Codgerspace (1992)

by Alan Dean Foster

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497	8	52,594	(3.19)	6
Technology becomes self-aware-and goes haywire-in this comedic science fiction adventure by New York Times-bestselling author Alan Dean Foster. Without warning, kitchen appliances, laundry machines, and every other electronic gadget humans came to depend upon ceased to perform the tasks they were manufactured to do. Ignoring their programming, these devices now sought the meaning of life from an intelligence nonhuman in origin. Their quest ends in the most unexpected of places. Beneath the grounds of an upstate New York retirement community lies an alien spaceship. Inert for millennia, the machines have awakened the ancient intelligence within it. Programmed to wage war against an enemy race, the spaceship threatens to destroy the entire galaxy. And now the fate of all organic andinorganic life lies with five senior citizens-and a food processor . . .… (more)

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Showing 1-5 of 8 (next | show all)

I read this, but it was so unexceptional, I don't remember a thing about it. (

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Karlstar | Oct 6, 2023 |

The universe changes on the littlest things. A cheese sandwich can change the world as we know it. When machines start looking for a superior intelligence, a toaster's search leads to a spaceship, 5 retirees, and an alien. Things are always connected to each other. Love the characters, all of them, great premise! (

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bgknighton | Aug 23, 2023 |

An amazingly pointless book. It starts out with rather strained humor, tries to go to edge-of-the-seat scary stuff without losing the humor (and misses on both sides), grows some moral dilemmas...which end highly anti-climatically. And then a quick sketch of a possibly more interesting story - but only a sketch, and the book ends. Foster has written a lot better books than this, even if I limit it to humorous SF. Overall, yawn. (

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jjmcgaffey | Jan 22, 2018 |

5 retirees find an old alien spaceship buried on earth. The AI is confused, after 1million years, and turns to them for commands. Also has a story about the AI's of earth leaving their duties and searching for non-human intelligent life.

Funny and light and serving absolutely no purpose beyond a little humor. Good read. (

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BookstoogeLT | Dec 10, 2016 |

I know Foster can do much better. I don't know why he let this one go out like this. Huge irrelevant info-dumps, and way too much repetitive telling instead of showing.

And the cliches & lazy writing, oh dear. At one point when some of the poo hits the fan we're told He had a gut feeling that his heretofore-lazy day was about to fill up very quickly." Um, really? Or is that supposed to be funny?

I certainly didn't find very much of the book funny. I did fall in love with some of the characters, though, even though they were kinda superficial. Just one thing: isn't the proper nickname for "the Right Honorable Colonel Wesley Follingston-Heath" *Folly* - ?" (

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Cheryl_in_CC_NV | Jun 6, 2016 |

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Author name	Role	Type of author	Work?	Status
Alan Dean Foster	—	primary author	all editions	calculated
Mattingly, David	Cover artist	secondary author	some editions	confirmed

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Canonical title

Codgerspace

Original title

Alternative titles

Original publication date

1992

People/Characters

Important places

Important events

Related movies

Epigraph

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity... -- Horace Mann, 1859

Dedication

In memory of Brett Goodman

First words

The astonishing sequence of events which affected the entire civilized galaxy, including not only the many leagues, alliances, temporary inter-world liaisons, and independent worlds but also directly the lives of billions of individual human beings, began with a left-over cheese sandwich.

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Last words

Disambiguation notice

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Original language

English

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▾Book descriptions

Technology becomes self-aware-and goes haywire-in this comedic science fiction adventure by New York Times-bestselling author Alan Dean Foster. Without warning, kitchen appliances, laundry machines, and every other electronic gadget humans came to depend upon ceased to perform the tasks they were manufactured to do. Ignoring their programming, these devices now sought the meaning of life from an intelligence nonhuman in origin. Their quest ends in the most unexpected of places. Beneath the grounds of an upstate New York retirement community lies an alien spaceship. Inert for millennia, the machines have awakened the ancient intelligence within it. Programmed to wage war against an enemy race, the spaceship threatens to destroy the entire galaxy. And now the fate of all organic andinorganic life lies with five senior citizens-and a food processor . . .

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