Status
Available
Call number
Description
Fiction. Science Fiction. HTML: Long ago, an alien "searcher" ship flew too close to a star gone nova. Though heavily damaged, the ship landed on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. Attempting to fulfill its original function of seeding suitable planets for exploitation, the ship creates a bewildering society of self-replicating machines that gives rise to a bizarre ecosystem and culture with intelligent beings and organically grown houses. The intelligent beings are known as Taloids, and they have developed their own brand of religion around a mythical figure, a creator of machines and, hence, life. When humans descend from the sky, the Taloids see them as those creators. Powerful financial and industrial interests are all set to exploit the moon and the Taloids to maximize Titan's vast production potential and the future for the Taloids looks grim. But they find a champion from an unexpected source. "Hogan skillfully draws the reader into a fascinating philosophical and theological debate, without ever forgetting he's supposed to entertain and tell a good story." �?? Newsday… (more)
Pages
480
DDC/MDS
| 823.914 |
Language
Awards
Prometheus Award (Nominee — Novel — 1984)
Library's review
Three and a half stars.
The prologue was delightful, with its description of how life on Titan evolved. The story was pretty good. There were women characters that were actual characters. The writing was pretty good, although the medeival-esque rendering of Taloid dialogue got annoying.
The story is
The prologue was delightful, with its description of how life on Titan evolved. The story was pretty good. There were women characters that were actual characters. The writing was pretty good, although the medeival-esque rendering of Taloid dialogue got annoying.
The story is
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overtly and comprehensively anti-religion, though, in the usual paradigm that groups believers with gullible fools and dupes over against skeptics and enlightened scientists. Boring and annoying for me, though I can see how it would appeal to people who are in its target audience. I'll probably keep it but I doubt I'll reread it often. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member danconsiglio
Medieval robots and space-traveling humans!!! That's all it took for me to pick this book up out of the free bin outside of my grocery store. I'm glad I did. I can't say that the book is all that deep. Hogan would like to remind us not to trust the military/industrial complex, that politicians are
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corruptible, and that the common thread between humanity is not the form in which it comes. It is, however, entertaining and humorous. I'm glad that I read it, and I'm glad that it only took me a week to do so. Show Less
LibraryThing member LisaMaria_C
I really liked this beyond expectation. Those expectations were set by 8 other Hogan books on my shelves I'd been rereading deciding whether or not they'd keep a slot on my precious shelf space--I was finding the answer up to this had been no. They'd tended either to be too heavy-handed and preachy
So this was an unexpected delight on several levels I wouldn't have expected from the author of those other books. In fact, ironically, the theme of this one is science as a candle in the dark, reason as a way to ward off superstition--notably against pseudoscience as embodied in Karl Zambendorf, purported psychic. It's well-paced, not preachy or of any recognizably political flavor, has memorable characters, is free of eye-glazing overdetail--and has an original premise: On Titan, abandoned machines of a dead alien civilization have evolved a mechanical "biosphere" of robots. And I had to smile at the prologue introducing it all. After telling how a supernova destroyed the progenitors, the line after that is: Everybody has a bad day sometimes. *snerk* This novel had a sense of humor and light touch that was much appreciated. *pats book fondly and puts it back on my shelves where it belongs*
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(especially Mirror Maze) or technobabble infodump (almost all, especially Thrice Upon a Time and Two Faces of Tomorrow), took too long to get going--and in the case of Cradle of Saturn too crackpot--that one was dedicated to Immanuel Velikovsky of Worlds in Collision infamy. According to the Wiki, late in life Hogan became attracted to a host of "fringe" views--one critic claimed he had encountered a "brain-eater."So this was an unexpected delight on several levels I wouldn't have expected from the author of those other books. In fact, ironically, the theme of this one is science as a candle in the dark, reason as a way to ward off superstition--notably against pseudoscience as embodied in Karl Zambendorf, purported psychic. It's well-paced, not preachy or of any recognizably political flavor, has memorable characters, is free of eye-glazing overdetail--and has an original premise: On Titan, abandoned machines of a dead alien civilization have evolved a mechanical "biosphere" of robots. And I had to smile at the prologue introducing it all. After telling how a supernova destroyed the progenitors, the line after that is: Everybody has a bad day sometimes. *snerk* This novel had a sense of humor and light touch that was much appreciated. *pats book fondly and puts it back on my shelves where it belongs*
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LibraryThing member wirkman
Far and away Hogan's best book. A terrific sf extravaganza, with amusing twists on con artistry, religion, and evolution.
LibraryThing member Karlstar
An interesting premise about artificial life, though it can be slow in spots.
LibraryThing member Isamoor
May10:
Plot: Actually this part of it went the best of any of it. It was coherent. With twists and surprises. It had fun Camelot references even.
Characters: I actually thought he did the trickster quite well. And Galileo was a good person to see the world through his eyes. Even though, the
Style: Totally old school SciFi. The characters and the plot were just there to explore a 'What-IF' and make you think about things. This meant he'd through in weird Socrates dialog of characters carrying silly conversations just for our benefit. I mean, the book was okay, but you must know what you're getting into.
Plot: Actually this part of it went the best of any of it. It was coherent. With twists and surprises. It had fun Camelot references even.
Characters: I actually thought he did the trickster quite well. And Galileo was a good person to see the world through his eyes. Even though, the
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characters were mostly an excuse to explore scientific ideas.Style: Totally old school SciFi. The characters and the plot were just there to explore a 'What-IF' and make you think about things. This meant he'd through in weird Socrates dialog of characters carrying silly conversations just for our benefit. I mean, the book was okay, but you must know what you're getting into.
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LibraryThing member DanThompson
This is an odd book. It starts with a long prologue that gives the evolutionary history of a machine race on Saturn’s moon Titan, from its inception with a damaged Von Neumann factory ship to mutation, sexual reproduction, competition, and the rise of diverse species and intelligence. Then it
There are also twin battles going on between science and mysticism. For the robots of Titan, there is a nascent movement towards science and observations, all the while struggling beneath an oppressive religious doctrine handed down in the sacred scribings of the Lifemaker. Meanwhile, amongst the humans, we have hardened scientists trying to expose the trickery of a new-age psychic who is in truth an incredibly talented con artist.
It was an interesting story, and I eventually enjoyed most of the characters, though the psychic bugged the hell out of me at first. I did find some of the storytelling mechanics hard to follow as we jumped from one setting to another and one POV to another with little visual or textual clue that it was happening. I wonder if this might have been the fault of the transfer to ebook, since this is an older book that came out on paper back in the 80’s. Either that, or it was just the way it was written.
It was a good ending in that everyone got what they deserved, so I came away pretty happy.
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sets up a first contact situation between humanity and these machines. We in our spaceships, and they struggling to move past their own equivalent of the stone age.There are also twin battles going on between science and mysticism. For the robots of Titan, there is a nascent movement towards science and observations, all the while struggling beneath an oppressive religious doctrine handed down in the sacred scribings of the Lifemaker. Meanwhile, amongst the humans, we have hardened scientists trying to expose the trickery of a new-age psychic who is in truth an incredibly talented con artist.
It was an interesting story, and I eventually enjoyed most of the characters, though the psychic bugged the hell out of me at first. I did find some of the storytelling mechanics hard to follow as we jumped from one setting to another and one POV to another with little visual or textual clue that it was happening. I wonder if this might have been the fault of the transfer to ebook, since this is an older book that came out on paper back in the 80’s. Either that, or it was just the way it was written.
It was a good ending in that everyone got what they deserved, so I came away pretty happy.
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LibraryThing member jenbooks
Wow. This book reads like it was written by a college freshman who has just taken his first philosophy class. Preachy, ham-handed - I could barely stand to read more than a couple of pages at a time. I kept reading because I thought it had to get better - I was wrong.
Battlefield Earth was a better
Battlefield Earth was a better
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read. Show Less
LibraryThing member gothamajp
Good solid traditional hard science-fiction that uses metaphor (occasionally too obviously) to discuss and consider a wide range of issues from spirituality, religion, theology, evolution, and the existence of the soul to economics, media manipulation, colonialism, and the conflicts between dogma
All the subjects are handled well and subjectively in what is ostensibly a first contact story with humanity encountering a species of evolved machines left behind on Titan by an ancient alien race.
If the book has flaws it’s that it perhaps tries to cover too much philosophical ground that sometimes gets in the way of the story itself, and that once the humans and machines meet their individual storylines become less compelling as the plot veers towards predictable confrontations.
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and free thought. All the subjects are handled well and subjectively in what is ostensibly a first contact story with humanity encountering a species of evolved machines left behind on Titan by an ancient alien race.
If the book has flaws it’s that it perhaps tries to cover too much philosophical ground that sometimes gets in the way of the story itself, and that once the humans and machines meet their individual storylines become less compelling as the plot veers towards predictable confrontations.
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Publication
Baen (2002), 480 pages
Subjects
Original language
English
Original publication date
1983-06
Physical description
480 p.; 6.75 inches
ISBN
0743435265 / 9780743435260