Foundling Fathers

by Meg Elison

When a radical think tank clones America’s founding fathers, The Boys from Brazil meets the bicentennial in this ingeniously satirical mashup of U.S. history, cloning, and technocracy gone terribly wrong.

The trouble starts when a curious teenager, Benjamin, finds an iPhone in his privy. The problem is, it’s supposed to be 1750.

Ben takes his discovery to his brothers—Thomas, John, and George. The boys have been raised in isolation on an island plantation by a firm but kind woman, Mary Libertas. All four of them chafe at Mary’s restrictions upon them—especially Thomas, who has impregnated yet another servant.

Meanwhile, their de facto father figure, Jeff Hancock, complains to the shadowy Antediluvian Society that it is past the time to explain to the boys where they come from and what they must do: Run America the way it used to be run.

In this more-than-slightly-absurdist novella, Philip K. Dick Award–winning author Meg Elison (Find Layla) skewers those looking to an idyllic past to solve the problems they continue to create.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Novella, Humor, Satire, Speculative Fiction, Politics

192 pages, Paperback

First published June 23, 2026

About the author

Meg Elison is a Hugo, Philip K. Dick and Locus award winning author, as well as a Nebula, Sturgeon, Eugie, and Otherwise awards finalist. A prolific short story writer and essayist, Elison has been published in Scientific American, McSweeney’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fangoria, and Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy. Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley. She lives in the Berkshires.

megelison.com

Reviews

[Wil Wheaton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clever, funny, and perfectly paced. I just loved this.

[ROLLAND Florence · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novella relies on an interesting idea. What would happen if right wing billionaires had access to cloning technology?

Meg Elison explores the extraordinary coming of age of the American founding fathers, brought back and raised on a lonely island. The whole plan? Help them take over the US and make America great again.

Armed with bright young minds and hungry for the truth, they learn that everything they have been taught about themselves was a lie destined to preserve their greatness.

Being born twice is not the same as coming back, though. Great men are also a product of their times... Even if the fairy godmother of genetics provided them with a good baseline, nothing tells us that their clones would be anything but mediocre.

I wish this book was longer. The exposition was really long, and it felt like the story was cut short when we could really have explored what those men could become in the modern world. I wish one of them, using nostalgia as leverage and his name as a brand, had accessed the presidency... Only to lead the country to a disaster.

Special effort was devoted to the style, which really feels like 18th of 19th century English. Reading SF that sounds like Thoreau was really fun.

Thank you NetGalley and Tachyon publishing for the ARC. Thank you Meg Elison as well.

[laurel [the suspected bibliophile] · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It took Benjamin Franklin twenty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds to discover there was pornography on the internet.

And so begins Foundling Fathers, a somewhat experimental thought exercise on the premise that tech billionaires and right-wing whackos (not necessarily two exclusive categories) decided they wanted to make America great again by bringing back the ancient founding fathers—by cloning them and raising them to believe it was 1750, and then slowly introducing them to the modern world so they could rule (again).

It's a wild idea, but, unfortunately, well within the realm of plausibility, based on some of the utterly nonsensical ideas of modern tech billionaires (the concept of the singularity, for one).

The book itself is a little uneven, and too short to really explore all that it was thinking—but any longer and it just wouldn't work. It feels like a short story that was expanded just a touch too much, but it does work. The heavy lifting is done in the last 10% of the book.

It's a really good satire, though, and a quick read.

[Venneh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic, witty little novella that takes some arch conservative's ultimate wet dream (what if we could make little clones of the Founding Fathers and raise them according to the ideals of the original 1776 conditions, but make sure that they side with us, the modern day tech bro Republican party) and turns it into a perfect punk rebellion. Also, gives us the nightmares of a Thomas Jefferson being unleashed on dating apps. Ye gods and little fishes. Watching the boys unravel their situation and start to poke at the edges of their reality is fascinating, and there are a few moments where you will have to pause because you're laughing so hard at what has just been uttered by characters. Has a real "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" vibe to it, and I'm looking forward to seeing how this hits when it lands next summer. This novella was one of my last and best reads of 2025.

[Lilibet Bombshell · Rating 4 out of 5]

If given the means by science, how far would conservatives go to keep steering this country exactly the way they want to? Would they settle for cloning Ronald Reagan? Or would they want to go all the way back? 

Foundling Fathers is an absurdist piece of speculative fiction that asks the question of if you clone some (not all) of our founding fathers, raise them to their majority in surroundings identical to those their primes were raised in, and then they find out their lives are complete lies…what happens then? 

The answers aren’t pretty. Whenever people talk about “the good ol’ days”, or, “I wish we could go back to that time”, what they’re really longing for is the power structure at that time and how it made their lives easier. Nostalgia screws with your mind: it lets you remember the good as so very good but also fogs over all the bad just outside your purview. It’s what makes so many people want to only remember Thomas Jefferson as a great statesman and academic without remembering he was an unrepentant rapist and slaver. Or remember Ben Franklin as a great inventor and thinker without thinking of him as a slovenly, lecherous drunkard. 

So it’s no wonder that nothing goes to plan in this story for anyone. No one gets the answers they want. No one’s plans go the way they wanted or needed them to. As always, the only way through is to adapt. 4⭐️

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for access to this title.

[Michael Howley · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite memories early in my time in San Francisco is a group sing-along of Hamilton, in its entirety, in Meg's house in West Oakland. An Aussie friend burst in in full red coat regalia in the middle of the first act. How far we've come, how complicated our feelings! This is a timely romp that comes from a place of deep anger and frustration and love. There are no great men, but we can still do good.

[Reactor Magazine]

“It took Benjamin Franklin twenty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds to discover there was pornography on the Internet.”

Clones of the Founding Fathers are sick of fascism, too. Alex Brown recommends Meg Elison's witty science fiction novella Foundling Fathers!

[max theodore · Rating 1 out of 5]

“It took Benjamin Franklin twenty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds to discover there was pornography on the internet.”

such is the first line of this book, and the best part. i did not really think this would be good; there must be a way to do “founding fathers in the modern world” while grappling with rape, slavery, and white supremacy--how do you exist in the modern world while aware your past self committed atrocities?--but i don't think that way makes a particularly fun or quirky novella. all the same, the concept appeals to me, and the beauty of that first line did suck me in.

but i was right! it's not good. there's a good message here--one thing this novella does NOT do is make excuses for thomas jefferson--but i found the execution pretty sorely lacking. some reasons why:

- the pacing is absolute nonsense. nothing fucking HAPPENS in this book. not until the last chapters do the founding fathers brothers escape their island and join the real world, but this isn't even really a story of them figuring out they're being lied to, because they all adjust to the concept of an iphone way too fast. indeed, once they're in the real world, we get one wrap-up chapter of how they've all dispersed into the world, and that's it. they adjust to the concept of cloning in about two pages.

if the promise of the premise here is wacky founding fathers unleashed on modern america... they experience the modern world for, like, ten pages. if the promise of the premise is the four of them unwrapping the conspiracy of their lives... the book barely spends time on that either. there's a fair bit of faffing around with the hyper-conservative nostalgia think tank that cloned these guys in the first place, including some send-ups of musk and conservative politicians (everybody involved in this project is insanely hypocritical and short-sighted, as well as misogynist, racist, etc). but i'm sitting here three days after reading the book and i don't remember what the fuck we spent 192 pages doing. why am i bored reading a novella!

- even in the process of making it clear the founding fathers fucking sucked, it's a little too cavalier about slavery and rape. the founding fathers brothers are raised on an isolated island in mock-1750s conditions; every person responsible for the grunt work of keeping this place running is an undocumented or otherwise-precarious worker, most of them not native english speakers, unable to leave or even make calls off the island. and this comes to fruition... kind of never? i mean, the servants/slaves do revolt. but we never find out if things get, like, better for them. and the novella is happy to give us jefferson's narration talking about how brown women are naturally "seductive and permissive," but we don't hear much from the entrapped girls he's assaulting and impregnating. one of them sort of gets to clap back about her assault--the boys' "mother" asks why she didn't just turn him down, and she goes, "jeez, why didn't i think of that?"--but that's it. and i'm not saying this whole book needs to revolve around Thomas Jefferson Being A Rapist, but i think if you're introducing rape into your story, it's a bit tasteless to use it as flavor text to prove this guy sucks. (and, like, we're presumably supposed to root for the boys, right? because the other major characters are the antediluvian society trying to control them? i'm not rooting for the guy who's talking about assaulting girls in chapter 2.)

to be clear, i don't think elison, like, somehow condones this--i honestly do respect refusing to write about thomas jefferson without addressing the fact that he was fucking evil. i just think that this novella is so short and so absent of... plot? substance? anything? that all the horrific details introduced about this world just sit there. there could have been a parallel drawn between the servants entrapped on the island and historical chattel slavery, highlighting the fact that power structures have changed but oppression hasn't, but the book just never really gets that far, or anywhere. it's less "look at the historical continuity here!" and more "see, i figured out how the island works mechanically; don't @ me with CinemaSins plot holes." thomas jefferson gets called "the houdini of fornication," which really tells me we're taking this shit seriously. granted, it's one of the conservative fuckheads who says it, but it's not like the rest of the book gives the situation any more weight, yknow?

- the prose is nothingburger. it's kind of trying to be old-fashioned but won't commit. every line has the subtlety of a hammer. there's head-hopping. because it's a novella without a lot of time, elison just tells you the character traits of everybody up-front so you know who is who. elison keeps shoehorning in quotes from other things (hamilton the musical, for example, or real-life things donald trump said, just to make it obvious that the bad guys are bad fascists using faux-patriotism to fuel fascism). the writing is really nothing. like

“John!” George was plainly shocked. “How can you speak so?”

i got that he was shocked from the exclamation point and the words that he said.

“What if one of the boys has it?” Hall’s handsome face was distorted with worry, brows up and together in the middle, sensuous mouth drawn down.

“They wouldn’t know how to operate it,” she said with obvious exasperation.

this hall guy matters for all of one chapter, btw. why are we describing his sensuous mouth in such detail. also, once again, i understood the exasperation from the words that were said.

She turned to him, her blue eyes hard as diamond-tipped drill bits.

ok

George Washington, for the first time, knew himself an undifferentiated particle in the continuum of existence. He was not special or chosen or better, none of that was real. He was a lost boy with a gun, fleeing the violence that would destroy the only home he had ever known. He was without guidance or protection, abandoned by parents who had never had his best interests at heart and who had, in the crucial moment, turned their backs on him when he needed them most.

does anyone think this is a metaphor... for AMERICA

- the mom character is almost interesting and then she's not. initially, we think mary is just a conservative grifter, but then we find out that: 1. she has a doctorate; 2. she did actually believe in the cause, but is now resentful that she was basically used as a walking womb; 3. she got pregnant once accidentally with a non-founding-father fetus and had to beg for an abortion, and is mad about it, because she's in the leopards-eating-faces political party.

genuinely really interesting concept! the tradwife who believes in education and abortion for me but not for thee, who does believe in the cause but can't escape misogyny. but then, once again, this goes nowhere. we find out at the end, after heavy foreshadowing, that she left the iphone out on purpose for the founding fathers brothers to find and escape, but it, like, doesn't matter, because nobody in this book is a three-dimensional character and this doesn't spur any character change or tonal shifts or anything.

- there is just no way that if the founding fathers saw an airplane fly overhead, they would accept their mom's stupid flimsy explanation for what it is instead of immediately trying to build an airplane in the backyard and forcing john adams to test-drive it whether he dies or not. sorry. i believe that to be true. thomas jefferson and ben franklin were not historically known for a lack of curiosity

- to be fair, there are a couple funny moments here. franklin's porn search, for one, or the fact that at the end of the book he basically becomes a twitch streamer. the term twitch streamer isn't used, but i can read between the lines. also, there's a bit where three of them are looking at the cell phone and then jefferson bursts in like, "guys! we're being lied to! it's not the year 1750, because... i just calculated the calendar based off ptolemy's book and it doesn't match up!" and the other three (actively holding cell phone) are like "...yeah, something like that." also also, there is a part where ben franklin finds out how two men have sex and he's so stunned and it's written in such crazy dramatic prose that it made me laugh because he receives this information with more shock than he receives the information that he's a clone in 2026. i think he's bicurious

but overall this isn't even that funny. based on elison's author's note, i think the goal here was to puncture the american mythos and point out how stupid it is to want to bring the founding fathers back, and, like, yeah, i agree with that. could it be... interesting? could we make it fun.

and you know what? the answer is yes. someone can. shout-out to my sister, because when i said, "do you remember that youtube series about the founding fathers getting time-travel-kidnapped?" she immediately said, "oh, I Made America?" and i had forgotten the name, so i needed that. in five (5) minutes, the first episode of I Made America does basically everything this book was trying to do and also gives the founding fathers actual personalities. it doesn't go hard on them being evil as fuck, but it's probably still a better use of your time; pair it with the Behind the Bastards series on thomas jefferson if you want to have a really fun night. unrelatedly, nobody text me tonight; i've got big plans.

[Shannon Miz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short book (a novella, perhaps? I have no idea what the cutoff is, so whatever) that imagines what would happen if some trillionaire tech dork (ahem) cloned the Founding Fathers in an attempt to reignite the country’s “good ol’ days” (read: be openly extra racist and sexist and shitty in general). It’s fun and clever and certainly a great satirical commentary. I do wish it had been a bit longer, actually, which I almost never say. But to really explore the characters, I think it would have been great to have more time with them. There were some things happening on (and off) the island that I’d have enjoyed being explored more, but I also really liked what we did see of the characters and would have enjoyed some further exploration. That said, I enjoyed it, and absolutely flew through it, so I’d definitely recommend!

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Suppose a right-wing group of billionaires decided to bring back real leadership in America by cloning four of the founding fathers and raising them on a remote island? Yeah, what could possibly go wrong.

It sounds like a broad political pastiche, but Elison actually creates compelling personalities in the teenage-to-twenty year old Jefferson, Washington, Adams and Franklin. We spend a lot of time with them as they work out their situation and realize they are actually prisoners on this island.

The billionaires, when we see them, are as stereotypical in their hubris and arrogance as you would expect. It's the young men, however, who make this novel work.

My main criticism is that it stopped too soon at 166 pages. There's a lot more room to find out what happens to these classically educated young men in a modern world they weren't really designed for.

[Molly Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I feel I’ve earned my right to my feelings about America, a country I have loved and been so grateful for, despite the way she’s lied to me my whole life-“ Meg Elison, the writer that you are ❤️

[River · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cute idea probably but really awful execution, wow

[Kirsta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wait…what? The exposition was really long, and then it felt like the story just sort of ended. I even went back to see if I skipped some pages accidentally on my phone, but nope. That was it. I would have loved a little more.

[Lisa Eckstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams are teenage brothers growing increasingly curious about the world beyond their secluded island. They've been taught about the new nation of America and every scientific innovation of the 18th century, but they've never been permitted to see more of the world. Then one fateful day, the brothers find a mysterious device that shows far more of the world than they're prepared for, including the revelation that the year is 2026. While they make plans to confront their mother with this information, the Antediluvian Society meets to discuss when to introduce their family of clones to modern America and get the country back on the right track.

This entertaining novella establishes its tone immediately with an opening line about Benjamin Franklin discovering internet porn. From there, it's a wild and bawdy ride that speeds right along. Well-handled POV shifts offer the perspectives of the naive clones as well as the informed adults, with appropriate diction for each. I expected the story to play out over a longer period of time than it does, but what's here fun to read, and Elison clearly had fun developing the absurd premise of a new American experiment gone wrong.

[Svetlana]

I have not read the book yet. These are my thoughts and perspective after reading the Reactor magazine review by Alex Brown.

The way the Founding Fathers are revered in the USA is reminding me of Stalin, Lenin and the other fearless leaders of totalitarian Soviet times. I grew up in the 1980s in Communist Eastern Europe, I vividly remember in elementary school we were fed a lot of mythology about these men for reasons of political indoctrination. Their portraits were on the classroom walls, huge statues of them in public spaces, stories about their noble struggles to build the bright future we were all promised...

In the 1990s, my parents and my teenage self immigrated to the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

By the 2010s, I was a naturalized citizen, married to an American white man who counted Thomas Jefferson among his personal heroes, and dragged me along to visit TJ's plantation house in Virginia. My (now ex) husband was enthralled by all the cool stuff Mr Founding Father had collected and the mansion he built around his massive ego... I mainly remember the kitchen gardens and the hidden passageways for the "help".

History is written by the winners and rewritten by the powerful to suit their agenda. Dark humor and satire is how we coped in the 1980s Soviet block. Here's a couple of jokes from back then.

"We have the same freedoms here as in America: there, everyone is free to criticize the President of the USA; here, everyone is also free to criticize the President of the USA."

"US President: I love political jokes, I collect them. Soviet leader: Me too, I collect the people who tell them." (in prison camps)

[Marlene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this up on the Fourth of July, because it looked like it would be the perfect read for this mixed-feelings semiquincentennial birthday of the United States AND because that cover was so intriguing I couldn’t resist.

And it was perfect for this particular weekend. Not because of its SFnal premise – which has been done before – but for what it says about the U.S. at this particular point in time. And that it says it with dry wit and dark humor and more than a bit of satirical poking at our beliefs in American exceptionalism and the current state of affairs in these (not so) United States.

The premise is both utterly SF and completely bonkers. (And a whole lot closer to being plausible than Ira Levin’s The Boys from Brazil). Between the now everyday occurrence of IVF and artificial insemination, and the not too far distant possibilities of human cloning, the idea of recreating the “Fab Four” of the American Revolution – Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams – isn’t nearly as far-fetched as it was when Levin’s book was published in 1976. (Ironically, now, the year of the US bicentennial.)

However, human cloning isn’t nearly as simple as cloning a plant or even a mouse. Which is where this book gets interesting. Because it’s not about the tech. It’s about the people. And people are not just collections of cells, they’re collections of memory and experience. Things that are a LOT harder to replicate.

Because time marches on.

So the idea of a group of über wealthy men hiding their desire to clone themselves and live forever behind a project to clone the “Founding Fathers” of the country in order to recreate a political system they believe will favor “their kind of people” and that they are certain they will be able to control isn’t beyond the realms of possibility. In fact, it’s that possibility that makes the story work – particularly as the plan falls apart.

That plan hinges on four men who were leaders – and who are raised to BE leaders. Except in complete isolation from the 21st century world in the hopes of re-creating the men they used to be in a world that is not the one that created their originals.

They’re not supposed to eat from the “Tree of Knowledge” of where the world is now until they’re ready to be led by their noses to lead everyone else. But as Robert Burns famously penned in 1785, a quote with which Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and Adams would have been all too familiar, “The best-laid schemes of mice and men go oft awry.”

All because Benjamin Franklin discovered the wonders of the smartphone ahead of his time. Of course it was Franklin. Who else would it have been?

Escape Rating A-: I absolutely DID pick this book up for the cover. The story is a LOT deeper and more thought provoking that that cover implies, but that cover, and the opening scene, were more than intriguing enough to pull the reader in. Once I was in, I was hooked.

The idea behind the story is both very SFnal AND completely rooted in today at the same time. It’s doing what SF does best – taking a look at present conditions while providing just enough of a “fig leaf” to let the reader step outside the real world while looking at, well, the real world. There are messages if you look for them, but if a reader doesn’t want to look, the story is more than enough to carry them past those points. (Even if they shouldn’t let themselves be carried past – IMHO.)

The cloning part of this story has been done before in one fashion or another. Levin’s The Boys from Brazil cloned Hitler. Multiple times. Problems ensued. Jurassic Park is about the de-extinction of dinosaurs through cloning. But the concept has also been treated more thoughtfully, and more on point for this story, in both The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler, about an attempt at de-extinctioning the woolly mammoth, and more recently and much closer to the issues of Foundling Fathers, in Cameron Reed’s Hugo-nominated novelette, The Girl That My Mother is Leaving Me For.

Because this story isn’t about the process of cloning or even the process of raising and educating those “foundling fathers”. It’s about the way the scheme falls apart and what happens in the aftermath.

Just because the boys have the same genetics as their progenitors, that does not mean they’re going to turn out the same as their originals, because it’s impossible to fully recreate the experiences that made them who they were. Even the isolation that keeps them from learning the “truth” of the 21st century is a factor. They may not know the present but as they reach adulthood they know they do not possess the liberty they have been taught to cherish.

(This is the part of the story that most aligns with Cameron Reed’s story, in that it is possible to recreate some of the conditions that made the original person so singular, but the world and its changes mean that it can’t REALLY be done.)

When the scheme to “recreate” these giants of American history collapses and is exposed, they see the world as it really is – and that it is NOT the world they were prepared for. And the way that works out, both for the Antediluvian Society (yes, really) that funded the project and for the young men themselves is all about the way that the world currently operates, both for them and for us.

Looking back at the past will not move us forward, both because the past is another country and because the past is gone. It’s what we do in the present to make the future that matters. No matter how much some might wish to return to a past that they believe is more glorious – or more favorable – or more controllable – or more in keeping with their own antediluvian prejudices.

Foundling Fathers turned out to be a surprising and perfect read for this Independence Day. The characters of those “Founding Fathers” managed to portray these towering figures as young men who are less than larger than life yet still reflect the characteristics we remember them for – even as their personalities were extended into a world the originals never imagined. The story is both witty and biting – and it bites in exactly the places and people it should in this fascinating and fantastic story.

Originally published at Reading Reality

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

My thanks to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for an advance copy of a novella that deals asks questions about are great people created and shaped by their pasts, or can they manipulated to fit a mythology, and what happens when the real world clashes with the reality they have grown up knowing, and a mother decides to let her children live.

American history has heroes and villains, even a creation tale as deep and rich as Norse and Greek mythology, a darkness vaster than the Cthullhu tales, and probably as fictional. The founding fathers walked on water, created a nation out of whole cloth, freed the Americas from oppression, and never owned slaves. Or abused the slaves they owned. And never fell out with their child. Except maybe John Adams, who well arrested people who spoke bad about him, but seemed to love his wife, though he did ignore her. We grew up on cherry trees, kites with lightening, writing Declarations, and well, John Adams defended the British troops at the Boston Massacre. They had feet not only of clay, something Americans don't want to think about. Exceptionalism is America's birthright. Many feel by letting more people in, by letting women vote, by letting minorities feel citizenship, that America has lost their way. The founding fathers wouldn't recognize this country they would say. Or maybe they would fit right in. Foundling Fathers by Meg Elison asks the question, what makes a leader, a thinker, a inventor, a John Adams, and how could technology make a new one today, and what happens when these ghosts of the past, find out that all they know is a lie.

Ben Franklin is just about to use his favorite privy when he finds a strange block, with a glassy surface on the window sill. Confused Franklin picks up the object, pushes a button, and finds a whole new world. Pictures of women not in frocks, but in outfits for frolicking. Weather, Instagram, and even more pictures of women. Ben brings this to his brothers, all who share different last names, but have grown up on an island hidden from the hated British, raised by their loving Mother, and teacher John Hancock. John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the oldest George Washington, are first stunned by the device, but questions always thought about suddenly make sense. Devices flying through the sky. The boat they never meet bringing supplies. The slaves who care for them. These boys know something is up, but have no idea what, or why, or even who to trust. The four make a solid Declaration that they will get answers, and throw off the shackles of oppression.

A dark book, one I am sure a tech bro or two is trying to do. Probably with Ronald Reagan or something. I can easily see this happening. However it is a funny book, and one that asks a lot of questions. What makes a person become a Founding Father. Money, wealth and power, sure, but there are a lot of things here that make one question that. Questions that I think we never ask about the heroes we are supposed to love so much. For a novella this is a very complete story, though I do want more adventures of these four in modern America. What snuck up on me most was how I felt about the Mother character. One doesn't get much from her until near the end, in a scene that really hit me quite hard, and left me quite moved.

An interesting book about character, cloning, and what people think about leadership, and of course control. A funny book, with a lot of dark humor and lots of hidden things that only occur later. I really enjoy this book, and would like to see more about these characters, and read more by Meg Elison.

[Joe Karpierz · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is much fiction currently being written, both inside the sff fields and outside, that are in conversation with our current political situation. Thomas Ha's "In My Country", a Hugo finalist for Best Short Story comes immediately to mind (largely because I'm currently reading it), and Meg Elison's upcoming novella from Tachyon Publications, "Foundling Fathers" is another. As I fished around for how to start this review, several ways came to mind. What I settled upon, however, is what I believe is quite possibly the best first line of any novella (or maybe any other piece of fiction) I've ever read:

"It took Benjamin Franklin twenty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds to discover there was pornography on the internet."

I don't know what a sentence like that says about me - that it drew me into the book completely and utterly - but I feel that if that doesn't draw in the reader, well, I'm sure there's something else that would, but I find it difficult to believe.

The year, as far as Ben Franklin knows, is 1750. What he has discovered is a smartphone that someone left in a "privy". Like any intelligent and curious teenage boy, he started poking around, and well, you know. He immediately takes the device to his brothers: Tom, John, and George (who of course are Jefferson, Adams, and Washington). This is one more piece of evidence that not all is what it seems to be. What are those things that fly in the sky? Why do they never see the boat that comes to bring them supplies? Why does their calendar not match up with what they learn from the device about Ptolemy (among other things)?

Let's back up a bit. The boys, their "parents" Jeff Hancock and Mary Libertas, and a bunch of "slaves" there to serve their every need, are part of an elaborate scheme by the Antediluvian Society, a group of right wing billionaires who (and where have you heard this before?) want to make America what it was, bring it back to the glory of yesteryear. The boys are being brought up with Christian values (as the society sees them), manners, and other behaviors of 1750. They are living on an island in isolation so they don't know anything about the outside "real world". The Saratoga plan (there's always a plan, and like most plans, this one does not survive contact with the enemy), is to introduce the clones (I mean, did I have to tell you they were clones, and thus this novella becomes science fiction?) to society and return America to its former (in the society's eyes) glory.

Of course, the boys aren't supposed to know it's 2026 and not 1750, but they were raised to be as intelligent as the originals, and once they found the smartphone they started putting two and two together and really did get four and demanded to know what was really going on and what their part is in the whole thing.

As I finished the book, I didn't know what to think of it. But the more I thought about it, the better it got. The fact that the right wing cabal's plan was going awry feels like it parallels what is going on in the real world in the U.S. today, and it really is sweet and delicious. To be fair, we don't know how things really end up in the novella, just as we don't know how things are going to end up in the real world we are living in today. It's not necessarily easy to predict where we're going to end up in our timeline, and so Elison didn't predict where the Fab Four (John, Ben, Tom, and George), as I've come to think about them, are going to end up. This is a terrific read, and one that I heartily recommend. Just don't leave your cellphone laying around where people who aren't supposed to see it will find it. You never know what will happen.

[Tomislav · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine if a group of right-wing misogynists with billions more money than sense decided that what they needed was a group of cloned founding fathers to assume the leadership of America and take it back to the 18th century values that made it great. The young brothers Tom Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams, and George Washington have been growing up on an isolated island off the Virigina coast in what they believe to be the 1700s. The only adults they know are their mother, their teacher, and servants all of whom are really contracted employees who have sustained this artificial setting according to a plan. Politics and beliefs are not genetically determined, although personality characteristics may be, and the intelligent young men are finding discrepancies and suspecting something is not right about their world and the engineered book-teaching they have been spoon-fed. Then Ben finds a smartphone in the privy, and all hell breaks loose. “It took Benjamin Franklin twenty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds to discover there was pornography on the internet.”

The concept is fantastically original, with great comic contrasts as the boys scheme and confront authority, just as an unexplained armed insurrection is launched on the same island. Their eventual interactions with police authorities on the mainland are hilarious. But then they are abruptly epiloged into modern society. The only way this truncation of the story arc makes sense to me is if the novella is the first of several that make up one complete novel. I’m looking forward to the rest of it. Meanwhile, it might be best to wait for the publication of more story before reading this set-up novella.

Meg Elison made it into the big time when her debut novel The Book of the Unnamed Midwife won the Philip K Dick Award for US paperback original publication in 2015. Since then, she has written sequel novels for that, a striking collection Big Girl, and numerous shorter works. Thank you to Tachyon Publications for an Advance Review Copy of The Foundling Fathers in epub format, in exchange for an honest review on social media platforms and on my book review blog. This new title is scheduled for release on 23 June 2026.

[Eric Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

A huge thank you to Tachyon for an advance copy of Meg Elison's Foundling Fathers!

I found this book while digging through spec-fic publishers and the premise just looked like too much fun to pass up. Finding out the author, Meg Elison, is from the Berkshires (right in my backyard) pretty much sealed the deal. But then I checked out the press kit and author’s video - which got an actual lol - and I was officially excited.

The book delivers in a big way. The writing is super witty, and I adored the contrast between the 18th-century period English and the bluntness of modern speech. “What is this before me?” to “John Hancock had fucking had it" is peak comedic timing for me. I found myself laughing out loud at the start of nearly every chapter.

By the middle of the book, I was already picturing this on-screen. There are some abrupt transitions between characters and timelines, but if you view it through a cinematic lens - thinking of them as hard cuts, really - the pacing makes a lot of sense, especially when all four boys are speaking concurrently.

My only real gripe is that I wanted more. The “explosive” events leading to the boys' escape felt a bit rushed, and I think there was a lot of tension there that could have been fleshed out further. I also wished Jefferson had faced some actual consequences for his inferred sexual assaults, but the book stays true to the reality that, in his life, he never really did. All that said, of course I want more. It’s a phenomenally-written novella, and wanting more of a world is a pretty good sign of a successful story.

I really like when an absurd concept is taken seriously. We get that here. Elison gets the temperaments of these guys right - they are flawed people in a flawed system overseen by flawed men. The ending, where they finally meet the person who "made" them, is handled perfectly. I usually hate using the word "masterful," but for that specific scene, I can't think of a better way to describe it. Elison captures the boy’s profound disappointment wonderfully - a sentiment she echoes in her afterword.

It’s a huge “Mission: Accomplished” for Meg Elison and Foundling Fathers. Like an actual “Mission: Accomplished,” not a USS Abraham Lincoln “Mission: Accomplished.” We’re lucky to be along for the ride.

Keep an eye out for this one from Tachyon in June.

[Sage · Rating 5 out of 5]

Foundling Fathers by Meg Elison - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for this eARC in exchange for my honest review 🫶

First things first— I absolutely FLEW through this! I had such a blast with this book, finished it in just under an hour!
The premise is honestly fascinating (and, I will admit, not too far fetched in our current climate): deluded right-wing billionaires cloning the founding fathers and raising them as if it were the 1700s on a remote island in order to recapture the magic of those geniuses in present times. Elison does a fantastic job of fleshing out each of the boys, sprinkling in traits familiar to the original Founding Fathers while also giving them voices unique to these brothers raised by a single mother— a delightfully accurate glimpse into life as a sibling.
This novella follows four young men, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and John Adams. They are being raised on an island as though it is 1750, despite it actually being 2026. However, they are starting to realize that it may not in fact be 1750. A large clue to this is the phone that Franklin finds left behind in the bathroom, giving the wonderful opening line: “It took Benjamin Franklin twenty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds to discover there was pornography on the internet”. If that doesn’t hook you in, I don’t know what will!
Things take a sharp turn when the boys try to confront their mother about their discovery— the story turned fairly dark fairly quickly, but it was done almost seamlessly, with the grief and disbelief and innocence lost being almost tangible.
The way Mary— the woman given the role of mother to the Foundling Fathers— code-switches from Revolutionary-era English to modern when she isn’t around the boys is staggeringly well-written, as are Ben, Thomas, George, and John’s reactions to various modern technologies through their outdated lenses. While they may be (clones of) Founding Fathers, they are still very much teenage boys, and that comes through beautifully.

This story is a fun science fiction/speculative fiction read with a heavy dose of satire— particularly regarding billionaires trying anything to hold power and restore the world to what they assume would be the ideal— and a delightful 250th birthday gift to America. Highly highly recommend!

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

The back cover gives away the plot premise, so I am not going to worry about that spoiler.

In the near future a bunch of really rich right-wing guys decide to clone the founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Ben Franklin and George Washington. They raise them from birth on a deserted island off the coast of Virginia. They tell them that it is the 18th century. They give them an education of that time and teach them the speech and manners of those days. They hire a woman to be act as their "mother".

When they are young men, the whole thing falls apart. Their "mother" accidently losses her iPhone, and Ben Franklin discovers it.

There is a fun escape story. The creators of this mess try to control it. All four of the founding fathers go into different lives.

This is a concept book. It is better not to ask questions like, "how could rich smart people think this was a good idea? or 'how technically could you get cells bearing identical male and female DNA for all four of them? or "how could you think raising the four of them on an uninhabited island in a 250-year-old world, would prepare them to be effective right-wing leaders today?"

It is more fun to go along for the ride. Elison comes up with credible versions of what the four of them might be like in this bizarre setting. Franklin is smart and lazy. Adams is smart and quick to take offense. Jefferson is a genius and a womanizer. Washington is a rock of common sense. She has fun running them through mock versions of their lives. Washington leads them in battle. Franklin masters the technology. Jefferson discovers the true year from the night sky.

I enjoyed the story. It is fast paced and doesn't take itself too seriously. It skewers the mindless worship of the founding fathers by carrying it to its logic extreme, while at the same time showing that the four of them were substantial people.

[NothingButTheGood · Rating 4 out of 5]

What happens when eccentric billionaires have access to cloning and choose to recreate the myth of America's birth? Find out in Meg Ellison’s new political satire novella, Foundling Fathers.

Ellison has written a lovely, rainy Saturday summer read. Don’t take this book too seriously. The premise is meant to be ridiculous. We can laugh at the billionaires knowing they are not smart enough to realize their plan would never work in the long run.

This is not a laugh out loud read. You’ll likely give out gentle chuckles from time to time but a nice smile will be on your face the whole time. You will be gripped from the opening line. Elison tells you everything you need to know about the real Benjamin Franklin. If you’re also looking for subtle and then not so subtle references to Epstein, you’re in luck, they’re all over the place!

Ellison has chosen a spectacular cast for her story. Four founding fathers of whom lived exceptionally different lives, at times opposed each other. Their “mother”, a conservative conformist in her youth who carried these clones into the 21st century. Included are several side characters who are all definitely “straight” white men obsessed with “making America great again”.

With humor and unexpected twists you’ll be enthralled with Meg Elison’s new work and be hopeful she will continue to work in this sphere.

Nothing But The Good is a review page dedicated to positive forward reviews. Discussing what we enjoyed about reading. Thank you to Tachyon and NetGalley for this ARC. Goodreads for

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

TL;DR: An interesting thought experiment
Source: NetGalley, thank you so much!

Plot: A goverment faction clones our founding fathers, what could go wrong?
Characters: These weren’t really the important part, it was more the idea.
Setting: Again, not important.
SciFi: We didn’t get much of that either?

Thoughts:

I’m not sure what to feel about this one besides “It’s something I read”. The thought experiment is interesting, and I feel like perhaps with a bit more exploration this could have been very fascinating. But as it was we got a very surface level look at the type of people who might/would do this. The disregard for selfhood, for being ones own person. The idea that just the genetics decides the person.

It’s a very simple idea with a simple execution. It’s short and to the point, so there isn’t a whole lot I can say about it. I will also add, the misogyny is strong and deeply built in. I full understand that it’s part of the villianizing of the people doing this that we’re supposed to buy into but it was uncomfortable. There was also some clear violence against immigrants so if you don’t want to read that, continue on.

Overall it was just… something I read? I can’t give you much more. If you’re a history buff I can see this being a fun experiment to explore but I’m not sure if it really served me in any way.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Holy cow, this immediately started out so fun! I love a story that just throws you in with no preamble, sink or swim. I started at midnight and read straight through to the end, only stopping long enough to get a snack.

The boys are so well written, not just the way Elison worked the more familiar traits into their makeup, but the way they were so obviously close-knit young men with a single mother. The two that stood out the most were John Adams, the baby, and Thomas Jefferson, the steadfast mama's boy with a Madonna/whore complex. But Washington and Franklin were exactly the levelheaded antithesis you'd expect from a gaggle of brothers. Just a perfect glimpse into siblinghood.

The story turns dark so quickly as the boys start to confront their caregivers about their unreality. I wasn't prepared, but it was so gracefully segued. I don't know that I've ever had such an initially fun book shift so viscerally, with such definitive moments where innocence was lost. The grief and disbelief were tangible, and so eloquently written.

I don't have the words to properly convey how much I loved this book. It was funny, insightful, poignant; I don't often wish I could go back and read a book again for the first time, but if ever there was one to choose, for me it's this one.

Thank you to NetGalley, Tachyon Publications, and Meg Elison for the opportunity to read this in advance!

[Tia Schmidt · Rating 3 out of 5]

What if radical billionaires had cloning technology and decided to bring back the Founding Fathers? The concept is intriguing, parts were hilarious (the boys discovering an iPhone and finding porn within a matter of minutes), the pace was nearly perfect, but this fell a little flat for me overall. I would have loved to see this do MORE. Yes, it's a novella, but I felt much could have been shortened or, honestly, taken out completely to make room for either more humor and/or concepts to create a bigger impact. I think it would have been hilarious to see the boys actually talk to the billionaires about what they specifically want for the country. Would have been even funnier if the boys replied with what would be considered more left-leaning retorts. I would have liked to see them interact with the modern world a little more too. This was an amazing concept, but I really needed and wanted more out of it! Not necessarily a full-length novel, but edited in a way that leaves more room for the important and intriguing parts.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications for an advanced copy. All thoughts and opinions are, as always, my very own. This one is set to release on June 23rd.

[Robert Goodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meg Elison delivers a delightfully twisted satirical novella in Foundling Fathers. She starts with Benjamin Franklin finding a mobile phone and quite quickly working out how to navigate its mysteries. This Benjamin Franklin has three brothers – Samual Adams, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington – and the four were born and have been raised on a remote island. The finding of the phone sets off a chain of events that will reveal to them who they really are and what their purpose is.
Foundling Fathers plays with the idea that what right wing Americans really want is to go back to the past. And what better way to do this than to clone a group of the Founding Fathers and put them in place to “save America”. Only nothing is that simple and Elison has fun playing with what she considers to be the potential consequences of playing god in this way.
Foundling Fathers is an enjoyable thought experiment. In it Elison can consider the cause of “true believers” and but also what these great men of American history might actually think about the state of their Nation in the early 21st century. But more than all of that it has its tongue firmly in its cheek and provides an enjoyable way to deconstruct current US politics.

[Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Foundling Fathers was interesting and in parts funny. I think it would have benefited from a longer length rather than this novella length story. Or tighten it up to keep it novella length. It introduces too much too fast without giving it time to marinate and explore. The concept was cool. You have a group that decided that they wanted the United States to hard reset by cloning four of the founding fathers, George Washington, John Adams, Ben Franklin, and Thomas Jeffereson. What could go wrong with sequestering them on an island and making them think that they lived in 17700s up until a certain age. Then let them resume their "destiny," kind of like manifest destiny but make is science manipulated. I really enjoyed the concept and found it interesting. Some parts seemed rather preachy. Everything happened but then nothing happened. we were dropped in medias res. the satire was perfection and the personifications of the foundling fathers done well. I did not like how sometimes they were referred to in last name and then it would switch to first name, but that may have been a "me" thing. Overall, a fast pace read that introduces interesting possibilities without much exploration.

[Sharondblk · Rating 4 out of 5]

The premise of this book is that a group of American billionaires decide to lo0ok to the past for future leadership, and clone the founding fathers, based on the idea that the individuals were special and that this specialness can be used for current leadership. The part set on the Island (i.e. most of it) is clever, and particularly interesting since I just read Yesteryear. they are very different books, but both are playing with the idea of returning to a better past.
The move of the island is sudden and jarring and that's where the satire really kicks in. It's biting and insightful and I loved it.
I may have missed some references since I am not American, particularly in relation to the personalities of the boys / founding fathers. This book works on many levels and I really enjoyed reading it.

Thanks to NetGalley, Tachyon Publications and Meg Elison for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Cynthia Brendel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a fun and quick read! An evil conglomerate has cloned four founding fathers - George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams. They're raised on an isolated island with no contact with the outside world. They live and are educated as they would have been in their own lifetimes, and they have no contact with the outside world. The idea is that they'll be able to save America from its amorality and loss of traditional values. Then Ben finds a phone and pretty quickly lands on porn.

After that, things spiral and happen pretty quickly as the boys realize they've been living a lie. I don't want to spoil any of that so I won't go into detail. Let me just say they have BIG feelings about it, and their reactions are very understandable and also pretty funny. I loved the little vignettes of their lives after they get off the island. Let's hope none of the wrong people read this one because it feels like it could very much be real in today's climate! Definitely worth the read.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC!