This article consists almost entirely of a plot summary . It should be expanded to provide more balanced coverage that includes real-world context.(September 2015) |
Author | Lloyd Biggle, Jr. |
---|---|
Cover artist | Ed Valigursky |
Country | US |
Language | English |
Genre | science-fiction novel |
Published | 1961 (Ace Books) |
Media type | Print (paperback) |
Pages | 136 (paperback edition) |
OCLC | 2592544 |
The Angry Espers is a science-fiction novel written by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. and published by Ace Books as half of Ace Double #D-485 in 1961. The novel first appeared in the August 1959 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories as A Taste of Fire. In 1962 it was given Honorable Mention as a candidate for the Best Novel Hugo Award.
Paul Corban wakes up in a hospital on an alien world populated by people who look exactly like Terrans. When he tries to talk to the doctors, though, his questions are met with looks of horror and revulsion and with an eerie silence. His wounds from the crash of his spaceship heal and his hosts offer what appears to be a kind of therapy, always in total silence. He fails to meet the therapists' expectations (he can't even figure out what they are), so he is taken to a pleasant place called Raxtinu, an asylum for the mentally disabled.
In Raxtinu he meets the lovely Dr. Alir, who teaches him the spoken version of the Donirian telepathic language. He has, by this time, discerned that the Donirians possess the powers of telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation. He has also fallen in love with Alir. Nonetheless, he wants to go home and when he knows enough Donirian he explains this fact to Alir and Director Wiln. After giving Wiln all of the information he can about the Galactic Federation, he and Wiln are shocked to discover that he won't be sent home after all: the Donirian government has chosen instead to wage a war of extermination against the Federation.
After giving Wiln the information on the Federation Paul learns from another lost Terran how hideously bigoted the Donirians are, how deeply they hate anyone who does not share their teledynamic abilities. Other lost Terrans who had landed on Donir seeking help have been lynched. And now the Federation is under attack by people who regard all Terrans as demented savages. The conflict quickly degenerates into a war of atrocity and attrition.
Meanwhile, Paul is taken out of Raxtinu, which is a refuge for people who lack teledynamic powers, and put into an asylum for the truly insane. Before the inmates can kill him Alir rescues him from the asylum, taking him to her mother's estate. There Alir and her mother resume the therapy that had been intended to help Paul develop teledynamic powers, a therapy that has so far failed. Then soldiers appear on the estate and Paul hides from them by climbing into a tree. The soldiers find him and one aims a weapon at him and fires. Paul loses consciousness.
He regains consciousness lying on the same spot in Raxtinu that he had been thinking about when the soldier shot him: he infers that he teleported and he goes to inform Director Wiln. Wiln discerns which weapon was used, a kind of stun gun, and he uses it as a therapeutic device to help Paul develop his latent teledynamic powers. Later, as a fully developed teledyne, Paul goes before the Donirian Council and convinces its members to sue for peace. The Council then chooses Paul and Alir to serve as its ambassadors to the Galactic Federation.
In this ending, of a protagonist gaining his freedom from alien captors by developing teledynamic abilities, The Angry Espers may remind the reader of the ending of Alan E. Nourse's Rocket to Limbo . [1]
The book was reviewed by
The Angry Espers received an Honorable Mention for the 1962 Hugo Awards for Best Novel. [4]
Starship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. Written in a few weeks in reaction to the US suspending nuclear tests, the story was first published as a two-part serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction as Starship Soldier, and published as a book by G. P. Putnam's Sons in December 1959.
Lloyd Biggle Jr., was an American musician, author, and internationally known oral historian.
Fantasy tropes are a specific type of literary tropes that occur in fantasy fiction. Worldbuilding, plot, and characterization have many common conventions, many of them having ultimately originated in myth and folklore. J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium for example, was inspired from a variety of different sources including Germanic, Finnish, Greek, Celtic and Slavic myths. Literary fantasy works operate using these tropes, while others use them in a revisionist manner, making the tropes over for various reasons such as for comic effect, and to create something fresh.
The Word for World Is Forest is a science fiction novella by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in the United States in 1972 as a part of the anthology Again, Dangerous Visions, and published as a separate book in 1976 by Berkley Books. It is part of Le Guin's Hainish Cycle.
The Super Barbarians is a science fiction novel by British writer John Brunner, first published in the United States by Ace Books in 1962. Written in the first person, the story gives an account of an Earthman's struggle to regain lost memories and to uncover the horrifying secret of the feudal society whose people used remarkably advanced technology to conquer Earth and its solar system.
The Eyes of the Overworld is a picaresque fantasy fix-up novel by American writer Jack Vance, published by Ace in 1966, the second book in the Dying Earth series that Vance inaugurated in 1950. Retitled Cugel the Clever in its Vance Integral Edition (2005), the story takes place in Vance's Dying Earth setting, where the Sun is dying and magic and technology coexist. It features the self-proclaimed Cugel the Clever in linked episodic stories. Cugel is an anti-hero character; while he is typically a crafty scoundrel who seeks to turn a profit from a situation, he retains some good values at times. In the novel, Cugel is caught stealing from a wizard, who forces Cugel to travel to a faraway realm to find a rare magical jewel.
The Continent Makers is a science fiction novella by American writers L. Sprague de Camp, part of his Viagens Interplanetarias series. It was first published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in the issue for April, 1951. It first appeared in book form in the collection The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens, published in hardcover by Twayne Publishers in 1953, and in paperback by Signet Books in 1971. It has also been translated into Portuguese, Dutch, and Italian.
The Planet Savers is a science fantasy novel by American writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, part of her Darkover series. It was first published in book form in English by Ace Books in 1962, dos-à-dos with Bradley's novel The Sword of Aldones. The story first appeared in the November 1958 issue of the magazine Amazing Stories. It subsequently appeared in a German translation in 1960 with additional chapters added that were not by the author.
The Bloody Sun is a science fantasy novel by American writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, part of her Darkover series. It was first published by Ace Books in 1964. The novel was substantially rewritten, expanded, and republished under the same title in 1979; Bradley's short story "To Keep the Oath" was included in this edition and all subsequent reprintings.
Star of Danger is a science fantasy novel by American writer Marion Zimmer Bradley, part of her Darkover series. It was first published by Ace Books in 1965.
"The Inspector's Teeth" is a science fiction short story by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, part of his Viagens Interplanetarias series. It is the first (chronologically) set on Earth, and a linchpin tale in the sequence, showing how the interstellar political system forming the background of the rest of the series was established. It was first published in the magazine Astounding in the issue for April, 1950. It first appeared in book form in the collection The Continent Makers and Other Tales of the Viagens, published in hardcover by Twayne Publishers in 1953, and in paperback by Signet Books in 1971. It also appeared in The Best of L. Sprague de Camp, and Anthropomorphic Aliens: An Interstellar Anthology. The story has been translated into Portuguese, Dutch, Italian and German.
"The Colorful Character" is a science fiction short story by American writer L. Sprague de Camp, part of his Viagens Interplanetarias series. It was first published in the magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories in the issue for December, 1949. It first appeared in book form in the collection Sprague de Camp's New Anthology of Science Fiction, published simultaneously in hardcover by Hamilton and in paperback by Panther Books in 1953.
The Star Conquerors is a science fiction novel by American writer Ben Bova. It was published in 1959 by the John C. Winston Company.
The Puzzle Planet is a science-fiction novel by Robert A. W. Lowndes. It was published in 1961 by Ace Books as one of their double novels. According to the author, it marks the first attempt to create a proper science-fiction murder mystery.
Rocket to Limbo is a 1957 science fiction novel by Alan E. Nourse. It was first published in book form by David McKay Co., Inc, and was later incorporated into an Ace Double. It first appeared in the October 1957 issue of Satellite Science Fiction.
Starship Through Space is a science-fiction novel written by G. Harry Stine under the pseudonym Lee Correy. It was published in 1954 by Henry Holt and Company. The book tells the story of the building of the first starship and of its flight to Alpha Centauri.
The World Menders is a science fiction novel written by Lloyd Biggle, Jr. and published in 1971 by Doubleday. In the story Biggle explores the old aphorism about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions and he garnered for himself a nomination for a Locus Best Novel Award.
Storm Over Warlock is a science fiction novel written by Andre Norton and published in 1960 by the World Publishing Company. The story combines science fiction with fantasy, technology with witchcraft, in a way typical of Norton's works. The sequels are Ordeal in Otherwhere and Forerunner Foray.
Blanvalet is a German publishing house, based in Munich, which was founded in 1935 in Berlin and is now part of the Bertelsmann's Random House publishing group. Blanvalet publishes entertainment literature and non-fiction, first in hardcover, and as paperbacks since 1998. The publisher became well known with the novel series "Angélique". More recent authors include Charlotte Link, Marc Elsberg, Karin Slaughter, Diana Gabaldon and George R. R. Martin.
The War Against the Rull is a science fiction novel by Canadian-American writer A. E. Van Vogt, first published in 1959 by Simon & Schuster. The novel is a fixup made from six short stories and two connecting chapters.
Notes
Sources
The book is listed at