Today’s book was another one of those hidden gems that threw me for a loop. It was a random suggestion on Twitter after I made an off-the-cuff jest about remote viewing (a type of psychic technique the US military once used to spy on enemies of the state.) As such I thought it was a book about remote viewing but WOW, It is about so much more than that.
Briefly stated the plot goes thusly: A psychiatrist in the US military learns of a group of extremely telepathic children born in a cluster in South Africa thirty years ago. Since being discovered however they had all dispersed throughout the world, their identities completely unknown. He believes that if he can find one of them he can use their power to discover and thwart terrorist attacks so he employs a marine to track down a powerful psychic and then that unlikely pair go on a suspenseful adventure to locate one of the super telepathic South Africans they call mindreachers.
This book is a high caliber action packed scifi thriller that is dense in scientific details but not in a confusing way. I liken it a lot to the late works of Micheal Chricton. Think Jurassic Park… but with psychics. And that’s what is wonderful about it. When I started reading I didn’t believe it’d go through anything I didn’t already know or that the story line would be easy to predict but I was shocked repeatedly over and over at the wonderfully complex ideas that unfolded in this story. It’s constantly reflecting upon a reality I wouldn’t have been able to see and asking big questions.
For example we are immediately dropped into a strange scenario with the group of telepathic children. At first glance you may think this would be a good thing – a gift – that the children have – but it soon becomes evident it’s far more of a curse as the children start reading the entire minds of everyone they come in contact with. So now you have four and five year olds absorbing the entire histories and all the memories of their parents and relatives without the maturity or understanding of what they are seeing or experiencing and to make matters worse they then take this information and automatically upload it to a sort of communal data dump shared between the other children. So they all learn an insane amount of information every day off of each other’s silent communications and come to prefer telepathy over speech, only associating with the other children and sometimes not learning how to talk verbally. From here their lives spiral out of control along with their behavior. Each family spreads across the world dodging people the children have angered and hoping the distance can sever their communication with their peers.
Throughout the pages some of the big questions that are asked is just what can a telepath do? Can they detect liars? Or deceit? Can they feel other’s emotions? Can they find terrorists through thought? Can they heal themselves or others? Can they experience someone else’s senses? Can they communicate with animals? Can they manipulate what others are thinking? Can they send messages to non-telepaths? Can they teach their skills to normal people?
With each encounter with a new character more is learned and the story picks up pace fast as the reader is whisked around the world dodging terrorist assassins out to kill this new powerful informant as she seeks even more powerful informants.
I am shocked this book hasn’t gotten more attention. Published back in May it’s only managed two reviews on Amazon. I don’t get it. If I hadn’t been told I wouldn’t even have pegged this as an indie book. It’s soooo put together and follows in a fine scifi tradition. I am strongly suggesting it to anyone who prefers scientific detail to emotional tales. It’s very clinical in how it looks at events, not getting distracted by the emotional turmoil of the characters, but that leaves plenty of room for the reader to form their own opinion which can be just as valuable. This book will make you wonder and question everything you thought you knew about psychic ability.
Mindreacher by Irene Baron can be purchased on Amazon here.