JAMES P. HOGAN (1941-2010)

photo by Reno De Caro

James P. Hogan was a successful science fiction writer whose plots feature hard science extrapolated into the past or future. Like Robert Heinlein, Hogan could spin a good yarn. Tho big and burly as a wrestler, Jim was a softie at heart--a true romantic: many of his stories mine the perennial theme of a smart, warm and handsome couple bravely struggling against the power of the evil establishment, in the manner of Bogart and Bacall, Mulder and Scully, Nick and Nora Charles, Romeo and Juliet. Except in Hogan's tales, one or both of his protagonists is likely to have a PhD after her name. Hogan is most famous for his "Giants" series of novels which hypothesize an extraterrestrial origin for mankind.

Jim Hogan lived on a farm in Sligo, the birthplace of another famous Irishman, William Butler Yeats. When not working at his computer, Jim kept himself in shape, he said, by hauling rocks around his farm. He'd heard all the gloom and doom scenarios, but, cheerful and optimistic, Jim was placing his bet on mankind to prevail, as it had done so often in the past, against the Ice Age, against the Viking and Mongol hordes, against the Black Death. Against the gloomers, James P. Hogan laughingly cast his vote for human freedom and for limitless human possibility.

In addition to his science fiction, Hogan was a prolific writer of essays on controversial subjects where he would invariably defend the less popular side. On his website he published articles against global warming, in favor of intelligent design, arguments in favor of an Electrical Universe rather than one purely gravitational. Hell, Jim Hogan even questioned the Big Bang! His essays on controversial topics are always well-reasoned, and free from name-calling. Jim Hogan was tough and passionate in debate but he never resorted to insult. One can read the essays of this intelligent, pugnacious Irishman on his site's Bulletin Board, check out his science fiction works or browse his favorite controversial books in the Heretics Bookshelf.

Jim was a maverick, an independent thinker and a champion of the underdog. He was continually rushing to the ramparts to defend unpopular causes and unpopular people, writing letters to the German Embassy, for instance, protesting Germany's imprisonment of writer Ernst Zündel for expressing "forbidden ideas" in print. Jim's favorite slogan, which he claimed to be a famous Irish rallying cry, was: "Now is the time for the futile gesture!"

It was my good fortune to know and share time with James P. Hogan during the last three years of his life.

Jim Hogan was a bold and courageous man holding high principles such as few possess in these fearful and cowardly times. No more fitting eulogy for the Hogan spirit than Shakespeare's:

This was the noblest Roman of them all:
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world "This was a man!"

Ave atque vale, James P. Hogan. Farewell, my friend.