I already know

[threemonkeys]

Blue Silence by Michelle Marquardt has a telepath as a protagonist. For an obviously science fiction book written this century, it gives the book an old fashioned feel. Up until sometime in the '70s, telepaths were very common in science fiction. As the real hard evidence on telepathy in humans failed to materialise so the notion that telepathy and such mental powers could be considered science went away and so did the fiction using it. It still crops up from time to time in science fiction but these days the author has to sell it properly. There has to be a good reason for it rather than it just being the future and therefore people have mental powers. I'm talking books here of course - TV series coming out of California continue to include super mental powers.

For those interested, the story is set on a large space station colony which has a first contact situation of sorts. Most of the action is political. When you think about it, there is a fair bit of reality about that view. If we ever have a public first contact situation, you can bet that the biggest amount of activity would be from politicians manoeuvring the get the best result out of it for themselves in a media frenzy. Actually, Blue Silence could have done with more media frenzy although the lack of it says more about the society on the station that gets revealed than any expository text. I wonder if it was deliberate.

Comments

[cricketk.livejournal.com]

I love telepath books.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

The genre has no shortage of them - some of the great classic works feature telepaths. For example they are present in Dune and The Foundation Trilogy (and series generally). But track down Michelle's book (probably at the next Swancon) and see if you don't agree with me that the unexplained presence of telepaths gives the work an old fashioned feel. FWIW - I think you would like the book for its own sake anyway.