The Mother Code
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $13.99
Publisher Description
What it means to be human—and a mother—is put to the test in Carole Stivers’s debut novel set in a world that is more chilling and precarious than ever.
The year is 2049. When a deadly non-viral agent intended for biowarfare spreads out of control, scientists must scramble to ensure the survival of the human race. They turn to their last resort, a plan to place genetically engineered children inside the cocoons of large-scale robots—to be incubated, birthed, and raised by machines. But there is yet one hope of preserving the human order: an intelligence programmed into these machines that renders each unique in its own right—the Mother Code.
Kai is born in America’s desert Southwest, his only companion his robotic Mother, Rho-Z. Equipped with the knowledge and motivations of a human mother, Rho-Z raises Kai and teaches him how to survive. But as children like Kai come of age, their Mothers transform too—in ways that were never predicted. And when government survivors decide that the Mothers must be destroyed, Kai is faced with a choice. Will he break the bond he shares with Rho-Z? Or will he fight to save the only parent he has ever known?
Set in a future that could be our own, The Mother Code explores what truly makes us human—and the tenuous nature of the boundaries between us and the machines we create.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Biochemist Stivers's sweeping, cinematic debut raises probing questions about the nature of family and human connection. In 2049, a DNA-based biological weapon unleashes a lethal worldwide pandemic that threatens to end humanity. The only viable cure appears to lie in fetal genetic manipulation, leading the U.S. government to secretly create incubators in the form of flying robots programmed with a "mother code" that gives each a unique personality intended to allow each bot to successfully raise a baby until it's safe to reintegrate the child into human society. Stivers splits focus between the scientists creating the program, in thrilling passages replete with government secrets and impossibly high stakes, and the uncanny bond between mother robot Rho-Z and her genetically engineered human child, Kai, as they navigate their isolated life in the desert in 2060. Each story line is emotionally resonant, leading to a devastating gut punch when they eventually collide. Stivers's mythic vision and sound science will strike a chord with readers who fear for humanity's future. This dystopia is painful, provocative, and ultimately infused with hope.
Customer Reviews
haunting and thought provoking
4.25 stars--THE MOTHER CODE by Carole Stivers is a sci-fi, futuristic, apocalyptic story line focusing on a biological weapon that spread out of control.
In the year 2049, the US military secretly deployed a weapon of biological warfare ( a synthetic nucleic acid nanostructure NAN) in a remote region of Afghanistan. Although immediately deemed a success, the virus quickly mutated, and with the help of mother nature, would eventually engulf the entire world. Knowing that the end of mankind was near, researchers, scientists and bio-engineers built and programmed fifty ‘Mothers’ to incubate and raise the only children expected to survive.
Told from several third person perspectives following three different time lines THE MOTHER CODE focuses on the possibility of a manmade cataclysmic virus; a biological weapon of war that once introduced is unable to be controlled. Years would pass wherein the US military and all of their power found themselves incapable of finding a vaccine, and in the ensuing time, would become the target of revenge. In an effort to ensure some of humanity survived, fifty embryos would be placed in robotic cocoons, where the implanted ‘Mother Code’ would ensure their survival at all costs. Ten years would pass, the children who thrived, along with their ‘Mothers’, would search for any remaining survivors, but in doing so would catch the attention of the few forsaken remnants of mankind, men and women who are hoping to bring home the children who survived.
THE MOTHER CODE is a haunting and thought provoking story of power and control; of possibilities and probabilities; of what ifs and whys; of motherhood, acceptance and love. The stupidity of man to presume he can control that which he does not know, and the betrayal by those in power believing they have the ability and authority to control the world. THE MOTHER CODE looks at what it is to be a mother; the evolution of technology and cybernetics; sentience, self awareness, consciousness; and the ability to evolve, accept, love and protect.
The story line is awash in technical jargon, military lingo, science fact and fiction, as well as futuristic terminology that may be overwhelming to some readers but such is the nature of science fiction and fantasy.
Released during the COVID19 pandemic, the story line may hit too close to home for more sensitive readers.