Published by Bantam Books, 1989,
paperback, $4.95 ISBN 0-553-27762-6
439 pages

As an admirer of Hogan for many many years -- his Inherit the Stars should be required reading for any sci-fi buff -- I've come to set the bar higher for him than I would for a new author. And to his credit, Hogan rarely disappoints.

But The Mirror Maze not only disappoints, it commits the worst sin of fiction -- it's dull. The terrorist premise is as well-worn a plot as anything, the use of mistaken identity among twins is worse, and making the hero a lawyer has all the trappings of a marketing executive looking at sales of Grisham novels and deciding that would be the perfect protagonist. It's as if Hogan hired a ghostwriter and slapped his name on the resultant mess.

In this futuristic setup, the country is so overrun by bureaucrats and welfare-aholics that private enterprise suffers. Some new fission-fusion physicist is killed -- only it's her twin sister, a spy for the "Constitutionalist" party. And that's the hinge that swings the plot door as college friend turned lawyer Mel helps Stephanie outwit terrorists, government conspiracies, and big business power brokers. In there is college friend turned CIA spy Brett and other characters good and bad who traipse through murder, kidnapping, and spy doings. It's all very messy, all very ridiculous, and all very dull.

Hogan was at his best with hard-edged sci-fi novels. Sadly, his "blockbuster" mass market fiction has been flat, and The Mirror Maze the flattest yet.