Code of the Lifemaker

Lore & Background

The novel opens with a prologue set about 4.5 billion years ago, where an unidentified alien race sends robotic factory ships to prepare worlds for settlement. One ship suffers radiation damage from a near-miss supernova, drifts for a hundred thousand years, and lands on Titan. A database malfunction causes it to produce imperfect copies that evolve into a machine ecosystem, eventually yielding humanoid robots with human-like intellects who develop a civilization similar to Earth's early societies. Most revere a mythical creator called the 'Lifemaker'.

In the early 21st century, the North Atlantic Space Organization (NASO) dispatches the Orion under the cover story of a scientific mission to Mars. Karl Zambendorf, a con artist on board to verify ESP over interplanetary distances, learns the true mission is Titan. The landing party encounters Thirg, a Taloid outcast, and is mistaken for the Lifemaker. Zambendorf later sends Thirg's brother Groork back to Kroaxia as a prophet, delivering guidelines akin to the Ten Commandments to prevent war.

NASO business administrators plan to exploit Titan's resources and enslave the Taloids, allying with Kroaxia's rulers. Zambendorf's commandments—including 'All Taloids are brothers' and 'No Taloid is to enslave or be a slave'—threaten that plan. Groork is saved by Orion crew members not working for NASO, and the story ends with a partnership of equals between humans and Taloids.

Reader's Guide

Code of the Lifemaker is notable for its exploration of self-replicating machines and their unintended evolution, a theme that connects to real-world concepts in robotics and space colonization. The novel's inspiration from NASA's Advanced Automation for Space Missions report grounds it in plausible near-future technology. Its reception was mixed: Dave Langford noted that the book 'never comes to terms with its own absurdity, but if you survive the stodgy opening it has its charms.' The prologue, describing the origin of the Taloids, proved popular enough to be anthologized separately. The sequel, The Immortality Option, continued the story in 1995. The work remains a reference point in discussions of self-replicating machines in fiction.

Did You Know?

• The prologue, describing the origin of the Taloids, was later anthologized on its own in a collection of Hogan's short fiction.
• The Taloids call humans 'Lumians' because humans appear to emit light (visible and infrared), not solely due to infrared vision.
• A sequel titled The Immortality Option was published in 1995.