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The Mirror Maze
A reinvigorated United States, protected by defense lasers and experiencing an upsurge in the democratic process, is threatened by a sinister power
439 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1989
3 people are currently reading
76 people want to read
About the author
James P. Hogan
114 books270 followersJames Patrick Hogan was a British science fiction author.
Hogan was was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he worked various odd jobs until, after receiving a scholarship, he began a five-year program at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough covering the practical and theoretical sides of electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. He first married at the age of twenty, and he has had three other subsequent marriages and fathered six children.
Hogan worked as a design engineer for several companies and eventually moved into sales in the 1960s, travelling around Europe as a sales engineer for Honeywell. In the 1970s he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data Processing Group and in 1977 moved to Boston, Massachusetts to run its sales training program. He published his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in the same year to win an office bet. He quit DEC in 1979 and began writing full time, moving to Orlando, Florida, for a year where he met his third wife Jackie. They then moved to Sonora, California.
Hogan's style of science fiction is usually hard science fiction. In his earlier works he conveyed a sense of what science and scientists were about. His philosophical view on how science should be done comes through in many of his novels; theories should be formulated based on empirical research, not the other way around. If a theory does not match the facts, it is theory that should be discarded, not the facts. This is very evident in the Giants series, which begins with the discovery of a 50,000 year-old human body on the Moon. This discovery leads to a series of investigations, and as facts are discovered, theories on how the astronaut's body arrived on the Moon 50,000 years ago are elaborated, discarded, and replaced.
Hogan's fiction also reflects anti-authoritarian social views. Many of his novels have strong anarchist or libertarian themes, often promoting the idea that new technological advances render certain social conventions obsolete. For example, the effectively limitless availability of energy that would result from the development of controlled nuclear fusion would make it unnecessary to limit access to energy resources. In essence, energy would become free. This melding of scientific and social speculation is clearly present in the novel Voyage from Yesteryear (strongly influenced by Eric Frank Russell's famous story "And Then There Were None"), which describes the contact between a high-tech anarchist society on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with a starship sent from Earth by a dictatorial government. The story uses many elements of civil disobedience.
James Hogan died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Ireland.
Hogan was was raised in the Portobello Road area on the west side of London. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, he worked various odd jobs until, after receiving a scholarship, he began a five-year program at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough covering the practical and theoretical sides of electrical, electronic, and mechanical engineering. He first married at the age of twenty, and he has had three other subsequent marriages and fathered six children.
Hogan worked as a design engineer for several companies and eventually moved into sales in the 1960s, travelling around Europe as a sales engineer for Honeywell. In the 1970s he joined the Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data Processing Group and in 1977 moved to Boston, Massachusetts to run its sales training program. He published his first novel, Inherit the Stars, in the same year to win an office bet. He quit DEC in 1979 and began writing full time, moving to Orlando, Florida, for a year where he met his third wife Jackie. They then moved to Sonora, California.
Hogan's style of science fiction is usually hard science fiction. In his earlier works he conveyed a sense of what science and scientists were about. His philosophical view on how science should be done comes through in many of his novels; theories should be formulated based on empirical research, not the other way around. If a theory does not match the facts, it is theory that should be discarded, not the facts. This is very evident in the Giants series, which begins with the discovery of a 50,000 year-old human body on the Moon. This discovery leads to a series of investigations, and as facts are discovered, theories on how the astronaut's body arrived on the Moon 50,000 years ago are elaborated, discarded, and replaced.
Hogan's fiction also reflects anti-authoritarian social views. Many of his novels have strong anarchist or libertarian themes, often promoting the idea that new technological advances render certain social conventions obsolete. For example, the effectively limitless availability of energy that would result from the development of controlled nuclear fusion would make it unnecessary to limit access to energy resources. In essence, energy would become free. This melding of scientific and social speculation is clearly present in the novel Voyage from Yesteryear (strongly influenced by Eric Frank Russell's famous story "And Then There Were None"), which describes the contact between a high-tech anarchist society on a planet in the Alpha Centauri system, with a starship sent from Earth by a dictatorial government. The story uses many elements of civil disobedience.
James Hogan died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Ireland.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
August 31, 2024
The Mirror Maze is a near-future (it was published in '89, and it's set in 2000) political/sf/thriller, not one of his hard-sf novels. It's a Libertarian-themed story about spies and mistaken identities and powerful computers and all-such suspenseful stuff. It's a little dated and was a little bloated, but a good choice for those who prefer Tom Clancy to Larry Niven.
September 21, 2010
resistance movement...good story...worth a read. though previously politically indifferent, he had been drawn to the constitutionals by a growing conviction that a large share of the problems that he saw every day were the products of misguided idealists bent on creating a society that was achieving
exactly the opposite.
yeah, that sounds like today, in our time...
good read. resistance movement w/at least a somewhat happy ending...somewhat...
exactly the opposite.
yeah, that sounds like today, in our time...
good read. resistance movement w/at least a somewhat happy ending...somewhat...
March 7, 2020
Not one of his most exciting or better paced works, but a cleverly intricate tale of betrayal and duplicity with a solid cold-war vibe.
I particularly liked the nod to mass-storage on home networks - this was published in 1989, rendering even the concept of a home network, never mind music storage, but a twinkle in forward-looking eyes.
I particularly liked the nod to mass-storage on home networks - this was published in 1989, rendering even the concept of a home network, never mind music storage, but a twinkle in forward-looking eyes.
November 29, 2022
Another good novel from James P. Hogan. Few prolific authors manage to write only good novels, and Hogan is one of them (it seems, I have not read all his books). The Mirror Maze is not among his best novels but good it is and definitely worth reading. It was nominated for the libertarian Prometheus Award. Hogan shows his good insight into politics and how the left-right political divide is used to fool people into false beliefs about peoples motives. Instead Hogan shortly analyzing how political institutions and governments functions.
Interestingly, as early as 1989 the author makes the case against globalism (in its fascist version, the reality of which became apparent only 15-20 years later - for some -
most people have yet to discover this, it seems). This is interesting since Hogan was a stout libertarian (winning two Prometheus Awards for best science fiction novel), and many libertarians believe they must support globalism because they want free trade and free flow of money.
In the year 2000 US experiences its third revolution, The 1776 one we all know about, and in the authors plot there was a second (counter-)revolution in two first decades of the twentieth century that among other things involved the Federal Reserve Act av 1913, giving the government a monopoly right to print money - and inflate money (hidden taxation). In the authors plot, what about in real life? Worth thinking about. The 'Constitutionalist movement' is behind this third revolution which will restore freedom in America, made possible in a election landslide. The Constitutionalists are now ready to legally take over the government. However, enemies not wanting to lose power plots against them, with horrible plans.
Interestingly, as early as 1989 the author makes the case against globalism (in its fascist version, the reality of which became apparent only 15-20 years later - for some -
most people have yet to discover this, it seems). This is interesting since Hogan was a stout libertarian (winning two Prometheus Awards for best science fiction novel), and many libertarians believe they must support globalism because they want free trade and free flow of money.
In the year 2000 US experiences its third revolution, The 1776 one we all know about, and in the authors plot there was a second (counter-)revolution in two first decades of the twentieth century that among other things involved the Federal Reserve Act av 1913, giving the government a monopoly right to print money - and inflate money (hidden taxation). In the authors plot, what about in real life? Worth thinking about. The 'Constitutionalist movement' is behind this third revolution which will restore freedom in America, made possible in a election landslide. The Constitutionalists are now ready to legally take over the government. However, enemies not wanting to lose power plots against them, with horrible plans.
April 24, 2022
I was expecting a SF novel, which is what Hogan is know for. Instead, this book is a spy novel/thriller. Written in 1989, it is set in 2000, so maybe it qualified as near-future SF at the time. However, it depicts a society and political landscape so far off of the reality of what actually happened that I had a hard time suspending disbelief.
March 3, 2019
Nice spy story. Takes a little bit of time to set up, but gets very interesting. Involves a global conspiracy.
April 21, 2010
I remember really, really liking this book when I first bought and read it. I'm doing a reread of books deciding which ones I'd like to keep, and this didn't make the cut; I stopped about half-way and decided this goes in the rubbish without reading further. I think the reason I liked this so much once upon a time was that I was a very newly minted libertarian when I read it at a time when that would have gotten a "you're a what?" It was rare to find a book that reflected my values, and I'm sure I got a kick out of all the obscure references to ideas and books (such as Economics in One Lesson) only libertarians would know.
Don't misunderstand, this isn't the gripe of someone who has seen the error of her ways and no longer sees this philosophy as congenial. I haven't changed in my worldview, but I guess I've long ago stuffed myself with enough of this viewpoint; the preachiness gets old, even when I'm in agreement, and I find tedious reading a Atlas Shrugged lite. I've already heard all this, you know? And say what you will about Atlas Shrugged, but despite all the derision it gets, not only is it in my opinion the finer novel in every way, but it isn't as badly dated as this novel written over 30 years later with its Cold War politics.
There were also just a bunch of niggling things getting under my skin. For instance these thugs identified--on sight--as Puerto Rican. In Florida no less. Wouldn't a Florida Hispanic more likely be Cuban? Unless, of course, you associate the criminal element as being exclusively Puerto Rican. Also, the novel posits that a new party called the Constitutionalists gained prominence by doing well in the primaries. Except that's not possible. Primaries are not preview elections--they're elections internal to the parties, so a new party wouldn't have a chance to go head to head against Republicans and Democrats there. And finally, the whole conspiracy theory angle got under my skin after a while--or rather conspiracies plural. Just too paranoid, too many things and people connected at once for my tastes. Too many coincidences. (Part of why I'm rarely a fan of thrillers to begin with.) This was a Prometheus Award nominee, so I'm not saying there might not be some libertarians who'd find this to their tastes--certainly libertarian fiction is rare enough, but I really find it unlikely that if you're not a libertarian you're going to like this. And you know what, I have been rereading libertarian fiction lately and the rest so far have held up better than this.
Don't misunderstand, this isn't the gripe of someone who has seen the error of her ways and no longer sees this philosophy as congenial. I haven't changed in my worldview, but I guess I've long ago stuffed myself with enough of this viewpoint; the preachiness gets old, even when I'm in agreement, and I find tedious reading a Atlas Shrugged lite. I've already heard all this, you know? And say what you will about Atlas Shrugged, but despite all the derision it gets, not only is it in my opinion the finer novel in every way, but it isn't as badly dated as this novel written over 30 years later with its Cold War politics.
There were also just a bunch of niggling things getting under my skin. For instance these thugs identified--on sight--as Puerto Rican. In Florida no less. Wouldn't a Florida Hispanic more likely be Cuban? Unless, of course, you associate the criminal element as being exclusively Puerto Rican. Also, the novel posits that a new party called the Constitutionalists gained prominence by doing well in the primaries. Except that's not possible. Primaries are not preview elections--they're elections internal to the parties, so a new party wouldn't have a chance to go head to head against Republicans and Democrats there. And finally, the whole conspiracy theory angle got under my skin after a while--or rather conspiracies plural. Just too paranoid, too many things and people connected at once for my tastes. Too many coincidences. (Part of why I'm rarely a fan of thrillers to begin with.) This was a Prometheus Award nominee, so I'm not saying there might not be some libertarians who'd find this to their tastes--certainly libertarian fiction is rare enough, but I really find it unlikely that if you're not a libertarian you're going to like this. And you know what, I have been rereading libertarian fiction lately and the rest so far have held up better than this.
July 21, 2016
As a Cold War SF thriller, it was so so. Like most such books, it was rather preposterous in some aspects, and the political attitudes were already outdated before it was published. Had this been published ten years earlier, the attitudes would not have been outdated and clearly wrong, but would have been far more dangerous, and would have deserved the lowest possible rating.
July 19, 2009
James P. Hogan is primarily the author of naive but touching hard science fiction. I find him readable, sometimes better than thiat. But this book, which is more of a thriller, is awful. So bad I could not force myself to finish it. Those who know me will know how unusual that is!
December 21, 2024
Less sci-fi and more political thriller, I enjoyed this story and while I would start someone with one of his earlier science fiction stories, I would recommend this to Tom Clancy lovers.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews