Approximately on million B.C., an automated factory ship from an alien civilization passes too near a star unexpectedly gone nova. Suffering extensive damage to its electronic circuitry, it continues blindly for millennia before crashing into the snows of an uncharted world. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, a probe from Earth orbits Saturn's moon Titan and launches a lander. Unfortunately, the lander malfunctions before transmitting pictures from the surface - at least that is the official story. A colony ship supposedly destined for Mars is surreptitiously rerouted to Titan ... and only the leaders of the Military Industrial Complex know why. Aboard the interplanetary transport - in addition to the usual mix of flight crews and scientists - are parapsychology researchers, linguists, psychologists, representatives of industry, an ambassador ... and elite military units from several Western nations. Clearly something is up. But no one is talking!
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding and under appreciated.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Code of the Lifemaker (Hardcover)
This novel easily makes the top five of my favorite novels. A technologically advanced civilization launches an automated resource processing ship into the cosmos. Close proximity to a supernova causes a large portion of its programming to be wiped out, leaving just enough for the system to be marginally functional. The ship lands on Saturn's moon, Titan. After several thousand years, the machines dispatched evolve into a sentient life form. An exploratory probe launched from Earth stumbles upon these "creatures," causing a hurried effort to make contact. Humanity contacts these robotic aliens at a stage in their societal evolution roughly equivalent to our dark ages. They have their own versions of the inquisition, feudalism, religion, etc. At this point, the story really takes off, offering a hilarious, satirical and fast paced view of humanity and human history through the eyes of the robots. It's unfortunate that this book hasn't received more recognition. Not only is it a fine work of science fiction, it is also an, at times, disturbing view of homo sapiens. If you enjoy hard science fiction, this is among the best work ever published.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
stunning prolouge and great book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Code of the Lifemaker (Hardcover)
The prologue of this book alone is better than many other books I've read. I read it through several times before even proceeding to the rest of the book, simply because it was so novel and absolutely delightful. And the book is also excellent, though not as stunning. Highly recommended.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Underappreciated,
By
This review is from: Code of the Lifemaker (Hardcover)
This is wonderful hard SciFi. As a Biologist I was thrilled by the original take on Evolution by Natural Selection applied to a civilization of machines. And Hogan actually understands the Science! So often evolution in SciFi is muddled. But Hogan understands it. If you have reproduction with heritable variation in a competitive environment -- you get evolution. No mystical intervention required.
This novel deserves wider readership and appreciation.
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