I should check that one out, esp. if it’s written for adults.
The Lightning Thief is a similar thing with the protagonist being a “Greek Demi-God” sorta superpowers, except that it’s written for like… 12 year olds or so.
But it’s really entertaining if you KNOW your Greek mythology, then you get all the inside jokes.
The Chrysalids, by John Wyndham
Not superpowers in everyday life, but superpowers in a post apocalyptic future, with generous undertones of social commentary on the dangers of dogma.
(don’t be put off by the really really bad cover)
Sounds like Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein. Another book I would add to this list. However, it falls into Dianetics territory for me, as I have encountered groups who take this book as a religous tome.
One more - a SciFi classic, Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human. Several people who are somewhat outcast in our normal society (disabled, the wrong color, etc) find by accident that when they’re together, they’re greater than the sum of their parts.
Thinking of Stranger in a Strange Land there are a good number of Heinlein short stories about people with special powers. The one I can remember off hand is Lost Legacy in Assignment in Eternity. A group of students discover they can develop latent telepathic and telekinetic powers …
Frank Robinson’s The Power, but it is probably out of print.
Then there’s Andy Libby – from Methusaleh’s Children, though he first appears in a short story of which I forget the title. Not a telepath or anything, just a mathematical genius, one with “an intutitive knowledge of mathematical relationship.” Despite a near-complete lack of formal education, he can, all subconsciously and instantly, estimate the diameter of the planetoid he’s standing on by eyeballing the level of the horizon – “That’s the only way it could be.”
To piggyback off of Glory’s recommendation of To Ride Pegasus, I’d go on to recommend that entire series, from that volume all the way through Lyon’s Pride, at least.
To Ride Pegasus
Pegasus In Flight
Pegasus In Space
(Interval of at least 100 years)
The Rowan
Damia
Damia’s Children
Lyon’s Pride
The Tower And The Hive
I say the interval is at least 100 years because there is a Peter Reidinger IV in The Rowan. The original Peter Reidinger is a child in the Pegasus books. So it’s at LEAST four generations between those and the later books, but it could be more, since a designation of IV doesn’t necessarily mean that all four of them were consecutive with each other.
The powers in those books, by the way, span the gamut of psychic talents, from telepathy to the ability to teleport multi-ton spaceships hundreds of light-years.
Dean Koontz has several books featuring people with powers. He’s pretty hit or miss with me, but I definitely liked and would recommend Lightning and Strangers. Powers are also featured in The Bad Place, Cold Fire, Odd Thomas and Twilight Eyes, but they are weaker books, in my opinion.
People with special powers – this is a big part of the story in the “Obernewtyn” novel and its sequels by Isobelle Carmody, I enjoyed those a lot, and recommend them.
Bacchus is awesome. In fact everything that Eddie Campbell does is awesome.
Most of what Eddie does has nothing to do with superpowers, but I heartilly recommend everything he has written. He and Sam Kieth were my heroes when I was starting to explore non traditional comics.
The Alec stories are semi autobiographicall, Alex has no superpowers, but they are awesome stories and worth a read.
Speaking of Sam Kieth, the Maxx is a fantastic comic series that holds up surprisingly well. It’s kind of sort of about a person who discovers she has powers.
Kind of.
Also see Zero Girl by Sam Kieth.
Crawford Killian’s Lifter is about a high-school nerd who figures out how to fly. The ending is rather lame but it’s a good fun read. One of my favorite books, in fact.
I quite enjoyed Children of the Atom. I have to wonder if it was the inspiration for Willo Davis Roberts’ The Girl with the Silver Eyes.
The first Dune has a lot about mental powers. A great book, a well-deserved classic. But all of the rest of the books in the series are, IMHO, not worth anyone’s time.
E.E. “Doc” Smith wrote tons of this kind of thing. His Lensman series in particular, Galaxy Prime - even in the Skylark series they wound up telepathic eventually.
And John W. Campbell wrote a series beginning with The Black Star Passes, also featuring telepathy. It speeds up the plot considerably to bypass having to learn the language. And sooner or later they build headsets that tap the ambient energy of the universe and become more or less omnipotent.
Regards,
Shodan
Here’s one I recall from way back when, that I quite enjoyed as a young reader: Christopher (they may call it Christopher and his Magic Powers today, but I remember the earlier, more enigmatic title). The book is basically about a boy who bravely knocks on the door of a supposedly haunted house, wherein he meets “The Headmaster”, a mysterious person who knows an awful lot about Christopher. Over the course of the book, he helps Christopher develop his mental abilities, with the aid of some little gold cubes with binary numbers on them (I still think of this book when I use binary).
Anyway, it’s aimed at younger readers, but I remember liking the book a lot.
In Galatea in 2-D, the hero, an artist, discovers that he has the power to make his paintings come to life. And that he’s not alone, and that the other guy who can do this is a very bad man indeed. The details of how the power works are nicely thought out.
Except that AFAIK, books 4 and 5 aren’t being published in the US. And it costs about $30 to buy the used paperback for book 4. I’m all kinds of bitter about this.
“Assasins Aprentice” and its sequels, by Robin Hobb, features two “powers”: The Skill, which is more or less telepathy with some other stuff added to it; and The Wit, which is some odd variant off psychic empathy, with the ability to talk to animals thrown in.
The Skill is uncommon, but not unheard of (like being a super athlete or having a perfect ear for music), and gives a certain amount of status. Almost all members of the royal family have it.
The Skill is a lot more uncommon, and people who don’t have it (and some of those who do) view it as a perversion; anyone who openly has it will be treated with a mixture of fear and disgust.
The main character, a royal bastard, has both, which is a bit of a problem.
While probably not of interest to you, but significant enough to deserve a mention, is the immense surge of books about shapeshifters such as vampires, werewolves, etc.
“The Wit is a lot more uncommon…”
I’m tired.