The Mother Code by Carole Stivers; A Girl Made of Air by Nydia Hetherington; The Bone Shard Daughter by Andrea Stewart; The Left-Handed Booksellers of London by Garth Nix; and Augury by SE Lister
Carole Stivers’s first novel was originally slated for British publication in May, but postponed because of the lockdown. The Mother Code (Hodder & Stoughton, £20.99) was written well before the current pandemic and yet couldn’t be more timely. After a botched mission by the US military to defeat terrorists with bioweapons, the world is ravaged by an inexorable viral plague. In a bid to save the human race, scientists develop genetically altered children immune to the virus and nurtured by robot AIs known as Mothers. The novel shuttles back and forth in time between the story of the scientists racing against the clock to develop the AIs while the plague devastates civilisation, and the children who are programmed with the Mother Code – a self-awareness with far-reaching and poignant consequences. After some early info-dumping, and characters relaying what they already know for the benefit of the reader, Stivers delivers a gripping techno-thriller which offers hope despite its bleak premise.
Continue reading...via Science fiction books | The Guardian https://ift.tt/354kKQt
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