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Code of the Lifemaker #2
Immortality Option
Titan, Saturn's largest moon, was frozen and lifeless...but only by some definitions!
Organic life had never evolved on its barren surface, but somehow Titan had become home to the Taloids, a race of self-aware robots who lived in competing city-states, grew houses and tools, tended their robotic herds, and worshipped a god called the Lifemaker.
When humans discovered the Taloids on Titan, they suspected that the robots' sentience had evolved by accident--artificial intelligence gone wrong. But where was the ancient civilization that had spawned them? With no help from the Taloids--who seemed to know nothing of their own origins--Earth's finest scientists were stumped.
Then strange blocks of code were discovered in Titan's ancient computer banks. Neither Taloid digital DNA nor the operating system for Titan's robotic "ecology," the code had clearly lain undisturbed for eons. But now, with human help, it was beginning to activate at last...
Organic life had never evolved on its barren surface, but somehow Titan had become home to the Taloids, a race of self-aware robots who lived in competing city-states, grew houses and tools, tended their robotic herds, and worshipped a god called the Lifemaker.
When humans discovered the Taloids on Titan, they suspected that the robots' sentience had evolved by accident--artificial intelligence gone wrong. But where was the ancient civilization that had spawned them? With no help from the Taloids--who seemed to know nothing of their own origins--Earth's finest scientists were stumped.
Then strange blocks of code were discovered in Titan's ancient computer banks. Neither Taloid digital DNA nor the operating system for Titan's robotic "ecology," the code had clearly lain undisturbed for eons. But now, with human help, it was beginning to activate at last...
321 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 31, 1995
8 people are currently reading
197 people want to read
About the author
James P. Hogan
114 books268 followersJames Patrick Hogan was a British science fiction author.
Hogan was was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he worked various odd jobs until, after receiving a scholarship, he began a five-year program at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough covering the practical and theoretical sides of electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. He first married at the age of twenty, and he has had three other subsequent marriages and fathered six children.
Hogan worked as a design engineer for several companies and eventually moved into sales in the 1960s, travelling around Europe as a sales engineer for Honeywell. In the 1970s he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data Processing Group and in 1977 moved to Boston, Massachusetts to run its sales training program. He published his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in the same year to win an office bet. He quit DEC in 1979 and began writing full time, moving to Orlando, Florida, for a year where he met his third wife Jackie. They then moved to Sonora, California.
Hogan's style of science fiction is usually hard science fiction. In his earlier works he conveyed a sense of what science and scientists were about. His philosophical view on how science should be done comes through in many of his novels; theories should be formulated based on empirical research, not the other way around. If a theory does not match the facts, it is theory that should be discarded, not the facts. This is very evident in the Giants series, which begins with the discovery of a 50,000 year-old human body on the Moon. This discovery leads to a series of investigations, and as facts are discovered, theories on how the astronaut's body arrived on the Moon 50,000 years ago are elaborated, discarded, and replaced.
Hogan's fiction also reflects anti-authoritarian social views. Many of his novels have strong anarchist or libertarian themes, often promoting the idea that new technological advances render certain social conventions obsolete. For example, the effectively limitless availability of energy that would result from the development of controlled nuclear fusion would make it unnecessary to limit access to energy resources. In essence, energy would become free. This melding of scientific and social speculation is clearly present in the novel Voyage from Yesteryear (strongly influenced by Eric Frank Russell's famous story "And Then There Were None"), which describes the contact between a high-tech anarchist society on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with a starship sent from Earth by a dictatorial government. The story uses many elements of civil disobedience.
James Hogan died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Ireland.
Hogan was was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he worked various odd jobs until, after receiving a scholarship, he began a five-year program at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough covering the practical and theoretical sides of electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. He first married at the age of twenty, and he has had three other subsequent marriages and fathered six children.
Hogan worked as a design engineer for several companies and eventually moved into sales in the 1960s, travelling around Europe as a sales engineer for Honeywell. In the 1970s he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data Processing Group and in 1977 moved to Boston, Massachusetts to run its sales training program. He published his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in the same year to win an office bet. He quit DEC in 1979 and began writing full time, moving to Orlando, Florida, for a year where he met his third wife Jackie. They then moved to Sonora, California.
Hogan's style of science fiction is usually hard science fiction. In his earlier works he conveyed a sense of what science and scientists were about. His philosophical view on how science should be done comes through in many of his novels; theories should be formulated based on empirical research, not the other way around. If a theory does not match the facts, it is theory that should be discarded, not the facts. This is very evident in the Giants series, which begins with the discovery of a 50,000 year-old human body on the Moon. This discovery leads to a series of investigations, and as facts are discovered, theories on how the astronaut's body arrived on the Moon 50,000 years ago are elaborated, discarded, and replaced.
Hogan's fiction also reflects anti-authoritarian social views. Many of his novels have strong anarchist or libertarian themes, often promoting the idea that new technological advances render certain social conventions obsolete. For example, the effectively limitless availability of energy that would result from the development of controlled nuclear fusion would make it unnecessary to limit access to energy resources. In essence, energy would become free. This melding of scientific and social speculation is clearly present in the novel Voyage from Yesteryear (strongly influenced by Eric Frank Russell's famous story "And Then There Were None"), which describes the contact between a high-tech anarchist society on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with a starship sent from Earth by a dictatorial government. The story uses many elements of civil disobedience.
James Hogan died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Ireland.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 28, 2024
This is a sequel to Code of the Lifemaker, an early one of Hogan's novels which really didn't need a sequel. In it we return to Titan and delve further into the history of the Taloids. (And I think you'd really have to have read the first book to get much out of this one...) On the other hand, though he does cover some of the same ground, he takes the story into a couple of unexpected directions and it's an entertaining read, a pleasant enough visit with old friends. Some of the AI/computer speculation is dated, of course, and I still recommend starting Hogan with the Giants series, but Hogan was one of the best hard-science guys of his time.
May 23, 2019
As usual for me, the great amount of time I've let pass between books dims much of what happened previously. Less so for this book, but still. Given that, between checking out the plot of the previous book and what remained of it in my memory, this was easy enough to get into and up to speed, and would almost stand well enough on it's own. So! The book is in 3 distinct acts, the first establishing what's going on/been going on, which starts to slow a bit toward the end. But then the 2nd act picks up in a way that I won't spoil, and as a whole almost the best part of the book. The 3rd act ramps up the action and conflict and very satisfactorily wraps things up with a bit of a twist ending.
Well worth reading, probably best as the 2nd of the series, but good enough on it's own. As always, Hogan's politics ring true with me, and if you think media manipulation and the government lying to you to propagandize the effort to drive us into needless wars is something new, Hogan has been presenting the conflict between those in power and what is most of us through a number of years and books.
Thumbs up.
Well worth reading, probably best as the 2nd of the series, but good enough on it's own. As always, Hogan's politics ring true with me, and if you think media manipulation and the government lying to you to propagandize the effort to drive us into needless wars is something new, Hogan has been presenting the conflict between those in power and what is most of us through a number of years and books.
Thumbs up.
September 19, 2010
A superb continuation with characters we've grown to, if not love, at least admire somewhat. Some of the science is a little dry on occasion, but it all fits in so neatly and works with the story so well that it's not a problem. The sheer audacity of card tricks fooling a super artificial intelligence kept me chuckling and chortling, and the pace picked up marvelously toward the end in a similar way to Realtime Interrupt.
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October 1, 202448:16. Tell those desert Arabs who have held back: “You will be called upon to fight against folk who are extremely violent; you will fight them unless they surrender. If you obey, God will pay you a handsome fee, while if you turn away just as you turned away before, he will punish you with painful torment.”
March 15, 2021
Haven't touched this in months. So, again, the "finished" is a lie.
April 21, 2010
This is a sequel to The Code of the Lifemaker. I really liked that one beyond expectations. Unlike other Hogan books I'd read, it was well-paced, not preachy or of any recognizably political flavor, was free of eye-glazing over-detail--and had an original premise: On Titan, abandoned machines of a dead alien civilization have evolved a mechanical "biosphere" of robots. It had characters more memorable than usual for Hogan, particularly Karl Zambendorf, purported psychic, who returns in this book with his team. The theme of the first book, reason and science as a candle in the dark, resonated with me, and it was all handled with a light touch and humor, having me grinning from the beginning.
I read Hogan himself felt he was satisfied with leaving the first book as a standalone, but his publisher urged a sequel. I wish they had left well enough alone. This just doesn't have the life the other book did, which was effortless to read, while this dragged. I'm not sure why, except that maybe it's that while Hogan is great at ideas, he's not so good at characterization and style in ways that could sustain such ideas over two books. What was fresh in the first is, been there, done that in the second.
I read Hogan himself felt he was satisfied with leaving the first book as a standalone, but his publisher urged a sequel. I wish they had left well enough alone. This just doesn't have the life the other book did, which was effortless to read, while this dragged. I'm not sure why, except that maybe it's that while Hogan is great at ideas, he's not so good at characterization and style in ways that could sustain such ideas over two books. What was fresh in the first is, been there, done that in the second.
May 25, 2015
I loved the first book. The idea of a mechanical version of a biosphere with evolution and DNA and everything was awesome. This didn't add much new. There were the creator aliens, that were kind of annoying because they were jerks.
The plot took a sudden left turn, like the book became a different book.
I think I remember liking the main character before. Today I might not be so impressed by the "smartest guy in the room, who is also a conman" type character. He was not featured so much in this, so harder to judge. No other significant characters, other than an annoying creator alien.
I kind of did like the way they showed the war, though.
The plot took a sudden left turn, like the book became a different book.
I think I remember liking the main character before. Today I might not be so impressed by the "smartest guy in the room, who is also a conman" type character. He was not featured so much in this, so harder to judge. No other significant characters, other than an annoying creator alien.
I kind of did like the way they showed the war, though.
January 1, 2015
I did not like this one nearly as much as its predecessor, The Code of the Lifemaker. This continues the story from that volume by filling in what is happening to the aliens, and how this whole thing worked out.
It was interesting, it held my attention, but it's probably not something I will ever reread. I had some trouble believing the ending was "plausible", whatever plausible means in this science-fiction world.
It was interesting, it held my attention, but it's probably not something I will ever reread. I had some trouble believing the ending was "plausible", whatever plausible means in this science-fiction world.
September 8, 2015
What happens when machines evolve to survive in their new environment. Then their founders come along and try to take over. The Immortality Option is a thought provoking view into what happens when an artificial life form has millions of years on its own to evolve, only to have to confront the ambitions of their makers.
March 28, 2009
I liked this story a lot. I realize it is far from my normal fantasy but this scifi kept itself together and produced a good story with plenty of flow and interesting science to keep me entertained. I like it. =)
February 17, 2010
This is the sequel to Code of the Lifemaker. Here we get to meet the creators of the Taloids from the first book. It was a fun book that came at the story from two directions: from the view of the robots and from the creators.
June 17, 2009
Very good. Hogan is incredibly imaginative and couples that with excellent writing skills and inventive plots. I have a signed copy of this.
own-unsorted
February 13, 2011I have this book, but it says that it's a sequel to Code of The Lifemaker. I will have to find a copy of that first to see if I want to read (or even keep) this book.
July 26, 2011
Interesting novel. This book is sort of a sequel to Code of the Lifemaker (another good Hogan novel). The continuing story of a society of evolved sentient androids and how they came to be.
March 21, 2013
The intro dragged a bit much for being a sequel, but the end payoff was good.
May 2, 2015
Follows on from the Code of the Lifemaker - enjoyed more about the Taloids
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews