The Seventh Son, by Sebastian Faulks, begins with an intriguing premise but ultimately doesn’t live up to its potential because of flat characterization and a meandering plot.

The story is spans three decades (from 2030) and follows Talissa Adam, a penniless student who becomes a surrogate for an IVF programme at London’s Parn Institute run by tech billionaire Lukas Parn who is conducting ethically dubious research involving earlier human species. The resulting child, Seth, is raised by his loving parents Alaric and Mary, unaware of his unique biology. The scientific concepts are interesting, touching on evolution and species selection, Faulks fails to bring much depth to the story. The characters are shallow: Parn is a generic tech villain, a ‘man-baby’ whose megalomania feels borrowed from contemporary headlines. But the biggest character error is in the book’s perspective – the story is told from the wrong character (in my opinion) – Talissa and not Seth.

Seth is the genetically engineered child at the story’s heart. He remains distant and opaque and I couldn’t help wondering how much more compelling his story would have been if told from his viewpoint, allowing readers access to his unique take on the experiment that created him.

The pacing suffers in the second half, weighed down by scientific expositions and descriptions of meals that added nothing to the story. At times I questioned whether this was written by Faulks. Where the story could have built tension and philosophical complexity, it drifted into mundane detail.