James P. Hogan, 69, Science-Fiction Author Wrote Inherit the Stars, Two Faces of Tomorrow which spawned manga
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2010-07-13 10:27 EDT
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-07-13/science-fiction-author-james-p-hogan-passes-away
Wrote Inherit the Stars, Two Faces of Tomorrow which spawned manga
The SF Site has announced and the Japanese publisher Tokyo Sogensha has
confirmed that the science-fiction author James P. Hogan passed away in
his home in Ireland on July 12. He was 69.
Hogan was born in London on June 27, 1941, and he made his literary
debut with the 1977 novel Inherit the Stars. Tokyo Sogensha translated
and published the book in 1980 in Japan, where it became a popular hit
among science-fiction readers. His many fans include the members of
Studio Nue, who eventually created The Super Dimension Fortress Macross.
Besides influencing the themes in several anime, the "Inherit the Stars"
name itself (in English and in Japanese as Hoshi o Tsugumono) was
directly referenced in such space science-fiction anime as Mobile Suit
Zeta Gundam, Genesis Climber Mospeada, and Geneshaft. Yukinobu Hoshino
(2001 Nights, To) would adapt James P. Hogan's The Two Faces of Tomorrow
novel into a manga (pictured at right) in 1993.
During his writing career, Hogan won three Seiun Awards from the Japan
Science Fiction Convention and two Prometheus Awards. He attended the
25th Japan Science Fiction Convention (Daicon 5) in Osaka in 1986.
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Prolific author of exhilarating works of 'hard' science fiction
Steve Holland
guardian.co.uk, Thursday 5 August 2010 18.12 BST
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/05/james-p-hogan-obituary
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/8/5/1281028290767/James-P-Hogan-006.jpg
James P Hogan wrote 30 science-fiction novels and won awards in Japan
James P Hogan, who has died aged 69, was the author of 30
science-fiction novels and five collections of short stories and essays.
His work was generally considered "hard" SF – technologically possible
and adhering mostly to scientific fact – and his best work was an
exhilarating mix of optimistic futurism and a central mystery to be
solved by scientific investigation and action.
His Minervan Experiment series began with Inherit the Stars (1977), in
which an oversized humanoid skeleton is discovered on the moon. A
scientist, Victor Hunt, discovers how an alien race has colonised the
solar system and, in the sequels The Gentle Giants of Ganymede and
Giants' Star, finds his way to their home world. Further sequels,
Entoverse and Mission to Minerva, turned the original trilogy's
questions about the origins of humanity on their head, introducing
parallel worlds and time travel.
In Voyage from Yesteryear (1982), a race which embraces individual and
economic freedom proves more than a match for visiting Earthmen who wish
to gain control. It won Hogan the first of two Prometheus awards from
the Libertarian Futurist Society. The second, in 1993, was for The
Multiplex Man, a near-future thriller about a man who awakes one day to
discover he has had multiple personalities implanted in his mind.
Hogan won three Seiun-sho awards, voted for by Japanese SF fans. His
work was extremely popular in Japan, where Inherit the Stars influenced
a number of popular animated series, notably the 1982 TV series
Cho-jiku-Yo-sai Makurosu (adapted for western audiences as Robotech).
His The Two Faces of Tomorrow was adapted as a comic strip by Yukinobu
Hoshino in 1993.
Born in London, the son of James Hogan, an Irish factory worker, and his
German-born wife, Agnes Motto, Hogan grew up in the Portobello Road area
of west London. For 13 years he underwent surgery to correct a foot
condition. He became an insatiable reader and, at 16, decided to be a
writer, having enjoyed producing stories and essays at school. "Somebody
asked what, with all the accumulated wisdom and experience of 16 years,
I was going to write about that the world was breathlessly waiting to
read. A good point. So I forgot about it for a while."
Instead, he was persuaded by his mother to earn a scholarship to a
government research institution. He won a place at the Royal Aircraft
Establishment Technical College, Farnborough, Hampshire, where he
studied electrical, electronic and mechanical engineering. He joined
Solarton Electronics, based in Farnborough, in 1961 as a design
engineer, moving to Racal Electronics in Bracknell, Berkshire, in 1962,
where he worked on digital instruments for data collection and analysis.
He then moved into sales in 1964, for International Telephone &
Telegraph (ITT) in Harlow, Essex, and two years later became a sales
manager. He travelled around Europe as a computer salesman for Honeywell
from 1968, later joining Digital Equipment Corporation's Laboratory Data
Processing Group in 1974, working in London, Leeds and, from 1977, in
Maynard, Massachusetts, as a sales training consultant.
His interest in science fiction was inspired by watching 2001: A Space
Odyssey, loving the technical authenticity but failing to understand the
symbolism of the ending. Complaining about it the next day in the
office, he took on a bet that resulted in him writing his first SF novel.
By 1979 he had written four novels and became a full-time writer, moving
first to Florida, then California, and finally to Sonora in the Sierra
Nevada foothills. Then, in 1988, he bought a rambling house in Bray,
near Dublin, where he later settled permanently.
In recent years he appeared to be attracted towards deliberate
contrarianism, expressing his scepticism about global warming being
man-made, about the cause of Aids and about evolution, in his book
Kicking the Sacred Cow: Heresy and Impermissible Thoughts in Science
(2004). His purpose seemed to be to question accepted wisdom and apply
the methodology one would expect in scientific investigation to physics,
history, medicine and other subjects. However, this caused controversy
when he praised the quality of research performed by some Holocaust deniers.
His first three marriages – to Iris Crossley in 1961, Lynda Shirley
Dockerty in 1976 and Jacklyn Price in 1982 – ended in divorce. He is
survived by his fourth wife, Sheryl, whom he married in 2006, and six
children: three daughters, Debbie and Jane (twins) and Tina, from his
first marriage; and three sons, Alexander, Michael and Edward, from his
third.
• James Patrick Hogan, author and essayist, born 27 June 1941; died 12
July 2010