Telempath [Paperback]

Spider Robinson (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC (1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812552288
• ISBN-13: 978-0812552287
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,955,343 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ignore the stupid cover, August 15, 2002

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Telempath (Mass Market Paperback)

Baen Books just has a hard time with cover art, I guess. But this time they've underdone themselves.

Anyway, grab this book while it's back in print. It's the novel-length expansion of Spider Robinson's novella "By Any Other Name," and it's great from start to finish.

I guess I can tell you a little bit of the plot without spoiling anything. Isham Stone lives in a world in which most of civilization has collapsed, and he's going to get the man responsible. Okay, that's all I can say without giving things away.

I _can_ say that the story is told with all of Spider's trademark humaneness and wit, with no punches pulled but also with none of the gloom-and-doom pessimism that marks "noir" SF. Because this book squarely faces a number of interesting and difficult problems, _and works them through to resolution_, it's actually a profoundly hopeful story despite its apocalyptic backdrop.

Spider is one of my favorite two living SF writers (the other being James Hogan), and this is about as close as Spider comes to writing "hard" SF. Get it while it's available; Spider is incapable of writing a dull word.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I have a love-hate relationship with this author., April 14, 2007

By 

P. Breakfield IV "Tom Steele" (Greenville, SC United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Telempath (Mass Market Paperback)

Generally speaking, I am polar opposite of Spider's political beliefs. I also don't like the generally improbable and often far too fantastic scenarios he sets up. This book stretched my "buy the premise" abilities to their max. This book starts right off in a world where a scientist has unleashed a virus that causes mankind to max out our sense of smell. It suggests that we have the capability to smell even more than wolves and dogs (in spite of the much poorer design of our nose for that sort of thing) and this "ability" to smell so much more overwhelms most of humanity. I didn't buy any of this for a second.

BUT, he writes readable books with characters that are interesting and I generally finish them because I am interested to see what happens. I ended up going with 2 stars on this one because the ending was so weak. Overall, I enjoyed the read enough to finish the book though, so make of that what you will.

I tend to buy Robinson's books used so I don't have as much invested in the ones I am disappointed with - but I do still buy them.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Spider's readable apocalypse, November 21, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Telempath (Paperback)

Every day as I walk across Columbia's campus and look at the grounds in front of Butler Library, I have to chuckle. It is here, you recall, that Isham first meets up with the Destroyer of Humanity. All in all, this book is just plain old fun to read, even though it suffers from the author's leftover 60s radicalism. That said, it's still well worth the price of time and money to read.