The Power [Mass Market Paperback]

Frank M. Robinson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 1955

The Power is a science fiction classic from the 1950s. After the book's initial publication, it was produced as a TV special starring Theodore Bikel and later as a George Pal film starring George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshette. It is the tale of a mutant superman in hiding and the terrifying search to find him.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Apart from the wonderful and almost purely science fiction The Dark Beyond the Stars, Frank M. Robinson's novels tend toward various subgenres of the thriller--such as techno (The Glass Inferno), espionage (Death of a Marionette), and anthropological (Waiting)--albeit with significant science fiction elements.

The Power is a science fiction thriller about a malevolent superhuman, a mutant masquerading as normal man. In this guise, the superman penetrates a secret committee convened to test the limits of human endurance--and therefore keeps tabs on the government's efforts to find those like him. One of the committee members begins to get an inkling that something isn't quite as it should be, setting off a paranoid and paranormal cat-and-mouse game with all the players wondering who to trust--for here, what you see is most definitely not what you get. Several innocents die, and the novel ends on a chilling note with a previously sympathetic character shedding his humanity with as little regret as a snake sheds its skin.

This was Robinson's first novel, written in his late twenties and first published in 1956, now updated and rereleased. If the reader can ignore the jarring inconsistencies which result from the superficial rewrite--characters calling each other Mac but having fought in the Gulf War, women acting like '50s molls but with birthdates in the '60s--then this is not a bad example of its kind. It is focused, fast-moving, and armed with just enough wish-fulfillment to please all those who dream of the day the world will recognize their obvious superiority. --Luc Duplessis --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"I've always maintained that Frank M. Robinson's The Power was one of the best terror tales ever told. Waiting is even better, rich with character, suspense and constant surprise. This is one of the best chillers of the entire decade." --Ed Gorman, Mystery Scene

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Berkley (May 5, 1955)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0425036006
• ISBN-13: 978-0425036006
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,063,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars interesting thriller, March 18, 2000

By 

hardly_b (Palo Alto, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Power (Paperback)

I just finished rereading "The Power". Robinson apparently updated the text very slightly to set it in the 90's instead of the 50's. I haven't read the book in at least 25 years, so I can't recall all of the details, but it seems that he also cleaned up a couple of minor plot points. Overall the book is still quite good, but I think that he should have left it in the 50's, since that was its natural era.

The basic idea behind the plot is that a university gets a Navy contract to identify the factors that result in survival in battle (or other harsh conditions). They develop a questionaire, the people on the committee take it anonymously to "test the test", and one of the test scores is off the charts, but no one will admit to it. And then people start dying...

This is a very 50's idea at its core. This was the heyday of tests like the 16PF, which purported to be able to uncover people that were thieves (for instance). The idea was that you could write a test that included a lot of questions whose significance you barely understood yourself, give it to a big group of people that had a different "levels" of whatever trait you were looking for (measured independently -- that is, they survived desperate circumstances through something other than complete luck), and you'd apply statistical methods to construct the scoring formula that would be able to magically identify and quantify that trait. This is a great idea for use in a sci-fi thriller, so never mind that it didn't work very well. The only problem with pushing the book into the 90's is that this plot device needs some gee-whizzing to be contemporary, and that didn't change in the update. So my advice is to set it mentally in the 50's so that it's okay for the hero to travel by train, and ignore the references to the Vietnam and Gulf wars (which are glancing, at most).

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not The Power I Remember, January 1, 2006

By 

Mr D. "Artist/Designer/Kibitzer" (Cave Creek, Az United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Power (Paperback)

I read this book, as a teenager, a number of years back and was so impressed that I remembered it all these years. Unfortunately, after reading the book a second time, I am less impressed. The premise of the book is still excellent, that of a person with mental abilities so advanced that they can control people's minds and mentally move inanimate objects. In short, an anomaly, a jump in evolution so advanced that he or she looks upon humanity as a person might look upon their pet dog. This superman is worried about being discovered and begins to kill those he suspects may be on to him.

To my dismay, after reading The Power again, after several intervening years, I find there are things about the story that just don't mesh. The book that I always thought was perfect has blemishes. This is surprising because the book was even made into a 1968 TV movie starring George Hamilton and Suzanne Pleshett.

The Power is still an interesting book worth reading, attested by the rating others have given the book but the book that I once considered a sure fire 5 star is now, in my opinion, a low 4 star book.

4.0 out of 5 stars A classic sf thriller, January 15, 2011

By 

TChris (Tzer Island) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Power (Paperback)

Why are some people better at survival than others? The committee overseeing a Navy project researching that question discovers that one of its members possesses the qualities of the ultimate survivor -- never ill, never stressed, impossibly intelligent -- but they don't know which one it is and the gifted member refuses to identify himself. Soon one committee member dies and another nearly commits suicide, feeling compelled by an outside force to harm himself. As the body count mounts, Professor William Tanner's only hope of staying alive is to track down and kill the man who has the power to control minds.

The Power has the feel of a thriller with elements of a horror story rather than a science fiction novel. There isn't much science; no real attempt is made to explain the individual's extraordinary abilities. As a thriller, however, the novel succeeds. It has a fast-paced, action-filled plot that keeps the reader guessing. Even if the reader manages to deduce the killer's identity, the ending is completely unexpected.

My only quibbles are these: Tanner's schemes to solve the mystery seem a bit over-the-top. More importantly, at crucial moments the plot depends upon unlikely coincidences. I was willing to swallow my skepticism on both counts for the sake of plot advancement. The story is so fun that the flaws are easy to overlook. I recommend it to fans of thrillers, horror stories, and science fiction.

A final note: This 1956 novel was revised in 1999. It's not clear that the revision amounted to much more than changing the names of wars. Tanner "thumbs the starter" of a car he steals and he sees "hoods" hanging out on street corners, "hair thick with Vaseline and combed straight back, their sport coats too long in the sleeves and too big in the shoulders" -- not really a popular look for gang members in 1999 (athletic jackets, baggy jeans, and shaved heads having replaced the sport coat wearing greaser look). Also, I'm pretty sure the lunch counter was gone from the Walgreens on State Street in Chicago before 1999. Nonetheless, I didn't find the inconsistent revisions to be a significant distraction from the story.