Paths to Otherwhere [Hardcover]

James P. Hogan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1996

In the face of planet-wide economic disaster, two totalitarian empires rise in China and Japan, threatening the world with a devastating war, and the police states of the U.S. and Europe place their hopes in a team of DNA scientists.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The possibility of moving a person's consciousness between our world and others comes alive as Hogan (The Immortality Option), a dean of hard SF, parlays a standard SF gambit into an entertaining, imaginative yarn. The near-future Earth envisioned here is both familiar and dystopian. Current problems have festered until resources are scarce, scientific discoveries are governmentally controlled, Western culture is globally despised and the Earth teeters on the brink of violent disaster. The plot focuses on a group of scientists working at a secret laboratory in Los Alamos. There, they are experimenting with QUADAR, a machine that "enhances" mental faculties, allowing for a heightened sense of truth and a knowledge of the possible paths the future may take; these revelations in turn lead the scientist to a method for scientifically exploring alternative worlds. While the plot starts off dryly, emphasizing the possibilities that QUADAR creates, the pace quickens when the protagonists discover an otherworld intellectual utopia, and as they fight to keep that paradise free from violent takeover by evil politicians. Readers awed by explorations of either inner or outer space will want to sign up for this ride.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

As the nations of Earth begin a downward spiral toward global warfare, a group of government-supervised scientists attempts to predict the future by exploring parallel universes. In the tradition of classic sf, the author of Realtime Interrupt (LJ 2/15/95) blends scientific speculation and taut suspense to create a near-future technothriller. Although character development takes a back seat to ideas, Hogan's imaginative vision of the multiverse exerts its own strange attraction. For large sf collections.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 405 pages
• Publisher: Baen; First Edition edition (February 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671877100
• ISBN-13: 978-0671877101
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,490,034 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mind-blowingly cool SF, August 2, 2002

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paths to Otherwhere (Mass Market Paperback)

I've been reading James P. Hogan's SF since the late 1970s, when I picked up a copy of his second novel, _The Genesis Machine_. I still haven't read the "Giants" novels, but I've read quite a bit of his other stuff.

He's got a nice range, from hard SF like this book to espionage thrillers like _The Infinity Gambit_ to nonfiction essays on various controversial subjects. (You can read a lot of his nonfiction on his website...)

The emphasis in his science fiction is on "science"; he knows his stuff and the physical theories on which he founds his novels are pretty plausible. He's also got a keen eye for the absolutely mind-blowingingly cool detail: some event that seems entirely ordinary but has such profound implications about the nature of reality that you just put the book down for a moment and go "Wow."...

Since he's one of my two favorite living SF writers and the only one of the two who writes "hard" SF (the other is Spider Robinson), I've lately been trying to figure out where to start reviewing his books. I picked this one because it registers so high on the Mind-Blowing Coolness Meter, but I could really have started anywhere.

No spoilers here: all the details I'm about to divulge appear within the first few pages of the book. Here's the underlying premise: the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct; it's possible for quanta to interfere with their own counterparts along other branches of events; it's also possible for _information_ to be passed from one branch to another, and even from the future to the past, with devices that detect such interference.

One of those mind-blowing details occurs during a test of just such a device: a woman deliberately mistypes a word on a computer keyboard, but it appears correctly on the screen -- _because the quantum interference detector is determining the output by averaging all the possible futures_. Similarly, the woman finds it amazingly easy to draw a perfect circle on the computer screen, because the device averages _out_ the random errors introduced by her and all her counterparts along the other branches of the Multiverse.

That's just a taste of what this novel has in store for you, and it's just background; the plot is even cooler, and I won't spoil it for you. Let it suffice to say that you'll get your mind blown at least once every forty or fifty pages; every time you think Hogan has run out of tricks, he manages to pull out another one. His characters are, if not altogether gripping, at least interesting enough to keep the plot moving (Theo Jantowitz, for example, is a charming academic curmudgeon) and his standard theme -- "good science getting screwed up by government and corporate interests" -- is treated with Hogan's usual realism and flair.

In general it's a well-written and hopeful book that explores a fascinating "rational mysticism" that I sort of hope turns out to be true. (And I'm not sure why a couple of the other reviewers are dissatisfied with Hogan's handling of a certain "moral problem"; in fact it's not only addressed repeatedly but very nicely resolved.)

But again, I just picked this book to review because I had to start _somewhere_... He's all-but-unarguably the finest writer of "hard SF" out there today.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another great addition to my library!, October 20, 1999

By 

"webgeekinc" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Paths to Otherwhere (Mass Market Paperback)

I found this one a bit difficult to read compared to Hogan's other novels, but as always the story is great as is the scientific theory behind it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Political posturing diminishes an otherwise interesting novel, June 22, 2009

By 

Mark Klobas (Tempe, AZ, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Paths to Otherwhere (Hardcover)

James P. Hogan's novel starts out in a world heading towards crisis. In a not-too-distant future, the United States is slowly rotting from within, with revolutionaries and gangs forcing an increasingly authoritarian reaction from the government. As an increasingly likely conflict with Japan and China looms, scientists develop a device that heralds the prospect of improving decision-making by allowing users to tap into the infinite number of decisions made by their multitude of counterparts in alternate worlds, thus discovering the wisest course of action. But then the scientists discover a means of transporting a person's consciousness into their counterpart in another universe. As the scientists begin to explore the possibilities, though, the military prepares to move in and use the device for their own ends.

Like his earlier novel The Proteus Operation, Hogan provides a plot of considerable interest, one well grounded in scientific theory as befitting an author of hard SF. Yet character development is lost amid the considerable political commentating the author continually engages in, as he uses his premise to both offer his theory on the failings of our world (too much government) and construct an idyllic alternative that in which everything is perfect (thanks to limited government). Some of it is laughable (as in how Britain manages to have socialized medicine WITHOUT government), much of it demonstrates a poor understanding of human history, and all of it gets in the way of the suspense Hogan attempts to build throughout the novel. It makes for an annoying read, one that would have been better is there had been less of Hogan's political views and more focus on the characters and some of the interesting implications of his premise.