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Exogenesis
Out of the collapse of Old America rises Lantua, a glittering thousand-mile metropolis where drones patrol the sky and AI algorithms reward social behavior. The most compliant citizens enjoy the greatest privileges, the poorest struggle to rise up the echelon system, and criminals are subjected to brain modification. Birthing and genetic quality are controlled through mass embryonic selection, with fetuses grown outside the body in artificial wombs—a technology known as exogenesis. But rebellion is brewing. Lantua struggles to control the Benedites, a rural religious people who refuse to obey one-child regulations. Each February, Field Commander Maelin Kivela oversees the forced sterilization of Benedite teenagers, a duty she carries out with unflinching zeal—but this year comes with a shock. After escaping an ambush by insurgents, Maelin returns to the city to choose one of over three hundred embryos to be her child, only to come face to face with a secret that will tear her life apart and alter the course of her civilization.
331 pages, Paperback
Published July 10, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
May 17, 2024
The best dystopian novel I have ever read. Period.
August 13, 2023
This was a fascinating read. I had never heard of the author. But both the title and description of this story really grabbed my attention. Once I started reading I could hardly put it down. The writing is tight. The characters masterfully written and the plot is ambitious and well executed. After reading this I can only hope there will be many more from Gaskovski’s pen. The description of this story states:
“Out of the collapse of Old America rises Lantua, a glittering thousand-mile metropolis where drones patrol the sky and AI algorithms reward social behavior. The most compliant citizens enjoy the greatest privileges, the poorest struggle to rise up the echelon system, and criminals are subjected to brain modification. Birthing and genetic quality are controlled through mass embryonic selection, with fetuses grown outside the body in artificial wombs—a technology known as exogenesis. But rebellion is brewing. Lantua struggles to control the Benedites, a rural religious people who refuse to obey one-child regulations. Each February, Field Commander Maelin Kivela oversees the forced sterilization of Benedite teenagers, a duty she carries out with unflinching zeal—but this year comes with a shock. After escaping an ambush by insurgents, Maelin returns to the city to choose one of over three hundred embryos to be her child, only to come face to face with a secret that will tear her life apart and alter the course of her civilization.”
The story itself if preceded by three quotes, one from a future history relevant to the story. And one from a government manual at the time of the events and one from the bible. They are:
“As the Old World collapsed, radical followers of the Christian religion fled the cities and sought security in rural areas. Here, like the old Amish, they formed small agrarian communities centered on traditional family and religious practice, and used limited technology in their daily lives. They called themselves “Benedites”, a name whose origin is unclear but could be connected to “Saint Benedict”, a holy man from the Roman age. Some of the Benedite sects even adopted the Classical Latin language as their native tongue—a linguistic feat that remains a marvel to this day. The peculiar ways of the Benedites might not have troubled the new State of Lantua, which developed in parallel with them, were it not for one thing: the Benedite tendency to have large families. This tendency was regarded as a grave threat to population management, and triggered the first mass sterilization policies.”
—Gidwyn Klüg, A History of the Early Benedites
“The threefold strategy may be summarized as follows: Control the seed of their bodies, control the seed of their lands, control the seed of their minds.”
—The PMD Guide for Counselors, Seventh Edition
“And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””
—Genesis 1:28
In some ways they story is like other dystopian or science fiction stories in that there is a social credit rating. Do good, follow the rules, excel and your rating goes up. The higher your rating is, the more benefits you receive, bigger housing, better vehicles, more credits … Or the lower it sinks the less you have and have access to including medical services and protection.
Living outside the city state of Lantua are areas of homesteaders, the Benedites. A group intent on the old Roman Religion, Large families, working farms. All but one male and one female in these families are sterilized. The government must control population. Field Commander Maelin Kivela oversees a team to see to the forced sterilization of Benedite teenagers. Yeah year they go out to the settlements outside the city, they offer the youth a life in the city if they walk away from their family. But Maelin has secrets of her own. And as time goes on she is beginning to question the complete control over all aspects of her, of their lives. When she encolunters the hundreds of embryos and must pick one to live and the rest to be flushed, she has a crisis of faith in the system she has known her whole life.
This story is written as a history. The Three quotes at the beginning and the single one at the end of the story set the story in place in the history. The story ends with these words:
“By A.D. 2392 (301 L.A.), the once-great state of Lantua had dissolved into a patchwork of city-states, rich and self-interested, embedded in toxic slums like proverbial pearls scattered in mud. How could this have happened to a civilization that, for over two centuries, had functioned with the power and efficiency of a machine? Benedite scholars have argued that the cause of Lantua’s demise was due not to political, military, economic, technological, or even population management failure but to something more basic: the absence of a sacred order at the center of its society.”
With the current antagonism towards Catholics specifically and Christians in general in the west this story could easily be a prophetic look into the future. But it is also a story of home, and about humanity and being in touch. It is a deeply moving story with few true heroes, but with people who can be respected, with a sociopath, and with many just keeping their heads down following the rules. An exceptionally well written science fiction store. One I can recommend and one that would be excellent for a book club or book study. I can easily recommend this story for teens and older readers.
This book is part of a series of reviews: 2023 Catholic Reading Plan!
“Out of the collapse of Old America rises Lantua, a glittering thousand-mile metropolis where drones patrol the sky and AI algorithms reward social behavior. The most compliant citizens enjoy the greatest privileges, the poorest struggle to rise up the echelon system, and criminals are subjected to brain modification. Birthing and genetic quality are controlled through mass embryonic selection, with fetuses grown outside the body in artificial wombs—a technology known as exogenesis. But rebellion is brewing. Lantua struggles to control the Benedites, a rural religious people who refuse to obey one-child regulations. Each February, Field Commander Maelin Kivela oversees the forced sterilization of Benedite teenagers, a duty she carries out with unflinching zeal—but this year comes with a shock. After escaping an ambush by insurgents, Maelin returns to the city to choose one of over three hundred embryos to be her child, only to come face to face with a secret that will tear her life apart and alter the course of her civilization.”
The story itself if preceded by three quotes, one from a future history relevant to the story. And one from a government manual at the time of the events and one from the bible. They are:
“As the Old World collapsed, radical followers of the Christian religion fled the cities and sought security in rural areas. Here, like the old Amish, they formed small agrarian communities centered on traditional family and religious practice, and used limited technology in their daily lives. They called themselves “Benedites”, a name whose origin is unclear but could be connected to “Saint Benedict”, a holy man from the Roman age. Some of the Benedite sects even adopted the Classical Latin language as their native tongue—a linguistic feat that remains a marvel to this day. The peculiar ways of the Benedites might not have troubled the new State of Lantua, which developed in parallel with them, were it not for one thing: the Benedite tendency to have large families. This tendency was regarded as a grave threat to population management, and triggered the first mass sterilization policies.”
—Gidwyn Klüg, A History of the Early Benedites
“The threefold strategy may be summarized as follows: Control the seed of their bodies, control the seed of their lands, control the seed of their minds.”
—The PMD Guide for Counselors, Seventh Edition
“And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””
—Genesis 1:28
In some ways they story is like other dystopian or science fiction stories in that there is a social credit rating. Do good, follow the rules, excel and your rating goes up. The higher your rating is, the more benefits you receive, bigger housing, better vehicles, more credits … Or the lower it sinks the less you have and have access to including medical services and protection.
Living outside the city state of Lantua are areas of homesteaders, the Benedites. A group intent on the old Roman Religion, Large families, working farms. All but one male and one female in these families are sterilized. The government must control population. Field Commander Maelin Kivela oversees a team to see to the forced sterilization of Benedite teenagers. Yeah year they go out to the settlements outside the city, they offer the youth a life in the city if they walk away from their family. But Maelin has secrets of her own. And as time goes on she is beginning to question the complete control over all aspects of her, of their lives. When she encolunters the hundreds of embryos and must pick one to live and the rest to be flushed, she has a crisis of faith in the system she has known her whole life.
This story is written as a history. The Three quotes at the beginning and the single one at the end of the story set the story in place in the history. The story ends with these words:
“By A.D. 2392 (301 L.A.), the once-great state of Lantua had dissolved into a patchwork of city-states, rich and self-interested, embedded in toxic slums like proverbial pearls scattered in mud. How could this have happened to a civilization that, for over two centuries, had functioned with the power and efficiency of a machine? Benedite scholars have argued that the cause of Lantua’s demise was due not to political, military, economic, technological, or even population management failure but to something more basic: the absence of a sacred order at the center of its society.”
With the current antagonism towards Catholics specifically and Christians in general in the west this story could easily be a prophetic look into the future. But it is also a story of home, and about humanity and being in touch. It is a deeply moving story with few true heroes, but with people who can be respected, with a sociopath, and with many just keeping their heads down following the rules. An exceptionally well written science fiction store. One I can recommend and one that would be excellent for a book club or book study. I can easily recommend this story for teens and older readers.
This book is part of a series of reviews: 2023 Catholic Reading Plan!
February 3, 2025
“It is easy for me to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as machines.”
- Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle
This has the eerie societies of Brave New World and The Machine Stops, but with dehumanizing and technological elements that mirror our own more acutely. It has the travesty of literary and cultural flattening portrayed in Fahrenheit 451, but with people who are now used to it. It shows the logical conclusion of ignoring the givenness of human life (a la the relevant papal encyclicals and John Paul II's Theology of the Body) and therefore desecrating the gift of fertility to the point of absolute control, self-actualization, and destruction. It shows the worst parts of a materialist, digitized, dehumanizing age of control which others such as Wendell Berry and Paul Kingsnorth have also written about.
And honestly, some of the observations and names for things just made me laugh. So brilliantly perceptive.
- Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle
This has the eerie societies of Brave New World and The Machine Stops, but with dehumanizing and technological elements that mirror our own more acutely. It has the travesty of literary and cultural flattening portrayed in Fahrenheit 451, but with people who are now used to it. It shows the logical conclusion of ignoring the givenness of human life (a la the relevant papal encyclicals and John Paul II's Theology of the Body) and therefore desecrating the gift of fertility to the point of absolute control, self-actualization, and destruction. It shows the worst parts of a materialist, digitized, dehumanizing age of control which others such as Wendell Berry and Paul Kingsnorth have also written about.
And honestly, some of the observations and names for things just made me laugh. So brilliantly perceptive.
August 8, 2023
I binge read Exogenesis and have been thinking about it since. The plot and action were riveting on their own, but its relevance to our spiritually impoverished culture of want is what struck me most. It breezily but poignantly depicted the yearning for meaning pinned under the weight of default priorities—of striving for pleasure and success with expedient rationality. Psychological insights and dynamics of domestic deception were artfully woven in with a sympathetic touch, and flourishes of whimsy sprinkled throughout made for an engaging and delightful read. This is the best book I’ve read in years—it took me by surprise, captured my imagination, and left me feeling clearer about what matters.
August 28, 2025
I was struck by how reasonable this “dystopian” world sounded - the author does an excellent job taking the threads of our current time and continuing to unravel them. This is a journey into the unexplainable, the uncontrollable, in a world that believes it has the control.
February 23, 2024
Wow…the blurb on the back calling this 1984 meets Brave New World had the right vibe. My brain was spinning and roiling. This will hold up to a reread in a decade and sharing with the next generation. It feels not just possible, but underway, even as it also has a dose of warning and hope baked in. I hate it, I love it, I salute the publishing team for bringing it to the world.
July 7, 2024
Similar to Brave New World, but Catholic. Sobering, interesting, and creative despite revisiting dystopian tropes. It was a very believable world.
December 9, 2023
I'd like to be able to give this 4 1/2 stars. It wasn't quite five stars for me, but pretty close. Such a refreshing point of view for a work of dystopian fiction!
November 5, 2023
This is not the genre that I typically enjoy but I feel the story serves as a warning as to what can happen when society slowly allows government to chisel away our freedoms and right to privacy. It is all done in the name of protecting citizens and the planet but when it goes too far, life is not really worth living because you have no choices or opportunity to express yourself and it becomes downright immoral.
November 29, 2023
Pretty dang interesting. It reminded me of Brave New World but with a spiritual aspect and answer that I felt BNW was missing.
September 11, 2023
This dystopian novel addresses some very deep issues and I won't say what they are, I just recommend you read it. I could not put it down and I read it in one sitting.
Is this our future or is this our present? A good read. I will be thinking about this story for some time.
Is this our future or is this our present? A good read. I will be thinking about this story for some time.
November 26, 2024
This dystopian novel is relatively quiet and thoughtful, but I was completely invested in the story and sped through in just a few days. I love the articles and resources that Peco and Ruth Gaskovski offer on Substack, so when I discovered Peco's novel, I instantly knew I wanted to read it.
The worldbuilding here is so, so good and eerily believable. We're in North America 300+ years in the future. The vast city of Lantua is a technologically advanced, progressive place where anything goes—that is, anything promoting self-centeredness and dependence on the state. Things like family and religion and privacy are acceptable only when controlled by the government. Couples, married or not, may have one child that is birthed in a bio bag. Body births are icky and illegal. Religion is okay as long as people don't take it too seriously and it doesn't usurp the almighty gods of self, safety, and state. Everyone is equal, except they're not. The society is divided into echelons, and people move up or down depending on how well they follow the rules. Step out of line, and you may get demoted to a lower rung, where you don't have access to the fine things enjoyed by the upper-echers. In Orwellian tradition, Big Brother is always watching, via "eyes" and drones—cameras and microphones everywhere. Don't stress, though, they're just here to help and keep you safe, after all.
Oh my. Can you see it?
The Benedites live in the Territories. They follow the old ways. They farm and raise their own children and go to church and worship Jesus. They, too, can be rigid and exacting. The Lantuan state sterilizes the majority of the Benedites so they don't have too many kids and outnumber the Lantuans. (Phaoroh, anyone?) The Bennies hate forced sterilization and have managed to revolt and resist from time to time, but rumor has it that they are staging a larger uprising.
This is the backdrop. I don't much want to comment on the characters or plot because it was SUCH a pleasure to read this book blind—without knowing a shred of what was going to happen.
Just the other day, I read this article about fertility by Peco (https://substack.com/inbox/post/15200...) and it was such an enrichment to my reading of his novel. Great timing.
This book isn't as high on action and thrills as you might expect. It doesn't lean heavily into sci-fi, although I'd classify it as sci-fi dystopian. Instead, it asks those looming, moral questions and doesn't apologize for it. Those of you who know your Bible will be rewarded with allusions and parallels. Those of you who know Latin (not me!) will need no translator for Bennie slang.
What are you waiting for? Go read this one!
The worldbuilding here is so, so good and eerily believable. We're in North America 300+ years in the future. The vast city of Lantua is a technologically advanced, progressive place where anything goes—that is, anything promoting self-centeredness and dependence on the state. Things like family and religion and privacy are acceptable only when controlled by the government. Couples, married or not, may have one child that is birthed in a bio bag. Body births are icky and illegal. Religion is okay as long as people don't take it too seriously and it doesn't usurp the almighty gods of self, safety, and state. Everyone is equal, except they're not. The society is divided into echelons, and people move up or down depending on how well they follow the rules. Step out of line, and you may get demoted to a lower rung, where you don't have access to the fine things enjoyed by the upper-echers. In Orwellian tradition, Big Brother is always watching, via "eyes" and drones—cameras and microphones everywhere. Don't stress, though, they're just here to help and keep you safe, after all.
Oh my. Can you see it?
The Benedites live in the Territories. They follow the old ways. They farm and raise their own children and go to church and worship Jesus. They, too, can be rigid and exacting. The Lantuan state sterilizes the majority of the Benedites so they don't have too many kids and outnumber the Lantuans. (Phaoroh, anyone?) The Bennies hate forced sterilization and have managed to revolt and resist from time to time, but rumor has it that they are staging a larger uprising.
This is the backdrop. I don't much want to comment on the characters or plot because it was SUCH a pleasure to read this book blind—without knowing a shred of what was going to happen.
Just the other day, I read this article about fertility by Peco (https://substack.com/inbox/post/15200...) and it was such an enrichment to my reading of his novel. Great timing.
This book isn't as high on action and thrills as you might expect. It doesn't lean heavily into sci-fi, although I'd classify it as sci-fi dystopian. Instead, it asks those looming, moral questions and doesn't apologize for it. Those of you who know your Bible will be rewarded with allusions and parallels. Those of you who know Latin (not me!) will need no translator for Bennie slang.
What are you waiting for? Go read this one!
March 13, 2025
The back cover called this a cross between Brave New World and 1984, but I would say it's more of a cross between Brave New World and The Giver. All of which is to say, it falls into that category of dystopia where authors extrapolate their biggest socio-political fears to a hyperbolic degree and create unlikely extremist societies. I tend more towards the "breakdown of society" dystopian novels like The Road or The Earth Abides. But, lo and behold, I actually liked this one.
I think part of my enjoyment from this book came from the believable main character. She was flawed, capable, and quietly questioning in a dogmatic society. She didn't rail against the system internally or externally, but she certainly had some independent thought that made her question aspects of her life. Some of the ancillary characters were well done as well, serving as more than just cut-outs for a philosophical sounding board. And while the societal juxtaposition of the two main civilizations was a bit overdone, the world building here actually worked.
My biggest issue was that the ending was rushed, note I didn't say bad, just a little too epiloguish. And there were a few minor holes in the ending as well, but nothing I couldn't get past. I think a sequel could have been easily written or even just extend the ending 50 pages, but I also appreciate that the author had a story to tell and did it, without going for the money grab of the ubiquitous trilogy. This was a solid four stars all the way through and probably makes it into the top 5 dystopian novels of all time for me. Pick it up off the shelf if you see it and see what you think.
I think part of my enjoyment from this book came from the believable main character. She was flawed, capable, and quietly questioning in a dogmatic society. She didn't rail against the system internally or externally, but she certainly had some independent thought that made her question aspects of her life. Some of the ancillary characters were well done as well, serving as more than just cut-outs for a philosophical sounding board. And while the societal juxtaposition of the two main civilizations was a bit overdone, the world building here actually worked.
My biggest issue was that the ending was rushed, note I didn't say bad, just a little too epiloguish. And there were a few minor holes in the ending as well, but nothing I couldn't get past. I think a sequel could have been easily written or even just extend the ending 50 pages, but I also appreciate that the author had a story to tell and did it, without going for the money grab of the ubiquitous trilogy. This was a solid four stars all the way through and probably makes it into the top 5 dystopian novels of all time for me. Pick it up off the shelf if you see it and see what you think.
March 9, 2024
Exogenesis is superb, character-driven science fiction, with life-shaping morals embedded in the story. This was the first book my adolescent daughter stayed up all night reading. It's a page-turner! It has provided fodder for lengthy conversations and deepened my adolescent daughter's appreciation for why our family has chosen the life we have. I heartily recommend this book for adolescents and their parents! I think it's perfect for mature 8th graders and average 10th graders—layered and nuanced, rather than preachy. Not every character is a "true believer" in their side's cause, and not every "good" character is entirely sane. It's also not just for adolescents (nor even targeted at them); I found it a downright enjoyable read!
My adolescent daughter's review: "I know it's set further in the future, but it feels like it could be just 5 to 10 years away. I've never read a book like it! It takes our world; then it follows where things are headed, or at least could be." Indeed!
My adolescent daughter's review: "I know it's set further in the future, but it feels like it could be just 5 to 10 years away. I've never read a book like it! It takes our world; then it follows where things are headed, or at least could be." Indeed!
February 3, 2025
Entertaining enough if you like dystopian novels; but I'm disappointed there wasn't a more specific moral or didactic theme in this book. Why else would someone want to write a dystopian novel unless they want to say "look what might happen if we don't [fill in the blank]"? The message I got was a vaguely pro-life, anti-surrogacy, anti-in vitro fertilization message, but there wasn't much depth to it. It got confused with an anti-surveillance state, anti-social credit score message. I don't think the author was particularly focused when he wrote this book.
I thought Avrah's exposure as a morally rotten was unjustified considering what had already happened in the novel. It sours my understanding of the entire Benedite culture.
I thought Avrah's exposure as a morally rotten was unjustified considering what had already happened in the novel. It sours my understanding of the entire Benedite culture.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 9, 2025
I liked pretty much everything about this. Exogenesis is very character driven with a well crafted story moved along by the relationships between the main character and several secondary characters in a future society not far beyond our own. Each relationship, no matter how minor, speaks to different aspects of how we as humans struggle with one another, sometimes unnecessarily, when truth is witheld, often for seemingly warranted reasons. This can and will at times lead to grief for some or all parties. Also developed within the story is how the world around us and external factors affect our relationships. These themes, among others, i.e. faith, morality, materialism, societal control to name a few are well developed in a well told story.
May 9, 2025
idk how I ended up here, I am not the target audience and definitely anticipated a different path with this one. the abrupt reveal of the meek religious girl into a monologuing sociopath made me lol, just something about how the mc so flatly and definitively stated the girl was a sociopath repeatedly really tickled me. also amused me that they were super surveilled but constantly found ways around that when the plot necessitated. overall a heavy-handed but readable little detour into a subgenre I will not be pursuing further
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 22, 2025
I’d like to have one way to rate a book theme or worldview and another to rate the writing. The “3” is a blend of the two ratings I’d give this one. It’s not at all subtle—so a lower rating for the writing; a bit too heavy-handed. But the thesis underlying the story, like any good dystopian novel, takes some trends in today’s western societies and works them out to their logical conclusions. I kept reading, to the finish. And would recommend the book to the Woke and in-Woke alike, hoping it could lead to fruitful reflections.
March 3, 2024
Bordered too much on parody to make for good dystopian literature.
While I would say that pronatalism and supporting strong family bonds (and even, perhaps, advocating for natural birth) is generally a humanizing position, positing human-ness in biological parenthood is reductionist and dehumanizing.
While I would say that pronatalism and supporting strong family bonds (and even, perhaps, advocating for natural birth) is generally a humanizing position, positing human-ness in biological parenthood is reductionist and dehumanizing.
May 26, 2024
Not quite what I expected. I suppose dystopia mingled with religion is not my cup of tea but most definitely would recommend to readers who appreciate it. As a whole the book was well written with language that quickly immerses the reader into its world without much confusion and offers a very well-paced story.
January 9, 2024
Four stars for the writing, plot and characterization, five for thought-provoking content.
December 28, 2024
Great book. Much different than normal dystopia type books. I really enjoyed this book. I just wanted to know more at the end. I wish there was a sequel.
January 4, 2025
This book was a fast read and very engaging. It was one that I was going to highly recommend to others until a very disturbing, graphic scene towards the end.
December 24, 2025
There are a few elements that I think Gaskovski takes too far in order to make his points, but on the whole I thought this was a solid page-turner of a dystopian novel.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews