Code of the Lifemaker (Code of the Lifemaker #1)

After a twenty-first-century colony ship is mysteriously rerouted from its original destination, its crew becomes increasingly alarmed when their leaders, who know the truth, are unwilling to discuss the matter. Reissue.

This is hard sf with wry humor by the author of the Giants series (INHERIT THE STARS, etc.). In the 21st century, a colony ship destined for Mars ends up on Titan. Its crew--including linguists, psychologists, parapsychology researchers, and a whole passel of soldiers-- encounters a strange race of beings: accidentally-evolved "robots," the offspring of an alien factory ship whose computers were addled by radiation a million years before. Newsday said, and I quote them because this is exactly what I like about Hogan's books, "Hogan skillfully draws the reader into a fascinating philosophical and theological debate, without ever forgetting he's supposed to entertain and tell a good story." (Don't ask me the difference between "entertain" and "tell a good story"; I'm not their editor! I thought journalists were supposed to not mince words...)

                                --Ellen Key Harris, Editor, Del Rey Books