From archive (archive) From: ecl@mtgzy.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ Subject: MINDS, MACHINES & EVOLUTION by James P. Hogan Date: 21 Aug 88 17:06:46 GMT MINDS, MACHINES & EVOLUTION by James P. Hogan Bantam, 1988, 0-553-27288-8, $4.50. A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper This is James P. Hogan's first collection of his shorter works, though he has had ten novels published. (Chalker just had his first collection published and he has probably twice that many novels published, so this must be the year for collections.) Of the twenty-five items, 14 are fiction and 11 are non-fiction, the latter being in general more interesting. Without reviewing each piece individually, let me just touch on a few. The lead story, "Silver Shoes for a Princess" is okay, but nothing spectacular and perhaps a disappointing lead-in for the book (in a collection, one usually expects the first piece to be the best). "The Pacifist" has an interesting twist, but isn't rewarding enough to warrant its length. I also seem to recall similar twists in other stories, so it's not a brand-new idea either. "Till Death Do Us Part" is a wonderful story, though somewhat predictable in a Collieresque sort of way. (To those who have read John Collier's short stories, this will mean something. To those who haven't, why are you sitting here reading this--go read Collier!) "Neander-Tale" is a "let's write a story for the sole purpose of making some current political/religious/environmental/whatever statement" sort of story. It is a companion piece to the non-fiction work that follows it, "Know Nukes." Just as Spider Robinson's "In the Olden Days" was used in L-5 Society (now National Space Society) literature to make a point about space, "Neander-Tale" will probably be seen in the literature of groups advocating a particular stand on nuclear power. (I won't tell you which stand--read it for yourself.) "Making Light" is possibly the best story in the book--a vision of the Creation as it might have been if Heaven had the same governmental bureaucracy that we have here. Its companion piece, "The Revealed Word of God," is an essay on what constitutes a scientific theory. While it is well-written and clear, the content is nothing new over what other essayists have written. Of the remainder of the items, there is nothing particularly notable. The autobiographical pieces do help provide background and insight into Hogan's fiction. On the whole, MINDS AND MACHINES is an average collection with a couple of above average pieces. Evelyn C. Leeper 201-957-2070 UUCP: att!mtgzy!ecl or ecl@mtgzy.att.com ARPA: ecl%mtgzy@att.arpa Copyright 1988 Evelyn C. Leeper From uucp Fri Mar 24 02:41 SNT 1989 >From majestix.ida.liu.se!matoh%teorix.ida.liu.se Fri Mar 24 02:41:17 1989 remote from enea Received: by sssab.se (smail2.5) id AA28361; 24 Mar 89 02:41:17 SNT (Fri) Received: from kth.se by enea.se (5.57++/1.105) via EUnet id AA19318; Fri, 24 Mar 89 02:11:00 +0100 (MET) Received: from majestix.ida.liu.se ([130.236.30.102]) by kth.se (5.57+IDA+KTH/4.0) id AA15013; Fri, 24 Mar 89 02:06:12 +0100 Received: from teorix.ida.liu.se by majestix.ida.liu.se; Fri, 24 Mar 89 02:09:54 +0100 Received: by teorix.ida.liu.se; Fri, 24 Mar 89 02:09:35 +0100 Date: Fri, 24 Mar 89 02:09:35 +0100 From: Mats Ohrman Message-Id: <8903240109.AA13022@teorix.ida.liu.se> To: matoh@sssab.se Status: R Path: liuida!draken!kth!mcvax!uunet!husc6!rutgers!delta.nrc.ca!FERNHOLZ From: FERNHOLZ@delta.nrc.ca Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf-lovers Subject: The Mirror Maze by James P. Hogan Message-ID: <8903201316.AA21587@rutgers.edu> Date: 19 Mar 89 19:57:00 GMT Sender: daemon@rutgers.rutgers.edu Lines: 33 If you are looking for the hard science, high-technology type of science fiction that James P. Hogan has been known for in the past, then you will be disappointed in The Mirror Maze. While the book has enough paragraphs discussing a fission-fusion hybrid reactor to say that it is not totally devoid of science, it is essentially a platform for Hogan to expound his views of economics and politics. As a novel of suspense and espionage it is reasonably good. To be fair, the paperback version out from Bantam Spectra only lists it as a novel on the spine and none of the cover blurbs can really be construed as indicating science fiction. It's the name recognition that leads one to believe that it will be science fiction along with finding it in the SF section of many bookstores. The style of writing is nearly identical to that found in Endgame Enigma, that is, several paragraphs of dialogue and setting description followed by a few paragraphs espousing Hogan's ideas. The major difference is that Endgame Enigma at least provided a few physics puzzles. Also, the Soviet bashing is kept to a minimum and a few Soviets actually turn out to be good guys. I found Hogan's economic and political ideas to be attractive but I can't help but have the feeling that they are too simplistic. Certainly our government would be doing well if it took a few of these ideas to heart. Perhaps he is only trying to make us think a bit and is not really proposing this scheme seriously. I was puzzled to find The Mirror Maze packaged with The Proteus Operation. What's going on here? Which book is supposed to help sell the other? Overall, I would rate The Mirror Maze as a good suspense/espionage book. I just wish Hogan would go back to writing the type of science fiction that got a lot of us hooked on him in the first place. Richard Fernholz FERNHOLZ@NRCHEP.NRC.CA (BITNET) From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 10 13:35:48 1992 Path: lysator.liu.se!fizban.solace.hsh.se!kitten.umdc.umu.se!sunic!mcsun!uunet!think.com!ames!ig!dont-reply-to-paths From: leeper@mtgzfs3.att.com (m.r.leeper ) Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: THE MULTIPLEX MAN by James P. Hogan Message-ID: <9211090922.ZM16226@mtgzfs3.att.com> Date: 9 Nov 92 22:57:43 GMT Sender: mcb@presto.ig.com Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Lines: 59 Approved: mcb@presto.ig.com (rec.arts.sf.reviews moderator) THE MULTIPLEX MAN by James P. Hogan Bantam, 1992, ISBN 0-553-08999-4, $20. A book review by Mark R. Leeper THE MULTIPLEX MAN is the kind of novel Robert Sheckley would have written in the 1950s and 1960s if he had been able to get his tongue out of his cheek long enough to write it. He used to write satiric novels set in the next century with trends of this century taken a step too far. Also, body switching was a favorite theme of Sheckley novels. Of course, Sheckley was no scientist, so he explained body switch technology with hocus-pocus and smoke and mirrors. James Hogan was an aeronautical engineer before he turned to science fiction, so he is able to write a convincing explanation about how body-switching or, more accurately, personality-switching might be done. This is a story told from several points of view, but always from the point of view of whomever it is who currently has the body in question. We start with Jarrow, a school teacher who one day wakes up in a body he does not recognize. As with a Sheckley story, the foreground is really just distraction. The real point of the story is to show you a world in which something has gone very wrong. In this setting there are conflicts between the people still living on Earth and people who live off-world: the moon, Mars, maybe O'Neill colonies. Off-worlders are in favor of technology and expansion. However, on Earth the repressive governments are forcing caution and conservation down everyone's throat. The most repressive government is the United States. Asia and the former Soviet Union ended up being where people were able and willing to use technology and they now lead the world. In the United States the Green Party seems to have accomplished getting us only brave new warning labels. Unhealthy foods are disappearing as living becomes safer, but the society is stagnating. But in this world the repressive government is willing to try new technology if it helps its own ends. And one new method allows the mind to be treated as a computer personality--to be treated as programs. It can be stored and downloaded to different brains. And in explaining how this can be done in reasonably scientific terms, Hogan gives a hard science edge where Sheckley was always treading in fantasy. The body is owned by characters on each side of the controversy, but it is clear where Hogan's sympathies lie. As an adventure, it is decent, but not great. But, of course, the adventure story is not really the point. %A James P. Hogan %T The Multiplex Man %I Bantam Books %C New York %D 1992 %O hardback, US$20.00 %G ISBN 0-553-08999-4 %P 368pp -- Mark R. Leeper att!mtgzy!leeper leeper@mtgzy.att.com Copyright 1992 Mark R. Leeper From rec.arts.sf.written Wed Jan 20 12:33:37 1993 Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written Path: lysator.liu.se!isy!liuida!sunic!uunet!wupost!csus.edu!netcom.com!dani From: dani@netcom.com (Dani Zweig) Subject: Hogan: The Multiplex Man Message-ID: <1993Jan19.062331.15416@netcom.com> Organization: Netcom Online Communications Services (408-241-9760 login: guest) Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1993 06:23:31 GMT Lines: 35 Jame's Hogan's "The Multiplex Man" is *quite* bad. The author of enjoyable books such as "Inherit the Stars", "The Genesis Machine", "Thrice Upon a Time", and "Voyage to Yesteryear" has taken to writing second-rate techno-thrillers, and this may be his worst to date. It's a Green Dystopia. The time is the not-to-distant future, and the West has become an environmentalist police state, while the East is reaching for the stars. Hogan's politics aren't any different here than in "Voyage to Yesteryear"; the difference is that in VtY he remembered that he was telling a story. Here, the story gets forgotten for pages on end as, in the first part of the book, we are shown in excruciating detail what it's like to live in an anti-tech ultra-environmentalist bureaucracy-disguised-as-a-state. In the second part of the book the story waits just as often as the protagonist marvels (or frowns) at the libertarian techno-utopia of the East. Yes, there is a story of sorts: The protagonist wakes up in a strange hotel, in a strange body, with half a year of his life missing. Solving this mystery gives him an excuse to run around the country, and then the world, so that Hogan can give his almost- uninterrupted lectures. It's unsubtle, and it's not well-written. The big surprise ending is telegraphed about a quarter of the way through the book. Don't get this book: It's not worth the time it takes to read even if you get it from the library, as I did. ----- Dani Zweig dani@netcom.com If you're going to write, don't pretend to write down. It's going to be the best you can do, and it's the fact that it's the best you can do that kills you! -- Dorothy Parker Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.gctr.net!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!dreaderd!not-for-mail Sender: wex@deepspace.media.mit.edu From: "Rob Slade, doting grandpa of Ryan and Trevor" Organization: Vancouver Institute for Research into User Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: "The Multiplex Man", James P. Hogan Reply-To: rslade@sprint.ca Approved: wex@media.mit.edu Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.written Date: 19 Feb 2000 13:45:25 -0500 Message-ID: X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 Lines: 57 NNTP-Posting-Host: deepspace.media.mit.edu X-Trace: dreaderd 950985927 2944 18.85.23.65 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.sf.reviews:2597 "The Multiplex Man" by James P. Hogan Review Copyright 2000 Robert M. Slade Having reviewed and enjoyed other books by Hogan I was terribly disappointed by this one. Not that it is really bad, as such: the story is a fairly average piece of science fiction. It's just that Hogan can do so much better. I am giving away nothing in saying that the Multiplex Man of the title is a man of many parts, and only a little in stating that the parts are multiple personalities. The surprise twist ending, in fact, will come as no surprise at all to anyone who has been paying attention throughout the book. The technology taken to accomplish the multiplexing is standard fare but, again, unsatisfactory given Hogan's previous level of detail and realism. In some passages of the book itself, the author proves that he knows more about neurophysiology than he is willing to put into the story, at one point citing the complex nature of both neuronal paths and biochemistry involved in memory, but then conveniently ignoring that complication. Given multiple personalities, the task of making one, or all, sympathetic enough to engage the reader is difficult. It may, then, be no wonder that Hogan fails. Very few of the characters in the book are attractive, and those few seem to be relegated to bit parts. By the end of the book it was very hard to care about how any of them came out. I felt that two of them who showed a lot of promise were very hard done by. The trade mark magic, card-sharping, and mentalist tricks that are part and parcel of Hogan's "careful, you can be fooled" thesis show up, but only in passing, at the level of parlour games. A number of Hogan's other works have pointed out how people are fooled, and very carefully teach how the illusions are constructed, and how to test them for validity. This book simply rails against government intervention, conservationism, political correctness, and health fads. Rather than illustrating logical flaws, the discussions in the book degenerate into "yes it is/no it isn't" arguments. The result is that whenever the story gets close to a political or social analysis, it takes on a bad-tempered, right-wing pamphleteering tone, quite reminiscent of the worst of Ayn Rand. Other than that, it's fairly mundane. %A James P. Hogan www.global.org/jphogan jphogan1@ibm.net %C P. O. Box 1403, Riverdale, NY 10471 %D 1992 %G 0-671-57819-7 %I Baen Publishing Enterprises %O jim@baen.com %P 375 p. %T "The Multiplex Man" ====================== (quote inserted randomly by Pegasus Mailer) rslade@vcn.bc.ca rslade@sprint.ca slade@victoria.tc.ca p1@canada.com Techbooks subscription form http://www.eGroups.com/list/techbooks/ http://victoria.tc.ca/techrev or http://sun.soci.niu.edu/~rslade