Customer Reviews

Man of Many Minds

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I think this was the first science fiction story I ever read... I was a boy of around 12.. and the `pictures' that were generated by the author as I read his story were totally captivating. I found my self at Cadet George Hanlon's elbow as he found himself joining the Secret Service of the Federation... a young kid just out of the Academy and pressured into once again using the ability of being able to probe another's mind for his thoughts. It doesn't that long before the story is in full swing as George tries to discover to source of very mysterious activity on a planet so far away from Terra.
The author does a very good job developing the story line and I would recommend this as very enjoyable light reading for anyone.

E. Everett Evans was a pal of more famous author E. E. Smith, and Evans on his own published about 40 short stories of science fiction, fantasy and supernatural horror, as well as three science fiction novels written toward the end of his life. I recently found the original Fantasy Press edition of this, his first novel... and struggled through it.

If it had been published as a juvenile, I'd have no problem with it, but as a novel aimed at adults it's preposterous. No character in the story behaves in any plausible or believable way at any time.

A young man is supposedly kicked out of Space Academy just before graduation for cheating on an exam, but in fact he has been recruited into a nonsensically-organized secret service and is immediately sent to a distant colony planet to investigate, simply because higher ups in the SS have a gut feeling that something dangerous is brewing there.

Although this tale takes place in a distant future, social and even technological changes seem nonexistent. [The communications device used by the secret service is nothing more than a bank safe-deposit box!] The hero supposedly can "read minds," but in fact he can't... his main supernatural ability turns out to be controlling domestic and wild animals remotely by sending "part of his mind" out into them.

The hero leaves so many clues strewn around that he is a undercover law enforcement official that he should have been killed or tortured to death by the bad guys a few chapters along into the book. Instead, he is being tortured to death only toward the end of the book, surviving implausibly to take part in a final space battle that shows the clear influences of E. E. Smith in every line.

If you encountered this book in 1953 at the age of 13, you'd probably love it. At any other time or any other age you'd find yourself reading a work of fiction so primitive, stumbling and poorly-thought-out that it belongs in a museum instead of a library or bookstore.

Like the above reviewer, I read this book as a boy also. The book was for me very inspirational as a child, and so inspiring and imaginative that nearly 50 years later I am happy to have found it again. The book, in fact, was first found at a time early enough in my life that it inspired me to consider very seriously a career in science. At the time I read the Man of Many Minds, our own space program was still in its infant years.

I also found another book today I enjoyed as a boy, The Indian Mummy Mystery. You can believe that both will be reread cover to cover when I receive them. I don't doubt that they will both be enjoyed as much as the memory that kept them alive for all these years. I had searched for both titles before and nearly lost hope that I would find them again.

So, not only do I recommend one book, I recommend both of the titles listed above highly!