Theodore Sturgeon presents a compelling story in three parts about a group of what one might call mutants--four children and an infant with interpersonal or developmental problems but each possessing a gift. Leading the group is a simple-minded young man named Lone who compensates for his limited vocabulary through impressive telepathic abilities. Together, these misfits embody something beyond homo sapiens. They adopt the term homo gestalt as they use their abilities to advance their lot in life. Sturgeon does a masterful job of portraying the relationship between the five main characters as well as their interactions with normal humans.
In this genre-bending novel—among the first to have launched sci-fi into the arena of literature—one of the great imaginers of the twentieth century tells a story as mind-blowing as any controlled substance and as affecting as a glimpse into a stranger's soul.
There's Lone, the simpleton who can hear other people's thoughts and make a man blow his brains out just by looking at him. There's Janie, who moves things without touching them, and there are the teleporting twins, who can travel ten feet or ten miles. There's Baby, who invented an antigravity engine while still in the cradle, and…
A Time of Changes won the Nebula Award in 1971 and was nominated for the Hugo and Locus awards in 1972. The story is masterfully told from the first person POV of the protagonist Kinnall Darival. Most of the first six chapters are an info dump of introducing the character (the second son of a king) a few adventures and memories from his youth, and the geography of his planet. Once past that, the story moves at a solid pace. Robert Silverberg, one of my favorite writers of his time, does a brilliant job of building this alien world and its culture while also delving into Derival’s interior and exterior struggles against the customs of his society, successfully making him a sympathetic hero.
Three thousand years after Earth's colonisation of the planet Borthan, stories of self-serving hypocrisy that occured among the first arrivals have bred a culture that forbids emotional sharing and denies the naturally human concept of 'self'. The result is a lasting peace, but at a terrible price. For it is a peace without love, without self, where even the mention of the word 'I' is taboo.
Spurred on by the arrival of an Earthman with a self-baring drug, Kinnall Darival breaks the strict code of the Covenant to record the sordid details of his rebelious life from the days of…
The format of Roger Zelazny's Roadmarks is unique and the story experimental. The chapters alternate between Red’s adventures (titled “One”) and the secondary characters (titled “Two”). The concept of the Road as a time travel device is brilliant and the plot is engaging if somewhat fragmented. Unfortunately, the secondary characters are flat (especially Chadwick, Randy, and Leila) and the whole show goes off the rails near the end as if Zelazny rushed to finish it or perhaps he tried to cram too much into a short novel. Nevertheless, it was a fun read!
Red Dorakeen has been on the Road for a very long time. For all of time, in fact. It stretches infinitely into the future and past, with exits that take him wherever, or whenever, he wants to go.
But he can't find the place he wants to be.
He's not the only one who can travel the Road, and as people join and leave, they can alter the past, or the future, to suit their whims. Exits close off, become overgrown, and working out what to change back to…
Meet the desperate and the devious, the tortured and the treacherous, the courageous and the corrupt.
A fugitive breaks into an old country chapel to escape from something far more terrifying than prison. Gods and mortals unite in combat against slithering demons in famine-stricken Finland. A man with the uncanny ability to hear death approaching acquires a haunted car with a sinister past. Travel to Ireland where an ancient artifact regenerates severed limbs while healing old family wounds. A boy and his dog remain loyal to one another until the bitter end… and beyond. At a Halloween festival, a distraught young woman confronts her past traumas in a haunted corn maze. A young couple steals away over the holidays to become engaged—until reality disintegrates around them.
