Rating: 
Summary: A Good "Tom Swifty" Juvenile, "Jurrasic Park" in Miniature
Review: Although somewhat lacking in serious plot and character developement, and in technical details (admittedly there couldn't be a lot,as this is an excursion into "fantasy techno"),it still makes a good read to fill a few odd hours with nothing better to do.A great gift for Christmas or a birthday for the younger set, but a little shallow for the adult reader. Hogan might have done a little better with more action sequences in "Bug Park" itself.
Rating: 
Summary: Good juvenile hard-science sf
Review: As I was reading this novel I thought, "This reminds me of Heinlein's juveniles." Sure enough, a few pages later Hogan uses the word, "Heinleinesque." Even though this book is ostensibly aimed at teenagers, it can be enjoyed by adults. Hogan does a wonderful job of describing reality from a bug's point of view. The hard science is good, and there is a great scene where the two boys, using nanorobots, attack a centipide the way a couple of knights would attack a dragon. And they're even saving a damsel in distress, although, since she is using a nanorobot, her body is safely someplace else. There's budding love, evil
villains, murderous nanorobots, two teenage heros, and all kinds of goodies.
Rating: 
Summary: Spielberg, make this into a movie!
Review: Bug Park was a really fun read. As usual, Hogan comes from a base of hard science, which helps makes the premise believable. The only thing I found that bothered me was the contrived bit with one of the kid's tie to organised crime. Still, loved the book and it would make a great family movie. Someone needs to give a copy to Steven.
Rating:
Summary: Spielberg, make this into a movie!
Review: Bug Park was a really fun read. As usual, Hogan comes from a base of hard science, which helps makes the premise believable. The only thing I found that bothered me was the contrived bit with one of the kid's tie to organised crime. Still, loved the book and it would make a great family movie. Someone needs to give a copy to Steven.
Rating: 
Summary: Background to the idea
Review: Experiencing the world at the microscopic scale has long been a popular topic for movies and written fiction. I think it was talking to my sons that first prompted the idea of a book along these lines, but I resolved that if I was going to tackle it, it would be in a different way than by using magical shrinking machines of the kind we've all seen before. So what we ended up with was a direct-neural-coupled technology that connects you sensewise into a miniature robotlike device of insect dimensions. Now you can explore the world in miniature, go small-game hunting after poisonous centipedes, get stuck in problematical situations, and all the things we like to read about, and all on a solid technologically feasible, if not yet possible, foundation (although it's astounding how close some people are getting, I discovered in the course of doing the research). The other thing I thought I'd try and do is get the physics right. Life at the insect level would not be simply a reproduction of what we know, but with everything taking place at reduced size. Different physical properties scale down at different rates. Volume, for example, and hence its mass, reduces as the cube of size. Halving the dimensions of an object will result in its weighing eight times less; reducing it two-hundredfold (the kind of order we're talking about in going from man-size to bug-size), eight million times less. Ants really don't perform any great feats of prodigious strength. Walking around carrying a grand piano or a pickup truck would be no big deal for a comparably diminutive human (and piano/ pickup truck, of course). For the same reason, tools and weapons that depend for their efficacy on stored kinetic energy, which again depends on mass, wouldn't work. Axes and hammers, spears, missiles of every kind, behave as if made of Styrofoam. Climbing is effortless; enormous falls of no consequence. At this scale gravity ceases to exist as a significant factor in the environment. Surface forces dominate--Coulomb attraction, friction, viscosity. While you might be able to pick up a piano, maybe you can't peel your jacket off. Such devices could also make very effective remotely-operatable espionage or sabotage devices. Or even asassination weapons, ideally suited for getting in and out to carry out the classical "locked door" murder. It seemed to me an idea whose time had come.
Rating:
Summary: Hogan comes through with Bug Park
Review: I rarely find the time for pleasure reading these days, so the books I pick have to be good. All too often, I'll pick up something that sounds good on the cover, only to be disappointed somewhere, and leave it half-read. But not so with novels by James P. Hogan. Since discovering his work in "The Genesis Machine" in '78, I have MADE the time to read each new novel. "Bug Park" was no disappointment. The story line is interesting, the characters are charming and believable, and the technological underpinnings are largely believable. Definitely a fun, feel-good novel. Though I am still skeptical that Direct Neural Connection is "near future" technology (~25 years away), the novel has captivated my interest in micro-robotics and nano technology! Having recently finished it, it makes me want to re-read Genesis Machine (Hogan uses DNC technology in that novel, but in a different way). Thanks, Mr. Hogan, for another great novel! [Bug Park fans: Who do you think controlled the evil mech near the end of the novel? Recommendations on Hoganesque writers?]
Rating:
Summary: Telepresence in an Insect Microcosm
Review: In Charles Scheffield's excellent novel, THE NIMROD HUNT, micro-miniaturized man-shaped mechanoids battle live spiders and warrior ants. The human controllers become immersed in attacks on nests or anthills via telepresence. The electronic sensorium provided by the mechanoids' sophisticated sensors temporarilly replaces normal human senses. In BUG PARK, James P. Hogan updates the same idea to create a futuristic amusement park game. People battle insects by putting their controlling 'consciousness' inside tiny bug-sized, man-shaped "mecs". When a mec is seriously damaged or rendered inoperable by an ant, the human operating that mec is unceremoniously thrown out of the game for "dying." Hogan uses DNC, direct neural coupling, a technology yet to be invented, to pull this off. DNC shuts down our normal senses and replaces them with sensory input from the mecs. DNC allows Eric Heber, one of the teenage protagonists, to control the movements of the "Taki" mec as if its limbs were his own. I have been an avid reader of James P. Hogan's works since his classic first novel, INHERIT THE STARS. Even though BUG PARK is a juvenile novel, the science and technology are as fully explained as anyone would ever want and most adults will also enjoy this book, Readers will love the rapid, breath-taking pace of BUG PARK. Indeed, I can easily see how this novel could become a major blockbuster motion picture with its exciting mix of cutting-ege technology, kids in peril and corporate corruption. (Are you listening DISNEY Corp.?)
Rating:
Summary: Telepresence in an Insect Microcosm
Review: In Charles Scheffield's excellent novel, THE NIMROD HUNT, micro-miniaturized man-shaped mechanoids battle live spiders and warrior ants. The human controllers become immersed in attacks on nests or anthills via telepresence. The electronic sensorium provided by the mechanoids' sophisticated sensors temporarilly replaces normal human senses. In BUG PARK, James P. Hogan updates the same idea to create a futuristic amusement park game. People battle insects by putting their controlling 'consciousness' inside tiny bug-sized, man-shaped "mecs". When a mec is seriously damaged or rendered inoperable by an ant, the human operating that mec is unceremoniously thrown out of the game for "dying." Hogan uses DNC, direct neural coupling, a technology yet to be invented, to pull this off. DNC shuts down our normal senses and replaces them with sensory input from the mecs. DNC allows Eric Heber, one of the teenage protagonists, to control the movements of the "Taki" mec as if its limbs were his own. I have been an avid reader of James P. Hogan's works since his classic first novel, INHERIT THE STARS. Even though BUG PARK is a juvenile novel, the science and technology are as fully explained as anyone would ever want and most adults will also enjoy this book, Readers will love the rapid, breath-taking pace of BUG PARK. Indeed, I can easily see how this novel could become a major blockbuster motion picture with its exciting mix of cutting-ege technology, kids in peril and corporate corruption. (Are you listening DISNEY Corp.?)
Rating:
Summary: Amusement Park Rides via Telepresence in an Insect Microcosm
Review: In one episode of Charles Scheffield's out-of-print THE NIMROD HUNT, micro-miniaturized man-shaped mechanoids battle warrior ants while the sensoria of their human controllers become immersed in the attack on the hive via telepresence: the actual reality provided by the mechanoids' super-sophisticated sensors. In BUG PARK, James P. Hogan similarly develops another excellent novel around the idea of using telepresence to create a new type of amusement park ride: people battle actual insects in their own miniature world while, in effect, putting their controlling 'consciousness' inside tiny bug-sized, man-shaped "mecs". Hogan uses DNC, direct neural coupling, a technology yet to be invented, to pull this off. DNC shuts down our normal senses and replaces them with sensory input from the mecs. DNC also allows Eric Heber, one of the young protagonists, to control the movements of "Taki," one of his mecs as if its limbs were his own limbs. The neurology of DNC is explained and extrapolated quite a bit, but I would have preferred even more. (I have been an avid reader of James P. Hogan's works since his first novel, the classic INHERIT THE STARS. The more science he puts into his novels the better!) In BUG PARK, however, the S&T (science and technology) are as fully explained as most people would ever want it to be. My own tastes should not rule you in this case. Most readers will love the rapid, breath-taking pace of BUG PARK. Indeed, I can easily see how this novel could become a major blockbuster motion picture with its exciting mix of cutting-ege technology, kids in peril and corporate corruption. (Are you listening DISNEY Corp.?) Buy and Enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: Wanna be a kid again?
Review: Mr. Hogan bounces back from the disappointing PATHS TO OTHERWHERE with this fun story.
The plot involves two companies dealing in "microbotics" -- miniature human controlled robots. There is a rivalry between the two over the best way to control the robots -- clunky VR helmets, or Direct Neural Coupling, a neural interface that lets a user feel that he is the robot.
But that's just background. The fun of the story is tagging along with the main character, Kevin, and his best friend Taki, as they explore and experiment in the realm of the tiny. Kevin and Taki are both 15 years old and, refreshingly, neither of them are portrayed as idiots, small-sized adults, or hormone-drenched self-obsessed nitwits. They are definitely kids, however, both in their view of the world (everything is a challenge to be tackled -- TODAY!) and in how they view adults. At one point, Kevin is disoriented by one adult (a lawyer) who refuses to do something that obviously needs doing. In one of the funniest moments of the novel, he doesn't push the point, but thinks to himself that sooner or later he will understand why adults sometimes do what they do -- after all, it must make sense somehow!
My only complaints are that the main bad guy is never really in doubt and so the reader never has a chance to experience the sense of betrayal that some of the characters have; and that Mr. Hogan gives us some fascinating challenges to relativity (not Quantum Mechanics, RELATIVITY fer cryin' out loud!) as throw-aways. They are never developed, and the character who holds these views (the view being, mainly, that most of "relativity" -- if not all of it -- is explainable by classical mechanics) is offstage most of the time. It's funny, fascinating and infuriating all at once. I only hope that he writes a future novel with these ideas at its center, rather than in the peripheries.
This is one of the few recent SF books that I've read (not to mention recent SF authors) who have that much-hailed "sense of wonder" that SF is supposed to embody. Thankfully, Mr. Hogan keeps giving us another book every year or so, and I can only hope that he continues to do so for a long time.
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