Carole Stivers

COVID-19 got you worried? You might want to skip over this novel for now or you might want to lean in -- which is what I did.

The science is way over my head, but I shall try to summarize: the government has released a nanobot virus thing that eats away your lungs until you die. The government needed to shut down some "terrorists" so why not release these tiny creatures without knowing if they can travel from one host to another like a virus. Who cares? We need to get those show more terrorists.

Nevertheless, it doesn't go well for humanity. The government needs to cover up their error so they start to come up with solutions -- a "cure" -- or create babies that are immune and have them birthed & raised by robot mothers.

The robot moms were the most interesting part. I could have spent the entire book getting to know the biological mothers, the robots that became them, and the children they raised. And what about the dads? How were they selected? Talk about sending a message that "mothering" is the most important part of a child's development.

Interesting novel, especially for these COVID-19 filled days.

If you want to continue leaning in to novel viruses (or novels featuring pandemics):
The Stand by Stephen King
The Fireman by Joe Hill
Wanderers by Chuck Wendig
The Last One by Alexandra Oliva
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
Oryx and Crake (MaddAddam, #1) by Margaret Atwood
The Dreamers by Karen Thompson Walker show less

DNFing 1/3rd of the way through, because I'm not feeling it. As others have said the synopsis misrepresents what the story's actually about, but there was also way too much silly sci-fi techno-jargon. I actually started chuckling at 'thermo cup' - you mean a thermos?? Do brand names no longer exist in this future??

Really put off by the fact that the only two female characters introduced in the first hundred pages are treated as instantly romantically desirable to the first male characters show more who see them. There's also a really uncomfortable amount of casual racism - some of which I assume we're supposed to be put off by, but no one really challenges the USA murdering middle easterners. The CIA sets loose this deadly untested bioweapon in the Afghan desert, and the characters are only aghast because now it looks like it might effect our own people too! But who cares about the innocent families and bystanders halfway across the planet, right? :/

I think the concept for this story is very interesting, but the execution leaves something to be desired. show less

I really didn't like this! The characters weren't very interesting, I thought many characters were pretty fetishized, it had a weird level of glorification of the military for a novel about them destroying the world for humankind, and the gender essentialism was completely off the charts.

In a dystopian future where most of the world has been wiped out by an uncurable DNA-based disease, THE MOTHER CODE, by Carole Stivers, follows the last hope of the human race, a group of children who were genetically engineered to survive and born and raised in ships, or "mothers" that nurture and care for these children. Embedded in each ship's computer is the child's "Mother Code", personality traits from their biological mother. As the children mature and explore, will the ships and show more their "Mother Code" be to adapt and change with child's needs? And what happens if any of the children find something the ship "mothers" believe is a threat?
The science behind the disease that wiped out this world original and well-thought out. And the way each department of the government approaches solutions creates really cool interplay between groups. How should we test for antidotes?, Can we salvage the human race at all?, Do we simply wiped out the portion of the world infected and hope? These and more are the questions that come up when humans are facing extinction. And then following the children and their "mother" ships, which could also be call giant mobile robots, is equally fascinating. The "mothers" are programmed in certain ways and have limits of what their protocols will let them do, meanwhile the children are close to reaching a point where they want more freedom than their "mothers" will let them. The second half of the book keeps building on all of those topics, meanwhile the story shifts to an action/thriller with a blockbuster finish that leaves the reader in blissful shock at the end of the story.
One of my favorites science fiction/thriller I've ever read, THE MOTHER CODE doesn't slow down, doesn't take anything for granted, and entertains until the very end.
I received a copy of this book as part of the Goodreads Giveaway program. show less