Rating: 
Summary: OK, but misses on some scores
Review: During the first third of this book I was afraid it was going to end with ".. and they called their new planet EARTH!" Fortunately Hogan is much better than that. I found problems with the necessary suspension of disbelief in a couple of areas which seemed to be unnecessary to the story. It it an intriging idea to have a self-aware machine build a self-aware bio-form (the star-child) out of component molecules based on nothing more than an imperfectly understood DNA record. The part that doesn't sit so well is the resulting person -- with utterly no connection to any human society -- could nonetheless end up with so much culturally in common with people living on a planet. Hogan also skates over the massive problems that would accrue if you had a person raised in a sterile environment (no bacteria or viruses at all) and plonk them down into a fully functioning Earthlike ecology, even eating the local food. I'm no expert but I think it would be unlikely that such subjects would survive. At least not easily. And if you would be interested in the star-child's first experiences with sex, you will be disappointed. The part of the story about the machines were more believable, actually. I like the part where they developed multiple personalities to serve different functions: the Scientist, the Skeptic, the Mystic and so on. Worth reading, but as I said it has shortcomings.
Rating:
Summary: OK, but misses on some scores
Review: During the first third of this book I was afraid it was going to end with ".. and they called their new planet EARTH!" Fortunately Hogan is much better than that. I found problems with the necessary suspension of disbelief in a couple of areas which seemed to be unnecessary to the story. It it an intriging idea to have a self-aware machine build a self-aware bio-form (the star-child) out of component molecules based on nothing more than an imperfectly understood DNA record. The part that doesn't sit so well is the resulting person -- with utterly no connection to any human society -- could nonetheless end up with so much culturally in common with people living on a planet. Hogan also skates over the massive problems that would accrue if you had a person raised in a sterile environment (no bacteria or viruses at all) and plonk them down into a fully functioning Earthlike ecology, even eating the local food. I'm no expert but I think it would be unlikely that such subjects would survive. At least not easily. And if you would be interested in the star-child's first experiences with sex, you will be disappointed. The part of the story about the machines were more believable, actually. I like the part where they developed multiple personalities to serve different functions: the Scientist, the Skeptic, the Mystic and so on. Worth reading, but as I said it has shortcomings.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book by an excellent writer.
Review: I could be accused of being biased, since I have been a BIG fan of James P. Hogan ever since I first picked up "Inherit the Stars" over ten years ago, but I would have to say that "Star Child" is one of the best books I have read in some time. It is a collection of four linked stories about Taya and her robot mentor Kort. The first Story, "Silver Shoes for a Princess" was originally published in 1979. In that story, Taya is 9 years old and travelling through space aboard a mysterious spacecraft called Merkon, headed toward a star called Vaxis. I don't want to give away too much of the story, but in the second story, Taya is 19 and they are just landing on the planet they call Azure. In the third story, she is in her 40's, and we learn more about the mystery of Merkon. In the final story, she is an old woman and Kort must face what will happen to him when she dies. Hogan is adept at presenting us with a puzzle, which is gradually unravelled in a logical manner. Even aspects that might otherwise be thought of as spiritual or mystical are examined in a rational way. If you are a Hogan fan, as I am, you should run, not walk, to your favorite bookstore and snap this one up! If you have read a few, or even none, of his previous works, I would urge you to do likewise, then look for his other books. Either way, you are in for a treat.
Rating: 
Summary: Background and history
Review: I have no recollection where the original idea for this came from. It began as a short story called "Silver Shoes for a Princess," which appeared in Destinies (Vol. 1, #5, October 1979), published by ACE Books, when Jim Baen was editor in chief there. It was about a nine-year-old girl called Taya and her robot companion, tutor, and mentor, Kort, who inhabit a mysterious structure names Merkon. We never quite find out if Mekon is a former spaceship, colony, or what, but for as long as anyone has know, it has been moving toward a star that they call Vaxis. (I was still at DEC when I wrote the story, and everything of mine at the time had an explicit or coded reference somewhere in it to a DEC computer.) The big question, of course, is, how does Taya come to be there? The reader finds out, naturally, but to give a hint here would risk spoiling things. The story provoked a lot of enthusiastic responses from readers, a mumber of whom demanded to know what happened when Merkon--whatever it was--eventually reached Vaxis--for whatever reason. (We found out at the end of the story that it was about ten years from arrival.) So Jim Baen and I thought it would be an idea to extend the original story to a series of several linked stories telling the events that unfolded subsequently. Soon afterward, however, Jim left ACE to set up Baen Books, and the whole thing went into cold storage. But letters from readers insisting on knowing what happened continued coming in. Years later, in 1995, I did a deal with Baen Books to write PATHS TO OTHERWHERE and BUG PARK, and Jim and I were in business together again. One of the projects we discussed was the revival of Taya and Kort, and the result was a set of four stories in one volume under the collective title STAR CHILD. The four stories are: SILVER SHOES FOR A PRINCESS, a slightly edited version of the original story. SILVER GODS FROM THE SKY-the much-requested sequel telling what happens when Merkon reaches Vaxis. THREE DOMES AND A TOWER-set twenty years after that, and at last answering the question of what Merkon was. And THE SILENCE AMONG THE STARS, many years later still, which deals with Kort's fears of being left alone now that Taya is in her final years, and what happens when she dies. Each story captures a phase of Taya's life: childhood, a young woman, maturity, and old age. And that's probably all it would be prudent to say here.
Rating:
Summary: Light reading, some gaps in the story
Review: I like James Hogan's work, but I don't think this book is one of his better efforts.
The story has a good initial premise, providing the baseline of intelligent machines on a starship creating Taya from old (DNA) codes. Taya is a nine year old girl at the beginning of the story. I think it left out some obligatory developmental filler between the first section of the story when Taya is in self-discovery, and the next sub-story of planetfall with her younger cohorts. The way the mean and nasty king would revert to sugar and spice was too much of a reach for me.
Another large gap in development to the next section which tied up the loose ends of the starship origins and meaning of life (for Taya). Throwing in a little mystical mumbo jumbo at the end along with a post-life meta-space just didn't flow well for me.
Rating: 
Summary: boring, confusing and complicated
Review: I was wandering in the library and saw this book in the new books shelf. I read the back and said, "Huh, interesting." I've never read any books by Hogan before and I mainly read light Sci-fi and fantasy, most of which have "action". (Quest, mission, guns, swords, etc.) This is a "thinking book", not that I mean it's boring, it just makes you think, think about creators, machines and evolution and all that deep stuff. Usually, that sort of stuff doesn't interest me, but Hogan has created characters that make the whole thing interesting, especially Kort. Kort is cool, he's a machine, but has a enough "humaness" to make him likable. Anyway, read this book, it's good for rainy days.
Rating:
Summary: Thinking Book!
Review: I was wandering in the library and saw this book in the new books shelf. I read the back and said, "Huh, interesting." I've never read any books by Hogan before and I mainly read light Sci-fi and fantasy, most of which have "action". (Quest, mission, guns, swords, etc.) This is a "thinking book", not that I mean it's boring, it just makes you think, think about creators, machines and evolution and all that deep stuff. Usually, that sort of stuff doesn't interest me, but Hogan has created characters that make the whole thing interesting, especially Kort. Kort is cool, he's a machine, but has a enough "humaness" to make him likable. Anyway, read this book, it's good for rainy days.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: One of the best books ever written! When Taya was eight, she discovered that she wasn't like the machines around her. Her robot friend, Kort, no matter how kind, couldn't tell the difference between a pretty shape and a not pretty shape. Kort then showed her the bio-bodies that had been engineered after her. When they are brought to life, they call her "queen". Ten years later, the robots and their charges land on Azure, a planet similar to our earth. Here, they meet with violence and destruction, foreign behaviors to them. For the most part, the story is about the "Star Children" and their influence on the planet.
Rating: 
Summary: How the future could be
Review: This book is a very imaginative piece of work. It gives a detailed account of how computers can function. This very well may be the way of the future. The computers evolved on their own, as have other robot models today, but they begun evolution from human set parameters. This is a very realistic way of this process happening. So, not only is the book creative with a great story line, it is a distinct possibility.
Rating:
Summary: boring, confusing and complicated
Review: This book was pretty boring and confusing and complicated all jumbled together, in my opinion. I haven't finished the book yet but it's going to take me some time to because it's really weird- i think the author used too many big words. It didn't have much of a plot and no offense, but I can't say I found it too interesting. The only reason I'm reading it right now is because I have to do a science-fiction book report and it's due soon so I can't really get another book. As you can see, I'm not a big fan of science-fiction. I was reading it and I'd gotton into the middle of the of the third part, when I was like,"oh my god, I have no clue what the story is about!" and so I ended up starting all over again from the beginning. Now I'm reading it and reading it very very s l o w because what Mr. Hogan had to say takes awhile to sink in. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.
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