Endgame Enigma

by James P. Hogan

1st Century 1988 large edition paperback, vg++ In stock shipped from our UK warehouse

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Space Opera

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

James 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.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Endgame Enigma is a (relatively) early novel of Hogan's, and the first of his to blend techno-thriller/spy-suspense elements into the near-future science fiction plot; it just says "Novel" on the spine, not "SF." The plot is a complex puzzle, and both difficult and fun to track. None of the characters are particularly memorable, but they do serve to move the story forward and occasionally present Hogan's beliefs, speculations, and philosophies. The political climate and technology are now out of date (the USSR was beginning to dissolve when the book appeared), but Hogan still told an interesting story, though it's a little oddly paced and might have benefited from editing to a shorter length.

[Daniel Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Even knowing there would be twists, the sheer complexity of the plot was impressive. Recommended to fans of hard sci-fi or cold war espionage. Additionally, Hogan takes the opportunity to continue his tendency to pepper in philosophical insights on scientists, humans, religion, and government. Very interesting read.

[Bent Andreassen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 pluss to 4 1/2.
A kind of US vs Soviet Cold War sci-fi thriller in space.
Obviously written before the cold war ended, but the novel is very good anyway.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm really torn on this book. It had both really good things about it, and some things that really bothered me.

Pros:
I really enjoyed the overall story. Being set in the near future with the Cold War still going on leads to some interesting settings. The Valentina Tereshkova (named after the first women in space) was well thought out and becomes a integral character of it's own.

Cons:
I felt the pacing was a little unbalanced as the first 2/3 of the book seemed to drag a little bit, and the last 1/3 had things flying by much faster than than they needed to. I don't think things were given enough time to land before new things happened towards the end. I constantly kept thinking that I skipped pages or even whole chapters (this feeling was no doubt in large part from everything being so drawn out earlier in the book). This is the first Hogan book I've read, so I'm not well versed in his style, but most of the political thriller/espionage stuff came of as second-rate Clancy work. This opinion may change as I plan to read more of Hogan's stuff in the future.

[James F. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel can be considered a blend of espionage, Cold War/Hot War, science fiction, and prison environment. Set in the period of 2015, its basic premise is that the Soviet Union, bent on world domination, is brought to its demise through the efforts of a small group of determined individuals who find it necessary to work together to reach a goal accepted by all.

This is the second read of this novel by me. The first read was a year or so after the publication of the book in 1987.

[Sean Randall]

James hogan was a man with far too much time on his hands. The complexities of the plot (not to mention the diagrams) are well thought out and had me wondering, almost, up until the end. I never doubted the aims of the Russians, I suppose it's far too much to expect anything other than what we found, given the western viewpoint with which the novel was penned.

[Gary Holt · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was interesting, up to the twist at the very end. I found I could not *quite* believe the end, and it kind of ruined a good story. It was an enjoyable read, but not something I think I will read again.

You have to force yourself back into the cold war mindset, if you can remember back that far, or imagine it if you can't. That's a bit of an exercise nowadays.

[Cws]

A Hog

[SciFiOne · Rating 3 out of 5]

1989 grade C