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

192 pages, Paperback

Expected publication 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

[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.

[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.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meg Elison has taken a disturbing what if... and turned it into a satirical novella about techbros with god-like money and the political acumen of elementary school textbooks cloning three of our Founding Fathers to usher in a short-sighted Ameri-topia. When boy-Franklin finds a cellphone in the privy of their experimental island, the entire plan dramatically unravels, taking destiny with it.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, and I was surprised (and somewhat disappointed) when it ended so soon. I took a lot of delight in Elison’s skewering of the current techbros with her mighty pen, but despite their originators’ pasts, I felt sympathy for the boys. This left with me with a lot to consider about nature vs. nurture, political upbringing, victimization, cognitive dissonance, and generational atonement.

Another excellent work by one of my favorite people writing today.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tachyon Publications, LLC for the review copy.