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 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. ( )

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 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.

( )

I was not sure how well this one would hold up, but it did. The premise is fascinating (alien robots, not aliens, yet undergoing evolution/natural selection just the same), and the main character (a con artist with a strong moral streak) and his would-be nemesis (a psychologist trying to unmask him) work perfectly together in the story.

The story has two perspectives, from the humans' and the robots' point of view. The robots are basically undergoing the early stages of the enlightenment (and yes, that social setting with a robotic culture actually does work), while the humans are, well, about where we are now. ( )

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. ( )

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 (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* ( )