The Genesis Machine

An SF novel from 1978 set in a future -- well, a version of the mid-2000s -- in which the Cold War never ended and the world is threatened by a perpetual conflict between multiple superpowers. Scientific research is pretty tightly controlled and is supposed to be focused purely on practical military ends, but one scientist, working on the side, comes up with some ground-breaking new basic physics. While he regards it as purely theoretical at first, it turns out to have some powerful and astonishing applications.

This is one of those hard SF novels where science is practically the main character, and scientific discovery is half the plot. In this case, the other half involves attempts to harness that discovery for fighting war or enforcing peace. That part manages to be both predictable and far-fetched at the same time, but there is a certain wish-fulfillment appeal in the way it all comes out.

As these things go, it's not too bad. Not if you're really interested in physics and can deal with paper-thin characters and entire chapters that consist of nothing but info-dumping, anyway. In general, I don't have much patience with that sort of thing these days, so I was a little surprised by the fact that this book, while not the world's most gripping read, didn't actually bore me to death. In fact, it was more interesting when it was all about the science and less so when it was about global conflict. Hogan clearly has a good grasp of the field, and the speculative new physics he proposes here is really quite clever, well-thought-out, and plausible-sounding. He also does a pretty good job of depicting the way science really works, as opposed to the laughably inaccurate Hollywood version. There's a bit of the thrill of scientific discovery here, too; there were moments when I found myself catching the implications of something and going, "Ooh, that's kind of cool!" Unfortunately, Hogan's careful research doesn't change the fact that, well, this was written in the 1970s. There's no getting around the fact that his nifty imaginary physics is missing out on 35 years worth of significant scientific developments, something that will be difficult for even the geekiest readers -- or perhaps especially the geekiest readers -- to ignore. ( )

Sample Chapters: http://webscriptions.net/chapters/0743435974/0743435974.htm

A pretty good and engrossing "hard" science fiction book, set a few decades in the future, about what happens when a scientist laboring for the government discovers an entirely new way of looking at space and time which involves a couple of extra dimensions. The author actually does a good and plausible job of explaining this new science (although occasionally my eyes did glaze over). The payoff is when the scientist is blackballed for departing from his research which was leading to better weapons in the standoff against the East, and he and a fellow blackballed scientist are taken in by an independent research group, where their work is finally noticed by the government, which at first attempts to steal the research. When the scientist is coerced into developing a superweapon to defeat the East, his solution for bringing peace to a troubled planet while keeping to his own independent ethics is gratifying and satisfying. Imaginative science, pretty good characters with a nice wry humor and friendly intelligence. One of Hogan's better works. ( )