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From the publisher:

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.

Carole Stivers takes on a topic which almost by definition is beyond any attempts to diagnosis it. It is what is motherhood? What does it signify to those becoming mothers and how they perceive their offspring? How do the children look upon the figure of their mother aside from the normal views of the protector, guide, and the epitome of love?     

The story takes place in the near future as a conflict between nations decimates the populations of the countries. The United States tries an experiment by building a group of robots meant for the care and raising of human children. It is hoped that this will allow replenishment of the species. Using advanced techniques the robots are inculcated with an instinct and desire to care for and nurture embryos of human children entrusted to their care. Each robot has a space within them where the child can be protected and guided and used as a living quarters.     

The robots are followed secretly and watched as their charges grow and develop. They are guided into taking the children into a situation where they can pick up food and water deposited for them and at the age of 6 years brought together as a means of socializing them. Several of the children are followed as are some of the adults that were involved in setting up the experiment.     

It is obviously the author’s opinions that guide the direction of the novel, but she does develop a scenario that makes for a fascinating read, and the question of whether or not an artificial replacement for the human trait of motherhood could ever replace the real thing. A different type of story from any others, and one that is a definite five-star all-nighter and one that poses questions beyond any others I have come across.

11/2020 Paul Lane

THE MOTHER CODE by Carole Stivers. Berkley (August 25, 2020). ISBN: 978-1984806925. 352 pages.

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From the publisher:

The acclaimed author of Home Schooling returns with Midnight Train to Prague, a timeless tale of friendship, romance, betrayal, and survival that spans the turbulent decades of the twentieth century, through two world wars and between countries and continents.

In 1927, as Natalia Faber travels from Berlin to Prague with her mother, their train is delayed in Saxon Switzerland. In the brief time the train is idle, Natalia learns the truth about her father―who she believed died during her infancy―and meets a remarkable woman named Dr. Magdalena Schaeffer, whose family will become a significant part of her future. Shaken by these events, Natalia arrives at a spa on the shore of Lake Hevíz in Hungary. Here, she meets Count Miklós Andorján, a journalist and adventurer. The following year, they will marry.

Years later, Germany has invaded Russia. When Miklós fails to return from the eastern front, Natalia goes to Prague to wait for him. With a pack of tarot cards, she sets up shop as a fortune teller, and she meets Anna Schaeffer, the daughter of the woman she met decades earlier on that stalled train. The Nazis accuse Natalia of spying, and she is sent to a concentration camp. Though they are separated, her friendship with Anna grows as they fight to survive and to be reunited with their families.

Carol Windley’s novel is a book about feelings and emotions and reactions to the greatest horror that has touched our planet during its long history.

The opening has two of the principal characters meeting by chance on a train going from Berlin to Prague in 1927.  Natalia Faber is traveling with her mother and while the train is stopped in Switzerland meets Dr. Magdalena Schaeffer, a woman whose family will play an important part in Natalia’s life. Later, in Hungary, she meets Count Miklos Andorjan who is a journalist who is not averse to high adventure in going after a story. During the next year Natalia and Miklos marry.     

Years later with the Second World War underway, Miklos travels to Russia to report on the German invasion. When he fails to return Natalia travels to Prague where the couple has decided to meet in the event of Miklos’ apparent disappearance. There, she encounters the depravity of the Nazi occupation and loses her innocence in experiencing the killings, the arrests, the persecution of Jews. Natalia is arrested in the last months of the war accused of spying and sent to a concentration camp. 

The descriptions of the inmates and what happens to them in the camp is handled in an emotion-charged sequence. The camp is liberated by the British and the captives brought to centers for both medical treatments and attempts to reunite them with family.  Natalia, hoping to reunite with her husband, takes a job working for Americans staffing one of the placement centers.     

Displaced persons are sent out to receptive people in many countries and descriptions of these are also handled well by the author who does make it a point to indicate that the U.S., England, and other countries turn away the refugees in spite of having adequate room to accept them. It is impossible to read the book without experiencing an emotional attachment with the people described. Needless to say, the novel is an all-night read with a sigh of relief at the ending. Kudos to the author for her work in bringing us this story.

11/2020 Paul Lane

MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO PRAGUE by Carol Windley. Atlantic Monthly Press (November 3, 2020). ISBN: 978-0802119735. 352 pages.

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In 1899, Fritz Duquesne, an aristocratic South African, is sent to England for his formal education. During his time there, tensions rise between the British and his homeland as the age of African colonialism peaks. A boiling point is reached between Fritz and his adopted brethren when he is sent back home–this time as a commissioned British army officer.

Simultaneously, the screams for freedom are still being heard just on the other side of the Irish Sea. There John MacBride does anything to join the revolutionary Irish Brotherhood and end the British occupation of his island once and for all. With funding running low for their cause, MacBride is forced to seek financial backing from overseas. This leads him to South Africa where the recent discovery of gold has drawn the attention of everyone looking to exploit the newfound riches, including the ever-hungry British Empire.

This is the author’s first published book and a highly successful one in presenting the world of the late 1800s to early 1900s in England and South Africa. The lead protagonist, Fritz Duquesne, was a man that actually lived during that period and is thought to have interacted with many of the key figures portrayed in the book.

Fritz is an individual born into a high-level family with his father and uncle holding leadership positions in the emerging government of South Africa. He is sent to England by his father as he comes of age and enrolled in Oxford University where he is to complete a liberal arts education to properly fit him for a leadership role in the land of his birth. By chance, Fritz meets another young man on his arrival in England, of noble birth, and also destined to attend Oxford University. The two become great friends with Fritz being invited to Jack’s home many times, meeting his parents and his sister. The sister develops a love for Fritz and his father considers him a second son, and an eventual husband for his daughter.

Jack’s father, a lord of the realm, is a man that is involved at high levels in the policy making of the British government. He is in favor of sending troops to South Africa to militarily annex the country and begins to think of Fritz as assuming an important position in the government that will be set up. To bolster his plan he arranges for both his son Jack and Fritz to be enrolled in the British military academy, earning commissions and be available to help set policy based on England’s directives for the area.

Blasco also portrays a second group of foreign colonists for high level interaction in South Africa. These are men and women from Ireland fleeing a land with limited opportunity due to adverse economic conditions, and taking an active part in events in Africa. John MacBride was forced to flee Ireland after he became involved with an assassination attempt there. He realizes the need to finance any revolutionary movement and ends up in the gold fields of Africa as a means of obtaining funds to help the revolutionary movement in Ireland.

The novel culminates in the conflict known as the Boer War, in which the residents of South Africa fight a guerilla action against what was a highly mechanized and disciplined army protecting an empire upon which the sun never sets. Sir Herbert Kitchener is second in command of the British army involved in the fighting. He has attained fame and fast promotion mainly due to his conquest of the Sudan for England and the author depicts him as a martinet with little people skills but a natural soldier quite at home in commanding men involved in battle. A possible tie in which is not brought out in the book is the sinking of a ship Kitchener was on going to attend a meeting in Russia during the first world war. Kitchener was killed and of the many rumors involved in his death was the mention, in real life, of Fritz Duquesne’s name as fomenting the assassination.

The novel is easily an all-nighter, with the reader brought headlong into a tumultuous period in world events. I would certainly be first on line to pick up succeeding books by Blasco, enjoying the work of a fast-emerging author at the top of his game.

11/2020 Paul Lane

KILL KITCHENER by Andrew Joseph Blasco. Hansen Publishing Group, LLC (October 1, 2020). ISBN: 978-1601822680. 356 pages.

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