I tried to read this several times but the story did not grip me, in essence it should have as I usually devour this genre. I can't pinpoint any particular reason for this but unfortunately I cannot give it more than 2 stars.

This should have been right up my alley. Futuristic dystopian, yes please. However, it seemed to be a bit convoluted and got a tad messy at points. I think the idea was there but it wasn't totally supported by the execution.

This was a really good idea, but unfortunately the story just loses its way and ends up as very poor science fiction.
The plot has massive holes and lacks cohesion.

An intriguing spin on ‘Venus, give us your women’ becoming ‘Mars, give us your men’ was enough to snag my interest in this sci-fi by a new to me author. I’ve always enjoyed when a survival desperation element is present in a story and this one with a world-wide nuking that leaves only the partial crew of a deep-space colony ship (which all happen to be the women of the crew in one fluke accident) as the only survivors of the human race, seemed a good bet to engage my interest.

I dove in with curiosity and excitement. I was brought up short by a different tone than I was expecting, but thought to give it some time to adjust to the author’s style. A flippant and humorous tongue in cheek flavor can be a fun change up, but it was unexpected and had nuances to it that jabbed at me. I couldn’t decide if this was a serious piece or utter comedy. Then it started flipping rapidly between narrators and again, though disoriented, I kept at it for a little while.

There are elements that I would love to explore further with the emerging story of the mother, her baby girl, and the baby’s cat protector along with the over-arcing dilemma of staying alive and keeping the human race going. And I had a giggle-snort moment when just as the crisis is hitting home, the story introduces a Lesbian character- yeah, that is handy on one level particularly for her, but just salt in the wound of all the women who just lost the male half of the race and are looking at a bleak future.

But for now, the tone of the story and the loose, rapid shifts in perspective kept losing me and there was not enough to keep my interest for the moment. So I’m going to put this back on the stack as a ‘maybe later’ when I’m in the mood.

DNF at 6%

I rec’d this book from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.

Reading the description of this book on NetGalley, it seemed just right for me as a fan of dystopian fiction. The idea of a spaceship leaving a destroyed planet Earth in order to colonize far off planets is a good one. Unfortunately this author does not seem to have been able to develop anything, and the dialogue of the people on the ship is laughable to say the least. Only my opinion.

I DNF'ed this book. I rarely don't finish books, but I couldn't force myself to read this book.

When I saw this book as an option on Netgalley I was very excited. It sounded very interesting and I was really looking forward to what was in store. The premise of the story is, a space ship that was supposed to travel to another planet to inhabit it left without all the crew. Problem is that all the crew members are female and the ones that would have to inhabit the planet would be their grandchildren.
Right when I started reading there were so many things about it that aggravated me. Personally I didn't like the writing style or the characters. At the beginning of the book the world disappears because of nuclear war. It isn't described in a way that makes it believable, it instantly makes it seem like a bad attempt at a sci-fi.
I have a lot of problems with the characters, but two that really stood out to me in the beginning was the Captain and the Scientific Research lady whose names I forget. The Captain is overly rude and vulgar for what seems like no reason. When everyone is introducing themselves she flips between hot and cold so quickly and after listening to almost everyone say their speech she randomly cuts this one lady off. Even though she didn't say very much! She seems very unstable, I wouldn't want to be around her. The Scientific Research lady (sorry I don't recall her name) is in charge of all the very important scientific research that needs to be done, but she is described as an immense slob and a pot head. It seems as though the author tried to make a very exaggerated characters, but in doing so she created a very immature group of people that are supposed to be in charge of a very important space mission. I wouldn't recommend this book and I wouldn't buy it.

This book was bonkers , in a good way .I loved the idea of an all female space crew being sent to another planet and the earth exploding so they are the last humans alive what a cracking idea for a book.I enjoyed the banter and quirky humor I could have done without the sex scenes or could have done with less of them, I am no prude but felt they were a little clumsy I don't think they added to the book, not for me anyway although others may well disagree.there were some great characters and I enjoyed reading about them and the cats and I really enjoyed the book.Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC in return for an honest review.

I DNF'ed this book at 57%.

I requested Mutationem because the synopsis sounded extremely interesting, and I loved the cover. However, mere pages into it, I found myself gaping with incredulity and breaking into fits of giggles at the ridiculousness. By the twenty-five percent point, I thought “Maybe I need to readjust how I’m viewing this book. Maybe the writer genuinely meant it to be a funny ‘bad syfy’ type book.” And if the author meant it that way, it was fine! I love that type of ridiculousness. There’s a place for serious and there’s a place for stupid-funny. Nothing is wrong with either of them.

However, by the fifty percent point, I had given up on finding a way to view this as a ‘good’ book. It is not a good read at all. I do think the basic idea is good; it’s just buried under a mess of unbelievable and/or unnecessary content. Portions of Mutationem reek of overcharged hormones and the urge to cram in all the sexy scenes possible where little-to-none are needed at all. Other sections made me blink and re-read them, questioning (yet again) whether the author meant the line to be serious or tongue-in-cheek.

There were many things that bothered me about Mutationem. Too many to warrant going in depth for, so I’ll mention just a few. I just couldn’t buy the fact that I was supposed to believe that the Chief Science Officer on what was arguably one of humanity’s most important missions was a pot-smoking slob. I seriously doubted that the Captain would have already been (again, this is 30 days prior to launch, and under the assumption that crews have been rotating in and out regularly in training) forcing the CSO to be bathed by the crew as punishment.

Even trying to give credit that this is placed one thousand years into the future, and evolution is a real thing: I found it difficult to believe that a “learning visor” would accelerate an INFANT’s brain to the point that at 9 months old she could talk like a 4-year-old. Maybe this is an imagination deficit on my end, but this caused a serious amount of groaning and eye-rolling every time the baby appeared in the book. Also, the over-sexed ‘Siren’. I’m pretty sure the only reason she was in the book was for the lustful scenes she allowed for. (And those scenes were really, really detailed if you catch my drift.)

Also, little things like everyone going to bed at 2100. No crew overseeing operations for hours at a time? No shift rotation? No one bothering to check the weapons log to make sure every logged back in? Then there’s the informality and the language. I have – and freely admit to it – a serious potty-mouth, and even I found myself rolling my eyes at the Captain’s constant cursing and crude language. I find it difficult to believe that even at 30 days away from scheduled launch date, the officers of the crew would behave that unprofessionally. I'm not saying I think things would be as strict as is displayed in typical novels, but this carries it to the opposite extreme.

The only thing I liked about Mutationem was the idea. Maybe, with some serious editing, a slight hormone reduction (or at least a warning that it contains some XXX adult scenes), and some beta-readers giving great feedback, this would turn into the novel it had the potential to be. As it is, it's on my short list of worst science fiction novels I've ever read. I couldn't force myself to read past the 57% mark. There's just too many good books out there to spend time on a bad one. And this is definitely a bad one.

I'm sorry to say that this book just wasnt for me. The idea is brilliant but thats just the idea. The rest of the book just felt very meh for me.

The problems I had with this book were many, but in short the premise is poorly executed, the author used narrative when he should have used exposition and vice versa, the characters are mostly one-dimensional and the author's descriptive prowess is focused on sex instead of science (well, at least it seemed that way when I gave up reading the book, something I rarely do). If you're looking for good SF, I might suggest continuing your search.

Mutationem
by Phoenix Jericho
While I read a lot of Sci-fi, this book just didn’t flow well.

The story line, a deep space craft leaves earth on an emergency take off, as earth enters nuclear war. On board is a crew of only women. What follows is a list of challenges to overcome transportation and survival issues.

Along the way there is extensive and unnecessary sexual scenes in the story. While some of the references may have supported some character development, the majority were not required, and took away from the story.

Apart from that, the storyline and character development were good, however the story could do with some additional editing to help with cohesion.

Posted a review on goodreads I absolutely loved this book Phoenix Jericho as an awesome imagination and a fantastic story teller highly recommended