Gimme a Ticket to Otherwhere!
A book review by Don L. Tiggre
Exclusive to The Libertarian Enterprise
James P. Hogan's
latest book, Paths To Otherwhere, is a lot of
things, but mostly, it's classic Hogan. The plot and character
development, the building to crisis, the satisfying resolution,
and -- above all -- the total immersion in the cutting edge of current
science... More than anything else, this book is a hard-core
science fiction.
Hogan's stories are
not space fantasy, not futuristic fantasy,
not fantasy at all. He speculates about cutting edge science and
tells an entertaining story as a way to get readers to think about
it.
So, if working through new ideas in science is not your cup of
tea, or physics makes you break out in rashes, Paths To
Otherwhere -- or any Hogan book -- is probably not for you. If it's incessant
gun-battles, sex-scenes, or other thrills that keep you reading a
book, Paths may not float your boat. Hogan's writing is not
particularly sensual... Don't look to him for visual poetry dripping
from every page. You'll find poetry, metaphor, gun-battles, and even
sex in Hogan's writing, but none of these things define his unique
storytelling.
What does define this unique storytelling style? Speculative
fiction, as the grand master used to say. Excitement about
encountering new ideas. Excitement about science and the discovery of
knowledge as adventures in their own right.
If these things fire your imagination, then you'll love Hogan's
writing. Paths is a tip-top effort by a master of making ideas
exciting.
So, what is Paths to Otherwhere about?
It's about a very real problem in quantum mechanics, a very real
theoretical solution (if that's not a contradiction in terms), and a
very believable conflict that arises when The Bad Guys want to use
the resulting technology.
Be forewarned: Hogan's Good Guys are no plaster saints and his
Bad Guys are not mystical embodiments of evil. Everyone in Paths
behaves in ways consistent with their beliefs... And as we all know
from our 'real' lives, anyone who believes anything is going to find
someone that disagrees with her or him.
This brings up an odd thing about Hogan's writing; as much as he
seems to want to distance himself from anyone or any philosophy that
claims to have The Answer(s), Hogan's writing always seems to
illustrate the futility of coercive human institutions. Both in
economics and on social issues, the constant message -- dare I say,
principle? -- I get from Hogan is:
Laissez Fair!!!
More details on the story?
Read the book. Here's all you need to know:
Paths to Otherwhere
By James P. Hogan
Copyright, 1996.
Published by Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
Riverdale, NY 10471
(Distributed by Simon & Schuster)
405 Pages
ISBN: 0-671-87710-0
"Don L. Tiggre is a grant-writer and a would-be author of fiction.
He lives with his three sons, who teach him daily lessons in
effective ways to resist tyranny. Having just barely survived 16
years of 'education', Mr. Tiggre is doing his best to study the
human animal in it's natural habitats."
