BABY STEPS

A horse breeder and a game designer seek genetically engineered babies in this debut novel.

In 2022, Yale roommates Rachael Stein and Debbie Robinson both want medical careers, Rachael as a veterinarian specializing in horses. By 2044, Rachael has achieved success as an IVF horse breeder with a second Kentucky Derby winner to her credit, owned by her closest friends, the wealthy Greg and Alison Davos. Rachael gets a surprise visit from Debbie, who’d lost touch after making a small fortune selling her eggs to a Hong Kong company. She drops a bomb in Rachael’s quiet life with a spree that includes “drugs, gun wounds, rape, and kidnapping.” Reeling from those events and from news of Debbie’s 300 to 600 offspring, Rachael accepts Alison’s offer of a free visit to Better Genetics Corporation and a $2 million full-options package. Housed in a secret Caribbean location, the company is dedicated to ending genetic diseases by providing designer babies to the rich; their slogan is “Only God plays dice. Humans don’t have to.” Meanwhile, in Palo Alto, California, wealthy game designer Max Allerton has given up on finding a decent woman to marry and have children with. As an anonymous online friend warns him, marriage, for men, “gets worse than slavery.” Max, too, makes the trip to Better Genetics, choosing—as nearly everyone does, including Rachael—to have a superintelligent, tall, Greek-skinned, violet-eyed child. Though Max encounters secrets and lies from those around him, he and others, including Rachael, develop novel forms of family life united by their violet-eyed children, who represent the new Genetic Age where all are Prime.

In his series opener, Clark taps into the anxieties and hopes that parents have for their children. His premise is intriguing; readers will likely ask themselves what characteristics they would choose if they could, and why. Also of interest are the novel’s imaginative speculations about future forms of family life, such as four-person marriages. Implausible or questionable elements, though, detract from the story’s effectiveness. Rachael—who believes Debbie “likely had already had sex with some of her own children”—eventually responds to her lurid shenanigans with tender lovemaking as they chant “Circle of Trust. Circle of Kindness” to each other. The story skirts the issue of eugenics by asserting that “there is no racial superiority theory. There’s no government forcing…specific genetic phenotypes on anyone.” Yet nearly every Better Genetics client selects the same, presumably considered superior, observable traits. While the author relies on scientific concepts, he admits in the foreword that “there is not a lot of good data to support my theories.” Some terms, such as “pair-bond depletion,” can’t be found on Google while other evidence sounds like it comes from alt-right discussion forums like Reddit’s The Red Pill or from questionable evolutionary psychology theories. Readers’ satisfaction will likely depend on how well such ideas resonate with them.

A thought-provoking genetics tale hampered by questionable theories.