Author: James P. Hogan
Copyright: 1983
Date Reviewed:   6/2/86
Rating: 7.5

 

Synopsis: One million years ago there was a large robot ship which mined planets. Upon going into orbit, it would send down a few robots that would build factories to extract raw material from the ground. Other factories were built to make products from the raw materials. These products could be goods, more factories or starships to carry the goods back to the home planet. After 50 years the entire planet is transformed into a production tool.

On its way to the next planet, the robot ship is partially destroyed by a supernova and the civilization that created it is totally destroyed. It wanders for a hundred thousand years until it encounters the next planet - Titan, Saturn's largest moon. However, the planet is not well suited for mining operations and the stored programs in the robots are flawed. Through a complicated random set of program errors, the automated robots become sexually active, procreate, and learn self awareness.

A million years later, an Earth probe discovers the living machines on Titan and NASO, the combined NATO/ESA space agency, sends the starship Orion to investigate. Since knowledge of an alien race would cause panic (they always use that argument) the mission is sent under the guise of going to Mars. Karl Zambendorf and his staff are invited on the expedition. Zambendorf is a Uri Geller type charlatan who pretends fantastic ESP capabilities. The secrets that he 'sees' are made known to him by his crack espionage team. Also invited on the trip is psychologist and amateur magician Gerold Massey. Like his real life counter part, the Amazing Randi, Massey likes to expose ESP moneymakers as tricksters. When the mission is still destined for Mars, Zambendorf is assigned to the expedition to test paranormal behavior over large distances without the negative influence of the Earth environment. Massey is sent, it is believed, to analyze how people react to this first Mars colony and of course to expose Zambendorf.

Eventually the mission reaches its true destination and it's crew finds that Titan is inhabited by mechanic life forms several hundred years less advanced than Earth. This is surprising, since any intelligence powerful enough to create such handiwork should be able to endow it with advanced knowledge.

There are two principal small countries that the Orion crew try to deal with, Kroaxia and Carthogas. Like most of the city states on Titan, Kroaxia has an intolerant totalitarian form of government co-ruled by the King and the High Priest. In this land, new ideas are blasphemous. When map maker and teacher Lofbayel suggests that the world is round, he is arrested and tried for heresy. Thirg comes to his defense and Lofbayel is freed, but can no longer teach. Soon after, the authorities send a troop of soldiers to arrest Thirg but his brother Groork, a devout religious seeker, warns Thirg to escape. As he is deciding his next course of action, a troop from neighboring Carthogas comes to take him there. Thirg is afraid to go to Carthogas because of the priest's stories of hardships there but Thirg soon finds out that Carthogas is a liberal state. Knowledge and rational investigation is encouraged by King Kleippur. The two countries with radically different ideologies are at war.

The top officers of the Orion don't care much about either side. Their concern is to milk all of the nations for the wealth in the forest factories. By supplying arms to each side, the nations will be subjugated into dependent colonies. Zambendorf, the first contact, learns of the plot. He's been conning people all his career but somehow he can't stand by while the Robians are conned out of there world. In an unusual alliance, Zambendorf joins forces with Massey. Almost accidentally they select Groork as Titan's Moses/Christ who will spread the words of universal brotherhood, peace, equality and love. There's no need to convert Carthogas but Groork is successful in converting the Kroaxian army and population which forces a coup against the King and High Priest. Groork is almost executed but Zambendorf manages his escape. When Earth learns of their tough dealings, they remove the top officers from their posts. With Kroaxia, Carthogas and the other neighboring countries at peace, the Titans can deal with the Earthmen as equals.

Review: "Code of the Lifemaker" was an enjoyable book but not very significant. It's a better book that Hogan's other recent attempts because it didn't take so long for the story to get started. In the others, Hogan spent 200 or more pages setting up the situation and characters so that by the time the action started, I was bored. However this novel never went as far as the others. Hogan sets the stage by explaining how the Robians evolved from the accident and then goes right into a discussion of the merits of ESP. There was a lot of potential for parallel between the Robians and the Earthlings but few were written into the story. For example, ESP could be explained as a trait similar to radio waves to the Robians. A sense that some people carry but is no longer used. Or man's evolution could have been explained as some random event. Instead the Robians are made to look and think just like humans so that the story could have been set on any world in any time (i.e. Spaniards and Aztecs). What parallels existed were just too unrealistic, like the mechanical horse and dog. "Code of the Lifemaker" had great potential but turned out to be just another simple story.