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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great beginning! But stick with it after that...., February 14, 2002
This book begins with prologue, and what a great prologue it is! And that is, I think, this book's biggest problem. The prologue is very enthralling and captivating, and sets up the rest of the story very well. But after that, no matter how good the rest of the book was, it would seem a little disappointing compared to the prologue. It seems that Hogan peaked a little too early. So, what's all the fuss about? The prologue begins by describing an alien automated spaceship who's main job is to find planets with lots of natural resources, build automated factories to exploit the planets, and send various products back to the alien home world. It does this by building lots of little robots, who build the factories, and then go on to build more factories. Those factories build more robots, and so on and so on, until the planet is fully automated, and is sending loads of stuff back home. So far, so good. Then the spaceship, on its way to another planet, gets damaged in a super nova. It is now virtually blind, and its instructions badly damaged. The first planet it comes across is the moon Titan, in our solar system, a million years ago. So the ship starts building factories, which in turn start building robots....and to make a long story short, the robots develop in peculiar ways, and start developing strange characteristics, such as predation, reproductive behaviours, and survival instincts... Cut to a million years later, and we find ourselves on earth, in the middle of the preparations for a Mars shot, with lots of politicking going on, and with a scurrilous shyster of a fake psychic getting in on the space trip (supposedly to do experiments), along with a scientist who's out to discredit him (he knows he's a fake, but he just can't prove it!). So, off they go to Mars, along with a nice big military contingent. But then...! They get re-routed to Titan. A passing Voyager type explorer has just sent back some funny looking pictures of what's taking place on the surface, and our heroes are sent to have a look. The rest of the story is spent examining the robot culture which has developed in the million years since we last saw them, how they interact with the humans, how this amazing development affects all the politicking still going on between the humans, how relations between various factions of robots are affected, power plays, robot religion (very medieval), etc. etc. Actually, it gets quite interesting, and Hogan's attention to technical detail and his ability to think of small but important details (especially from the robots perspective) is quite good. A lot of the action takes place between the robots themselves, with the arrival of the humans as a kind of backdrop, which is a nice feature of this book (at least not everything revolves around the humans!). The robots are shown to have a quite complex culture, with their own goodies and baddies, just as the humans do. Some of the robot characters are quite likeable, and you can find yourself growing attached to them (always a good sign if, after you've finished a book, you start missing the characters!). I won't give too much more away about the story, but suffice to say that there's plenty of intrigue going on to keep you interested. On the downside, the writing (apart from that great prologue!) is not as snappy as it could be, and the plot gets a bit complicated for me (a danger in any book where there are lots of characters all interacting with each other). By the end, it is a bit of a struggle to keep going, but is, I think, worth it to see what happens. This was, I believe, Hogan's first book, and you can tell from the lack of polish in the style. Overall, though, this is an interesting book, about an interesting subject. There's plenty of stuff going on to keep you interested, and the robot culture is enjoyable to learn about. While the writing style isn't great, that good beginning, and the fascinating interaction of robot and human make up for all that. This is well worth a read, and if you like it, there's plenty more by Hogan out there to keep you happy!
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by James P. Hogan
by James P. Hogan
by James P. Hogan
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