A Mirror for Observers by Edgar Pangborn 1954, and since then various publishers. There's a link on the sf/f page at www.simegen.com/marketplace/keybooks/  to find used copies.

Civil Campaign, A Vorkosigan Adventure, by Lois McMaster Bujold, Baen pb Aug. 2000

For months now I have been trolling the air-waves and riffling through piles of books, magazine articles, and other printed forms, listening to conversations between strangers at the mall, people-watching, and analyzing the choices the news-media have been making. I've also paid much attention to economic trends, moves by the Federal Reserve, earnings reports by major companies (especially advertising companies) the value of the US Dollar, and news way up the pipeline in publishing (tree&e both) and tv and movie production from inside and outside the industry.

In all that time, I've read quite a few good books, (many of them e-books) but have been unable to discover an underlying connection -- a theme or trend or issue that has grabbed the Group Mind of even one country, nevermind all Humanity.

I can't recall a time like this in the last five decades I've been watching trends. I have been chagrinned at my failure to spot what has to be obvious. Trends are after all BIG. They should be hard to miss.

The year 2000 has defeated me. I could find no emerging trend -- at least I could not until the Presidential Election coincided with my finally getting around to reading a reprint of an old novel I had loved beyond measure as a child. Then it all became crystal clear.

The novel is Edgar Pangborn's A Mirror For Observers, and you will find a link to used copies at www.simegen.com/marketplace/keybooks/

A Mirror For Observers is a winner of the International Fantasy Award, and well deserving of the Honor. It is set on Earth in what was to the Author the near future (the 1960's).

Millenia ago, Martians moved from their dying planet to ours and proceeded to Observe our development, hoping we would reach a point where contact could be made. With surgery, they can be made to look like us, but they don't think like us. They are very long-lived.

They discover a young boy, a super-genius with a bent for philosophy, and set about Observing him with some hope he can change the world as Plato or Aristotle did. The Observer who is the protagonist goes out of the hidden Martian city to live in the rooming house owned by the mother of the genius boy.

The dispatcher of this Observer gives him an antique mirror made of bronze, an Earth artifact they've collected and kept. It has Magical Properties, and essentially shows the Initiate the Self as it Really Is. The Observer lets the boy see this Mirror before he's mature enough -- not realizing the power of the Mirror.

This along with other events changes the boy's life and thus human destiny.

This novel was published in 1954, long before "Fantasy" became a recognized field, and long before it became acceptable in sf to include Magic as a plot-driving element. Most of the novel's plot is straight adventure formula, and there is a very serious attempt by the author to extrapolate trends. Pangborn's Futurology is top notch -- as good as Heinlein or better.

I had not read this novel in decades. I "accidentally" discovered a Blue Jay Special Edition paperback at WorldCon for only $2, and grabbed it. It sat from August to November in my "read ASAP" stack. I read it in November, watching the legal maneuverings for the Presidency.

Many trends Pangborn thought would materialize in the 1960's have materialized only now at the turn of the Century. Some trends everyone thought would materialize never have and probably never will. Those successes and failures in trend-reading crystallized the meaning of this Election.

Are we ready to look into this Mirror? Are we ready to See Ourselves?

As I write this, it is December 7, 2000 and we still don't have a President-Elect -- though we might by tonight.

What I see in the Mirror of this Election is a trend that I have been looking at in the fiction published this year and not recognized for what it is. In fact, this trend has been gathering since 1997, a whisper, a trickle, and now an overwhelming torrent of a trend.

As Marion Zimmer Bradley handed over control of the Darkover Saga to Adrienne Martine-Barnes and produced with her the two huge DAW novels, The Shadow Matrix and Traitor's Sun -- both whopping good reads, but not quite Bradley-esque -- the Darkover saga began to deal with the forces of change altering Darkover forever, and what that did to the culture of Darkover and the individuals who had to live in those "Interesting Times."

In 1999, Lois McMaster Bujold let her Vorkosigan Adventures finally come to the point where her Hero had grown up and had begun to value the idea of marriage, and stability in lifestyle. Miles Vorkosigan falls in love in the novel Komar, but the Vorkosigan version of a Romance Novel is Civil Campaign.

That's right, this very pure action-adventure, Military SF series has a whole novel which is almost a formula Romance. It does break the Romance formula though -- the characters are living lives outside their romance which far overshadow their personal concerns. But those outside lives are treated here as the complication while the real issue is the courtship. Miles mounts one of his typically irresistible campaigns to win his Lady Love's Heart.

In other words, Bujold has written a very realistic romance, and I loved every page of it.

June 2000 saw publication of Katherine Kurtz's newest Deryni novel, King Kelson's Bride. The Deryni series is about the hereditary Kings of Gwynned who are Deryni -- and thus practitioners of high level ESP and major Ceremonial Magic for the good of the Kingdom (usually).

Kelson was the Heir who became King far too young, and we've seen him grow into the Power and the Role. Now, after many battles, and the loss of a Bride murdered at the Altar, Kelson finally falls in love -- getting the girl is yet another long story, however. Nothing comes easily for this lad.

Take these 5 books together with the Presidential Election Saga (No King of Gwynedd ever fought so hard for his Oval Office!) and ask yourself what is the trend that's become as clear as the image in a Bronze Mirror of the Soul?

The Trend is Trendlessness. That's right - the trend is the absence of a Trend.

This makes perfect sense when you check it out astrologically. We know the Millennium would be fraught with political violence -- and we have wars aplenty around the globe. This Election is the USA's equivalent of a war over who is to be Head of State here. It's a Legal Battle in a Country of the Rule of Law Not Kings. And I don't think we'll see the last of this until the eclipse at 0 Deg Cancer.

We're in this Battle because we've hit a slackwater time at the changing of a Mystical Tide. The US Electorate is evenly divided on almost every issue, political as well as taste in fiction and emotional interest in particular themes -- there are no trends.

So the trend of trendlessness is what we see in our fiction. We see Heroes growing up. We see their lives changing. We see planets absorbing invaders and adjusting. We see Protagonists confronting their Ultimate Truths in their Mirrors. We see our stories hitting the slackwater between the tides of Life because we are in such a tide-change ourselves.

For the first time in a very long time there is no irresistible energy sweeping us along toward a definite and clearly visible target.

For the first time in a very long time, individual Choice, Karmic Choice, Group-Mind-Choice, Magical Choice matters. Look into the Mirror of Fiction, accept the Truth you find there, and Choose.