A review by elly29
The Mother Code by Carole Stivers

adventurous medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

It started out really exciting and interesting, but ended tediously. I think there were too many things the author was trying to do, and so she ended up doing none of them well (with the exception of making me think she knew what she was talking about with archaebacteria). The world dies, not a single survivor in San Francisco, some Hopi survive, and the Base folks survive, but we hear of no one else. The US is still referenced, but the US would have collapsed entirely. They spend resources building the most improbable survival tactic of individual machine mothers -- poised no less to shoot at any enemies --, rather than, say, building Arcology domes (did this person never play Sim City 2000). Also, ugh, I hate when poor communication is a plot device. It's lazy writing.

Go play Horizon Zero Dawn; it has similar themes that are better executed.

I did think it was very interesting that an essential characteristic of the Mother bots
was indeed that they were coded along with the biological mothers of the children.
That was interesting. But I didn't think it had much unique to say about the relation of children and mothers, or of love, or what it means to be human.
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