perfidy

Author James P. Hogan died yesterday.  What little details there are, can be seen here.

Hogan's novels have given me a great deal of reading pleasure over the years, which is praise enough.  I'd say that The Proteus Operation is one of the best WWII alternate history novels out there.   Though the Proteus Operation was my favorite of his novels, one I've reread more than once; the book that hit me the most was Kicking the Sacred Cow: Heresy and Impermissible Thoughts in Science.  Perhaps odd for someone whose claim to fame was science fiction.  That book started me on my current heretical path, largely through the chapters on cosmology, relativity and catastrophism.  Even if I didn't agree with everything in it, he made a strong case for real skepticism - it's easy to be skeptical of the weird ideas, the crackpots; it's much harder to be skeptical of what everyone believes.  There aren't many books that really change the way you think, but for me, that was one of them.  And if I'm burned at the stake, it will have been his fault.

He will be missed.