The Mother Code by Carole Stivers

This is a novel that cuts between the near future and the far future (far-ish, a generation or so later). In the near future, the American military has unleashed a biological flu-like weapon against insurgents in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, it has seeped into the ecosystem and its spread is unstoppable. It soon comes to threaten the human race. In the far future, a young boy Kai is “born” from an artificial womb, his only companion his robot mother, Rho-Z. The two stories intersect, the pandemic in the near future, and the scientists' desperate search to stop it; Kai and his mother Rho-Z’s pursuit of survival and search for others like him in the far future.

On the one hand, this is an incredibly prescient book, the world locked down as it is by Corvid-19. I must admit to not having realised that the title dealt with pandemic disease when I received a copy from Netgalley, so this is a story definitely of the moment. That said, this is both a plus and a minus. It’s a plus because the storyline is current, and while Covid-19 is a coronavirus, naturally occurring, and unlikely to wipe out humankind, it has heightened our fears of deadly pandemics and has brought concerns about biological warfare to the fore (there are conspiracy theories that Covid-19 was made in a Chinese lab, which are almost certainly false). 

Unfortunately, The Mother Code fails by comparison on other levels, albeit through no fault of the author. For example, in this novel the American’s hide the pandemic from other nations and refuse to divulge the truth of the disease. We’ve seen with Covid-19 that when it comes to an existential threat, that even the Chinese, a one-party state and a secretive one at that, will share science. While the Chinese have not been totally honest, they have come in for huge criticism for this, yet in The Mother Code, the Americans are able to hide the truth of the pandemic with no problem at all. Of course, Covid-19 was not developed as a biological warfare agent and perhaps if it had, things would have been different. Even so, I can’t help but find the author’s portrayal lacking, though as I say, she wrote the novel before the current crisis so can’t be blamed for getting this wrong.

The far future elements about Kai and his mother robot Rho-Z are in many ways far more philosophical, tackling as they do questions about artificial intelligence and what it means to be human. This is interesting but speculative and while the author has clearly researched the topic (not surprising, as she's a scientist herself with a PH.d. in biology) I found myself struggling to connect with it. In part, I think that's because the author wished the story to be uplifting and positive, and yet I felt that the world she had created was more suited to a dystopian tale. 

All that aside, The Mother Code is an interesting slice of sci-fi with a lot to say about the world. Apparently, movie rights have been snapped up by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, so a film version might well be on our screens too, 

3 out of 5 stars