Baby X

By: Kira Peikoff

Narrated by: Jennifer Jill Araya, Imani Jade Powers, Abigail Reno

When any biological matter can be used to create life, stolen celebrity DNA sells to the highest bidder—or the craziest stalker—in this propulsive thriller.

With a vivid imagining of the future, _Gattaca _meets Black Mirror in Kira Peikoff’s Baby X.

In the near-future United States, where advanced technology can create eggs or sperm from any person’s cells, celebrities face the alarming potential of meeting biological children they never conceived. Famous singer Trace Thorne is tired of being targeted by the Vault, a black market site devoted to stealing DNA. Sick of paying ransom money for his own cell matter, he hires bio-security guard Ember Ryan to ensure his biological safety.

Ember will do anything she can to protect her clients. She knows all the Vault’s tricks—discarded tissues, used straws, lipstick tubes—and has prevented countless DNA thefts. Working for Thorne, her focus becomes split when she begins to fall for him, but she knows she hasn’t let anything slip—love or not, his DNA is safe. But then she and Thorne are confronted by a pregnant woman, Quinn, who claims that Thorne is the father of her baby, and all bets are off.

Brilliantly plotted and terrifyingly prescient, Baby X is an unpredictable and relentless speculative thriller perfect for fans of Blake Crouch and John Marrs.

©2024 Kira Peikoff (P)2024 Dreamscape Media

Interesting take on future DNA

This futuristic book is an interesting take on DNA and its use. It held my attention but there isn’t anything between the pages that is outstanding.

Surprisingly good

At first I felt there was too much tech, like the point of the book was to talk about what this author saw for our future. I’ll admit it was one of those books where it felt doable. This future feels like a possibility. After I got over that, I loved the story. About halfway through I deduced what was going on to an extent but it still kept me guessing for the final bit. It was original the way it was written in different characters voices, but with a twist. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Great writing, quick listen

This story highlights several disturbing potential future possibilities. An expansion of IVF and abortion to culminate in treating young human beings like commodities. While the idea of getting rid of preventable diseases sounds good, it is at the cost of creating humans and then judging them like items, choosing the “most fit” and then DESTROYING all the embryos seen as inferior. If there were a way to perfect the sperm and egg prior to implantation, I would see no moral issue with editing out diseases and defects that are heritable. But in this story, embryos are created, grown for two weeks and then judged for either implantation or destruction. The fact that no one seems to find this HIGHLY unethical is disturbing.

I also found a few details to be not researched (or if they were, not addressed in the story) and this was annoying. The most obvious one to me was the fact that Quinn was a young woman without biological children of her own and was able to be a surrogate. Based on current practices and what would make logical sense, surrogate agencies do not allow young women who have never had their own children to be surrogates.

https://cledp.com/blog/can-i-be-a-surrogate-if-i-never-had-a-child/

While this was a light and quick enjoyable listen, there were some very sickening attitudes portrayed in this narrative and details left unaddressed/unresearched by the author. I wish someone editing this book would have caught this. It could have been better.

Visionary Dark Net Thriller

Kira Peikoff's “Baby X” is an undeniably creative, edge-of-your-seat near-future thriller that raises the timely philosophical issues of the trade-offs between genetic property rights, population health, and market freedom.

The story centers around ‘The Vault’, an underground platform that democratizes genetic health by allowing prospective parents to provide their children with superior genes—offering more than their own biology could. That ‘hidden lab’ element of the story is made it very enjoyable to read. “Baby X” raises complex questions of loyalty, ethics, DNM design, and the future of genetic health, wrapped in a fast-paced narrative. Another tension-fueled medical fiction masterpiece by Peikoff; hopefully with more on the horizon.

can't put it down

I liked the suspense and the moral questions this book raised. it is a quite enjoyable read