Zog_10
October 31, 2005, 10:00pm
1
There was a book I read when I was a kid - maybe in the mid 80s - the central character of which was a telepathic guy named Daniel. He (like everyone else with the “gift”) had a malformed/oddly size pineal gland - and his telepathic gland had grown large enough so that he had a multitude of other problems - hemophillia, other stuff.
One of his mentors was from Israel - but I can’t remember her name.
I know this is a long shot - but any ideas?
Thanks.
Damnit! Take off the tinfoil hat, or I won’t be able to search your mind!
tracer
October 31, 2005, 10:45pm
3
Tinfoil hat? Pah! Cecil Adams himself says you’d have to cover your entire body with tinfoil in order to create adequate shielding.
Unless you’re wearing Magneto’s telepathy-proof helmet, of course.
Voyager
October 31, 2005, 11:32pm
4
Was the book about him losing his powers? I think the protagonist of Silverberg’s Dying Inside was named David, and he had lots of problems.
Jack Of Eagles by James Blish ?
http://tinyurl.com/8tthu
Except for the name, that sounds like The Whole Man by John Brunner. Here’s a link about it.
If telepathy is a rare but very real talent, just how does society as a whole make productive use of it? One obvious use is to find out exactly what is wrong with people who are mentally ill, to become the ultimate psychiatrist, and if the talent extends to ‘projection’ of thoughts onto another brain, to effect corrective changes in the ill mind. With acceptance of this talent, the definition of ‘ill’ could possibly be extended to those who are violent, the trouble-makers of society. Coupled with a far more effective UN than exists today, telepaths could be used to help defuse the attitudes and situations that lead to revolutions and wars. This is the background against which Brunner tells a tale of a child of just such an aborted revolution, a child born with physical deformities, an uncaring mother and a dead father. Gerald Howson grows up without hope, the object of ridicule, trapped in a cycle of minimal dead-end jobs that are limited by his deformities.
But in his early twenties, he suddenly finds that he is one of the fabled telepaths, and a very powerful one. His first real use of the talent is to draw a deaf and dumb girl into a detailed fantasy, made more than real by his talent, a fantasy neither would really wish to wake from. Forcibly dragged out of this fantasy by other telepaths who have tracked down his radiated power, he is taken to the UN center for training and rehabilitation. But Gerald is far from a whole man at this point, and the story of his growth and maturation forms the balance of the work.
Zog_10
November 1, 2005, 2:37pm
7
You rule.
I’ve been trying to remember what the hell this book was called for like 10 years. I’m sure I read it when I was 10 - so it’s been 20 years +.
And Daniel is really close to Gerald, right? I mean, almost the same name.
:dubious: :smack:
Thanks.
