Reviews

Code of the Lifemaker by James P. Hogan

futuregazer's review against another edition

5.0

Face. Palm.

(But with an amused grin.)

maxed's review against another edition

3.0

Interesting, but utterly naive book. The way Karl Zambendorf changes in the middle of the novel is unreal. Even the victory which the characters achieve is highly unrealistic, especially over the background of "fake news" that are spread on Earth, a brief view of which we get in one of the chapters.

Also, the way the robot civilization is reduced to humanity's clone (after the long and elaborate set up in the first chapters) is disappointing. Titan civilization should be very different, if only because you can't really damage a metallic robot creature with a sword! At the very least, warfare methods should be different, which means composition of armies should be different, which, in turn, might lead to a completely different political system. But no, Hogan wanted a clone of Middle Ages Earth to prove his point, so that's what we get.

Not a really bad book, but not a really good one, even if I agree with the author on many ideological points.

danielmbensen's review against another edition

5.0

Now here's a story. When I was in high school, my dad told me about a scifi book he vaguely remembered, in which self-replicating alien robots found their way to Titan and evolved there into a robot ecosystem, complete with kingdoms of metal humanoids. I was fascinated by the idea. I designed robot animals with friends, built up a menagerie, and finally wrote a novella about the pros and cons of environmental protection in an eco-system that thinks your spaceships and environment suits are delicious. Hogan wrote a very different, and much better story.

Hogan didn't get as creative with the native life of Titan as I did, but he did give some very sweet descriptions of the families of concrete-pourers wallowing in the methane stream under softly humming generators. And then of course there is the actual story, where a stage psychic, symbol of everything that's gone wrong with America's relationship with science, becomes the hero. There are deep and poignant meditations on truth and lies, right and wrong, and how they don't always match up. Also there are such delightful passages as "a hermit in a wheel-skin tunic has wandered into town on a steam-donkey with some new heretical claptrap about pacifism. Shall we boil him in acid until he confesses?" Fingers to lips. Mwah!

sonofthunder's review against another edition

3.0

Alright so this is a throwback. I have very vivid memories of reading this book back freshman year of high school. That was a year where I spent quite a bit of time perusing the media center shelves at Gaither...and read lots of random books (some great, some...not as great??). This was one of them. And yes, I confess I'm vain enough that the main reason I picked this one up at the time was the author's name. How could I not? So I read it (again - vivid memories! Recall reading this in the back of Mrs. Bane's computer class...once I finished all my work, I usually had loads of time to spare...she never minded! Mrs. Bane was fantastic, just saying) and for some reason all these years later, I still from time to time thought about the plot of this book, just because the concept was so fascinating. Rather than talk about my own life story, let's discuss the book hm? This book honestly isn't one that I can say is amazing or has gorgeous prose. Rather, the characters are a bit flat and the prose is workmanlike. But...the concept - the hook, as it may be - is fantastic. An alien automated machine colony gone a bit haywire...and thousands of years later brings what? Well, your average medieval robot society, of course. So this book deals with the humans from earth(in all their glory - for reals, this author did not have a high opinion of the current trajectory of the human race. It is quite amusing reading his thinly veiled critique of the modern era. I think I didn't realise all this when I read it back when I was 14...) making first contact with the aforesaid medieval robots. The best part of this book by far is figuring out how this robotic society actually works...and it is fascinating! All the things that are "grown" and "cultivated" are actually mechanized and machine-like. All the things that are crafted and carefully produced are actually...organic! It's a fun switch and I enjoyed experiencing this machine world of Titan (yes, the moon of Saturn! Skipped that part, did I?). Anyways, like I said - the plot itself is fairly predictable and the characters are definitely nothing to write home about, but I enjoyed this book nonetheless. The author has some pretty strong views on modern society, the entertainment culture, religion, government...and honestly even though I didn't always agree with him, this was a good view into the mindset of a man in 1983. Old sci-fi books are always a treat for this very reason. A window into a different age. And sadly (or not), a lot of the things that the author bemoaned from back in the day really haven't changed that much now. There is nothing new under the sun. We humans so often seek to subjugate and dominate others. Our voracious appetites for pleasure and happiness often lead us to unthinking consumption of the worst sorts of filth and nonsense. We don't think as critically as we ought and the wisdom that we think we claim is often a thin veneer of shiny over a rotting corpse of emptiness. It is interesting how we as humans seek to find the meaning of life yet so often miss what is all around us.

jenbooks's review against another edition

1.0

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 read.