ted@usceast.UUCP (Ted Nolan) (03/10/85)
<does your group mind?>
No one has yet mentioned Octavia Butler's patternmaster books. I think
there are two : _Pattern Master_ and _Mind of My Mind_ (if there are
any more I would be interested in hearing). My memory is a little hazy
on these, but basically they assumed our culture being overturned by
a group of telepaths who were all bound (willingly or not) to a central
telepath called the "Patternmaster". Normal people became a slave
underclass. _Mind of My Mind_ describes the beginning of the process
(the forming of the first pattern) through the eyes of a young woman,
while _Patternmaster_ happens much later. I recall them both as being
rather good.
Memory fails again, but I'll describe one more, probably from the late
60's or early 70's. This book was one of the first series of Ace
Specials. The author postulated starfaring humans at war with an alien
race, which seemed determined to destroy human star flight capability.
No one knew the motives of the aliens, or why they used such clumsy
space drives when they must have been able to build better. The war
seemed to be doing something to humanity, the quality of thought
was slipping everywhere but on one planet (known as the artist's
world or somesuch), where the military finally had to move its
headquarters. It turned out that every species had a group mind,
composed of those dead and gone, which was largely responsible for
creativity and intuition -- and the human star drive was wreaking
havoc with the group minds (the artist's world was behind a thick
asteroid belt or something that prevented close approach on star
drive). The story's main character got to be "reincarnated" to
stop the war. Unfortunately, I can't put a name to this one.
When you have several thousand paperbacks and a FINO* filing system,
bibliography is an difficult hobby. My best guess is _Palace of
Eternity_ by Bob Shaw, but I could be completely wrong.
One more : Randall Garret and his wife (forget her name) have a
sort of public access group mind in their Galandra Cycle books.
(_The Bronze of Edarta_, _Search for Ka_, _Well of Darkness_ etc).
*First in Never out
Ted Nolan ..usceast!ted
--
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Ted Nolan ...decvax!mcnc!ncsu!ncrcae!usceast!ted (UUCP)
6536 Brookside Circle ...akgua!usceast!ted
Columbia, SC 29206 allegra!usceast!ted@seismo (ARPA, maybe)
("Deep space is my dwelling place, the stars my destination")
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------chenr@tilt.FUN (Ray Chen) (03/16/85)
> No one has yet mentioned Octavia Butler's patternmaster books. I think > there are two : _Pattern Master_ and _Mind of My Mind_ (if there are > any more I would be interested in hearing). The people in Pattern Master don't have a group mind so much as they have psionic links. One individual is linked to everyone in the community; he is the Pattern Master. The links can be used I believe for communication and to temporarily draw psionic power, thus the Pattern Master has the capability to draw on the psionic strength of the entire telepathic community. The story itself is set in the future where psionic humans have taken over society. Due to their focus on psionics, they have forgotten all but rudimentary technology and have dropped back to an essentially feudal level. To make things even more fun, there are another group of people, the Clayarks, who are people infected by the (contagious) disease brought back by the first (and only I think) starship sent out, Clay's Ark. The disease does nasty things to both body and mind. The plot, I believe (it's been at least 5 years since I read this book so...) centers around the struggle between two brothers?/cousins? who are next in the line of succession when the old Pattern Master's death is imminent. It's a very good story although hard to find. > *First in Never out Sounds like my desk drawers... Ray Chen princeton!tilt!chenr