Customer Reviews

Code of the Lifemaker

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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.

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.

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.