you see Ima? It had to be this way. You and I were born in clear tanks with clear minds and a clear purpose. Reed’s species crawled from the mud into a world that wanted to kill them, and no idea how to live in it. Utopia is no place for them to prove themselves.”
Every parent wants their children to have everything they want and need. The pain of seeing your kids struggle is hard. Walker also faced the trouble of how do you set a story in a utopia, well it has to fall. It is a sad narrative reality but Reed had to be the oil poisoning the clear water. With their mission done there is no place for Reed in the future of Erta who plans to leave earth and Transcend. The question is do humans deserve to live?
“I have spent my life planning transcendence, five centuries planning our escape from this rock. We don’t belong here, Ima, not in this place of beasts or hurricanes. But they do. This is where they thrive in dark places.”
There is a heartbreaking moment that is a bit of a spoiler so you might want to avoid this comment if you don’t want to know. In the last pages of the book (428) Reed learns that some of the Erta is determined not to let him survive. Early in the book, we know that the humans mostly agreed to the extinction in hopes the Erta would bring them back. That was the plan. One of the most heartbreaking moments is when Reed faced the end pleads with Ima that some humans must have survived, or hidden.
“What about underground? Or high in the mountains? Space? They had rockets. Maybe a different planet.”
“It is not possible.”
“It must be. I can’t be alone.”
All Ima can do at that point is say is that she is sorry.
The Human Son is a great example of cli-fi and an important entry in the subgenre. It is a novel about parenthood but also the weight of choice to have children in an overpopulated and resource stressed world. I don’t know if that was Walker’s intention but it felt that way to me.
“Like it or not Reed you are human.”
“I don’t feel human,” You sat up and pointed at the projector. “I’ve seen them on that thing. They were monsters. All those bombs and guns, all those wars.”
“All the fighting you mean?” Your eyes found a cornerin which to sulk. I walked to the window and pulled the blinds. “Anyway, that’s not the only thing they did.”
I could be wrong but it seems this debate is at the heart of this novel's mission statement. It walks the line like a tightrope between dystopia and utopia. At the heart is Science fiction at its best. Making us think deeply about the world today through the lens of tomorrow. Great stuff. Read it, please.
Check it out:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/pfdw-35-interview-adrian-j-walker-author-human-son/id1524359471?i=1000508190278
https://youtu.be/KEc_1lq0Yug
At the risk of sound hyperbolic, The Human Son is a beautiful example of powerful, thoughtful, and carefully crafted speculative fiction. It is kind of impossible not to think of this novel without taking massive swings at the nature of humanity, parenthood, and the existence of the species itself. On the surface, this novel is CLI-FI set five and a half centuries from now after the last breath of a single human was taken in Sweden.
Don’t be too sad about it this happening, it was the plan, besides you and I are not exactly doing enough to prevent this future. Are we?
The Human Son is the third novel I have read by Adrian Walker who I discovered like many other people - when Stephen King tweeted that he had a great find at the Toronto airport. That book was Walker’s novel End of the World Running Club. It is a nerve-racking suspense-filled novel that feels like a journey for the reader as much as the characters. The book is almost 500 pages but it is a quick read and the story cooks. Once the main characters take off on their run that drives the story, the journey not only explores survival but themes of family and the limits of endurance.
I also read Last Dog on Earth which I liked but I had a hard time with large sections of the book being in a dog’s first-person narrative. It pushed my suspension of disbelief a little too far. That said Walker won my attention fully with Running Club. Also, the elevator pitch of A Dog’s Purpose meets The Road is pretty crazy awesome.
Walker really enjoys the end of the world. Those first two novels are more fun suspense-driven but here Walker delivered a thoughtful masterpiece of Sci-fi. What Walker brings is narratives that are driven by deeply felt emotional moments. In Running Club, this really invested the reader. This story doesn’t have the action and suspense driving it, however, that doesn’t matter I was fully engaged. It could be that the themes hit my buttons but I was still very invested in the characters. The theme of family biological or otherwise appears to be the thread that ties Walker’s work together.
I do come to this book from a weird angle. In many ways, The Human Son is about parenthood, and environmentalism, as a person who did choose not to have children in part because of ecological reasons this book hit me differently than most. It is about parenthood and in that sense, I can intellectually understand but I am sure some of that feeling is lost. I think the balance of frustrations and joy that are the yin and yang experience of growing a human is a huge part of this story.
The majority of the characters are from a subhuman species the Erta who was genetically engineered by some of the last humans with the purpose of rehabbing the earth to make it livable again. The Erta is hyper-intelligent, strong, and don’t have to deal with as many emotions and hangs as we do. They specialize and over their long lives, they accomplished their goals.
For 500 years they lived in a small community in Sweden and managed to fix the climate crisis and now they have a dilemma. Should they reintroduce the human race? The test will be Reed one human boy and he will be raised by an Erta Ima. Her specialty was cleaning the sky, and now her work is done. After years of traveling by Balloon, her new purpose raises the lone human.
Thus begins a journey of motherhood that is at times both alien and very relatable. There are moments of very natural parental reaction. The conflict of the final act is unavoidable. Despite being predictable but since I was invested and into the story it still worked perfectly for me. Of course, some of Erta objects to the human child. After seeing the paradise earth has become it is not a surprise that some of Erta don’t see the value in the human race. Not to say there is not a twist or surprises but the path there is clear.
On a technical level, the prose of this novel is tricky, slipping naturally from second person to first person and back and forth. The reason is Ima is writing this book for Reed. Normally I am not a huge fan of first-person and one of those reasons is a bit of a problem here. We know Reed and Ima survive for her to write and for him to read it. That said the way the story is told to Reed and the reader by proxy is so wonderful I fell into the flow of the novel easily.
The debate over Reed bubbles up on page 336 when Benedikt who is Erta admits that the child was engineered with challenges that made failure more likely. Ima experiences the challenges most parents feel when their child faces natural challenges. The differences between the Erta and flawed humans because the basis of the debate.
“Don’t you see Ima? It had to be this way. You and I were born in clear tanks with clear minds and a clear purpose. Reed’s species crawled from the mud into a world that wanted to kill them, and no idea how to live in it. Utopia is no place for them to prove themselves.”
Every parent wants their children to have everything they want and need. The pain of seeing your kids struggle is hard. Walker also faced the trouble of how do you set a story in a utopia, well it has to fall. It is a sad narrative reality but Reed had to be the oil poisoning the clear water. With their mission done there is no place for Reed in the future of Erta who plans to leave earth and Transcend. The question is do humans deserve to live?
“I have spent my life planning transcendence, five centuries planning our escape from this rock. We don’t belong here, Ima, not in this place of beasts or hurricanes. But they do. This is where they thrive in dark places.”
There is a heartbreaking moment that is a bit of a spoiler so you might want to avoid this comment if you don’t want to know. In the last pages of the book (428) Reed learns that some of the Erta is determined not to let him survive. Early in the book, we know that the humans mostly agreed to the extinction in hopes the Erta would bring them back. That was the plan. One of the most heartbreaking moments is when Reed faced the end pleads with Ima that some humans must have survived, or hidden.
“What about underground? Or high in the mountains? Space? They had rockets. Maybe a different planet.”
“It is not possible.”
“It must be. I can’t be alone.”
All Ima can do at that point is say is that she is sorry.
The Human Son is a great example of cli-fi and an important entry in the subgenre. It is a novel about parenthood but also the weight of choice to have children in an overpopulated and resource stressed world. I don’t know if that was Walker’s intention but it felt that way to me.
“Like it or not Reed you are human.”
“I don’t feel human,” You sat up and pointed at the projector. “I’ve seen them on that thing. They were monsters. All those bombs and guns, all those wars.”
“All the fighting you mean?” Your eyes found a cornerin which to sulk. I walked to the window and pulled the blinds. “Anyway, that’s not the only thing they did.”
I could be wrong but it seems this debate is at the heart of this novel's mission statement. It walks the line like a tightrope between dystopia and utopia. At the heart is Science fiction at its best. Making us think deeply about the world today through the lens of tomorrow. Great stuff. Read it, please.