The girl had always been called Taya.Her companion Kort had always been with her. She accepted these things, and why not- they were her world. But Taya wondered why everything she could see beyond the Window was so different from all the things inside. She also wondered why the stars never changed if her world was really moving the way her metal friend Kort said it was...Could Kort be wrong? That would be very strange, because Kort knew everyrhing, and he was sure they were moving-just as she was sure the stars were not.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From the Back Cover
Must the Creator be greater than the Creation?
Taya had always lived in the World. Her companion Kort had always been with her. She accepted these things, and why not? They were her world. But Taya wondered why everything she could see beyond the window was so different from all the things inside. She also wondered why the stars never changed if her world was really moving the way her metal friend Kort said it was.... Could Kort be wrong? That would be very strange, because Kort knew everything, and he was sure they were moving just as she was sure the stars were not.
Then, one day, the World was born anew....
"Arthur Clarke, move over." Isaac Asimov
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
OK, but misses on some scores,
By
This review is from: Star Child (Mass Market Paperback)
During the first third of this book I was afraid it was going to end with ".. and they called their new planet EARTH!" Fortunately Hogan is much better than that. I found problems with the necessary suspension of disbelief in a couple of areas which seemed to be unnecessary to the story. It it an intriging idea to have a self-aware machine build a self-aware bio-form (the star-child) out of component molecules based on nothing more than an imperfectly understood DNA record. The part that doesn't sit so well is the resulting person -- with utterly no connection to any human society -- could nonetheless end up with so much culturally in common with people living on a planet. Hogan also skates over the massive problems that would accrue if you had a person raised in a sterile environment (no bacteria or viruses at all) and plonk them down into a fully functioning Earthlike ecology, even eating the local food. I'm no expert but I think it would be unlikely that such subjects would survive. At least not easily. And if you would be interested in the star-child's first experiences with sex, you will be disappointed. The part of the story about the machines were more believable, actually. I like the part where they developed multiple personalities to serve different functions: the Scientist, the Skeptic, the Mystic and so on. Worth reading, but as I said it has shortcomings.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent book by an excellent writer.,
By John D Lewallen Jr (Tucker, GA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Star Child (Mass Market Paperback)
I could be accused of being biased, since I have been a BIG fan of James P. Hogan ever since I first picked up "Inherit the Stars" over ten years ago, but I would have to say that "Star Child" is one of the best books I have read in some time. It is a collection of four linked stories about Taya and her robot mentor Kort. The first Story, "Silver Shoes for a Princess" was originally published in 1979. In that story, Taya is 9 years old and travelling through space aboard a mysterious spacecraft called Merkon, headed toward a star called Vaxis. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but in the second story, Taya is 19 and they are just landing on the planet they call Azure. In the third story, she is in her 40's, and we learn more about the mystery of Merkon. In the final story, she is an old woman and Kort must face what will happen to him when she dies. Hogan is adept at presenting us with a puzzle, which is gradually unravelled in a logical manner. Even aspects that might otherwise be thought of as spiritual or mystical are examined in a rational way. If you are a Hogan fan, as I am, you should run, not walk, to your favorite bookstore and snap this one up! If you have read a few, or even none, of his previous works, I would urge you to do likewise, then look for his other books. Either way, you are in for a treat.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Meaning of Mind,
By Seachranaiche (USA) - See all my reviews
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Star Child (Mass Market Paperback)
I believe that most of the criticisms of this book are accurate. I am rating it reasonably well because I came away with some insights that I thought were worthy of investing time in the book and in the book's author, James P. Hogan. It is true that the human characters are somewhat flat, including Taya the central character, while the machine characters are much better drawn. I suspect this was a conscious decision by Hogan because this book is really about the machines more so than the humans. Still, this does not absolve Hogan of a plot that seems incomplete; of a fantastic story that just begs to be fleshed out in much greater detail. However, "Star Child" was developed from a short story published more than a quarter century ago, and that original story, "Silver Shoes for a Princess" (also the first chapter in this book), stands alone as well-written and thought provoking. I found (after some frustration with the pace and exposition of the book) that I began to enjoy the book more if I considered it to be a collection of short stories rather than a fully developed novel. And the ending scenes, although brief, were quite poignant.
I thought that Hogan's exploration of mind was fascinating, with artificial intelligences probing the meaning of their existence. Artificial intelligence is usually portrayed as an omnipotent and often-threatening force prone to total logic, overseeing humanity (or competing with it) like a digital god, evolving through a process of digital compilation and development that spontaneously springs into self awareness with full knowledge of its pre-awareness history. But Hogan's machine minds have no idea where they came from and find themselves asking the very same questions human minds ask: Where did I come from? Why am I here? What happens when I die? The circular existence of the human minds and machine minds in Hogan's plot demonstrates that mind transcends the matrix that houses it, rendering artificial intelligence not as a vaguely disturbing threat in a possible future, but rather, perhaps having more in common with the human mind than is generally considered.
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