Reading this thread: Identify this sci-fi quote - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board, I was instantly reminded of a similar section in a SF book. The general theme is that there are a set of children who are rapidly gaining telepathic powers. One such child can travel in his mind every night to places elsewhere in the universe. The humans don’t know of these places, but the aliens amongst them do, and often talk with the boy about where he has gone. Every night he (or his consciousness, I guess) seems to travel further, until he has eventually traveled further than the aliens have. I remember one location being named as “The Pillars of” something or other. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is from Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke, but I’m not sure it is, it may be a short story with similar themes that I am confusing.
Sounds similar to The Lives of Christopher Chant, by Diana Wynne-Jones. From the review:
Christopher Chant has nine lives. As a small boy in Victorian London, he discovers that he can leave his body at night and travel to other worlds. When Uncle Ralph asks him to bring back certain packages from his travels ``as an experiment,’’ he is glad to have an excuse for more adventures. As one of the only two nine-lived people in our world, he becomes apprentice and successor to Gabriel de Witt, the world’s strongest enchanter or Chrestomanci.
However, this is a fantasy book, not science fiction.
It definitely sounds like “Childhood’s End”. The child you’re describing is the first to break through, but within a year or so all the kids under 10 have these powers. And the aliens look just like
The medieval Christian ideal of Satan - brownish red, with wings, horns & tails.
You know what just dawned on me is that somehow the word “End” somehow mesmerized me into thinking we were talking about the end of the book. The more I think about the description, it does sound like Childhood’s End.
