Life Probe

I read this book in middle school and loved it to pieces. I recently reread it as someone with a PhD in political science. The pronounced ethnocentrism and black-helicopter UN-phobia is jarring to me now, but the story is still compelling. In the end, the best character in the book is an inanimate probe. The book sets up nicely for a sequel, but is also a self-contained, intriguing story about a cry for help from a doomed race.

There was enough of a Story to pull it along nicely.I was captivated by the Romance of a Life Probe / A.I. struggling to "Continue Existing" despite HORRENDOUS damage.The majority of the Life Probe was damaged.Part of the probe continued its existence in an A.I. form that was CREATED by the Original Life Probe. This form allowed the Human Community to interact with it Much like a human, and actually we freely adopted its technologies that it was based on, with it's own intelligent assistance. Note, that the ORIGINAL purpose of the Life Probe A.I. was lost with the immense damage that it took. The only part of the "probe" that remained was its experimental "Human Model" that it (the much more intelligent and ALIEN life probe ENTIRE) was going to use to study/communicate with the Humans.After the probe was damaged, We humans were able to freely investigate it(since it could not defend itself). We could freely speculate on it's origins and use the technology that it was based on to further our OWN development and purposes.A very interesting fantasy.A very intelligent & powerful machine that fell prey to circumstance, and became OUR unwitting "benefactor" And a source of new technology in more ways than one.I'm re-purchasing the book b/c I read it in the 80's and thought it was excellent.

This is the first book I have read by Michael McCollum, and I am happy to see that he has several others out now. I first read LifeProbe about 15 years ago, and have re-read it about 5 times. Well worth the read.