LESLIE%Berkeley@4ccvax.UUCP (04/03/84)
Herein find a second plug for Dying Inside -- it is one of the most sensitive
and balanced books about telepaths I have ever seen. By balanced, I mean
nicely between the two usual extremes:
i) Telepathy is really great stuff, and those who have it tend to
be better humans in almost all ways than non-telepaths
ii) Telepathy is terrible stuff, and those who have it are terrible-to-
insane from having to confront the raw sewage that is man's thought.
Also find a VERY ENTHUSIASTIC plug for Book of Skulls, also mentioned earlier
in passing. The four protagonists are well characterized, and their mutual
opinions and thought styles give the book a feeling of well-crafted counter-
point (the book is written all in first-person narratives which switch from
the four protagonists). The plot is tautly crafted, and although I want to
avoid from spoiling it, I will note that this is an excellent case of a book
where the fantastic or strange is kept so much in check that for most, if
not all of the book (no spoiler...) one has no more confirmation of strangeness
going on than a weird feeling on the back of the neck.
I also recently read a reissue of Philip K. Dick's The Unteleported Man.
It billed itself as the original version, minus 3 pps lost of the manuscript
(the first publication supposedly was cut, and with a different ending).
If anyone has read both versions, please comment on the contrast. I
enjoyed the version I read, but I must admit those 3 pps were close enough
to the end of the book so that they added greatly to the confusion one
generally finds at the end of Dick's novels.
Dar icus, Dar nushi, Dar sud
Leslie