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. ( )

As a genetically modified virus runs rampant, a small elite team come together to prepare for the end of humanity. In a last ditch effort, they create fifty robots, designed to "birth" and raise children who have been genetically modified to survive the virus. The book alternates between the team creating the robots, and years later beginning with the children as six years old.

This was a fascinating and hard to put down book. The alternating story lines worked really well together. I thought the dynamic between the Mother robots and the children were fascinating. I would love to read another book set in this universe. Overall, highly recommended. ( )

The Mother Code was on my radar for quite a while before publication. It didn't meet my high expectations. Part of the problem may lie in reading about viral pandemic during a viral pandemic. As much as I've always been a fan of sci-fi and dystopian fiction, it doesn't hold the same appeal when it's perilously close to real life.

The story is set in two timelines with two casts of characters. There is, eventually, some overlap. I wasn't invested in any of the characters in either timeline. Way too much time is spent on the children with mechanical "mothers." ( )

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 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. ( )