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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Before Silverberg, There Was Simak, 7 Oct 2002
In a future where humans have been forced by their own physical frailty to give up space exploration by the ordinary means of rockets and spaceships, a secretive institution called Fishhook has found a way to do it by extraordinary means, using a select band of men and women with paranormal mental abilities who can send their minds, instead of their bodies, across the lightyears.One such adept, Shepard Blaine, returns from his last journey with an unwanted gift, part of the mind of an ageless alien, and must flee Fishhook for his life, knowing what has happened to others like him--or more precisely not knowing, for they all have vanished. Blaine's flight leads him into an outside world that has fallen into a kind of modern Dark Ages, dominated by irrational fear and hatred for Fishhook and it's "parrie" witches, a hatred all the more fierce for its total dependence on the knowledge from the stars that Fishhook distributes to them, in dribbles and drabs. Blaine is drawn inexorably into plots by both Fishhook and those that hate it to keep this balance of terror intact. In his struggle first to survive and then to save all the other parries outside of Fishhook, Blaine discovers incredible new knowledge and abilities in himself, an unexpected gift from an alien 5000 lightyears away, including a new road to the stars and to humanity's ultimate destiny. This is one of Simak's best works, full of insights well ahead of its time. Like most of Simak's best works, its theme is growth, evolution, and to some degree redemption, of mankind overcoming its shortcomings and becoming something more than it is now. As a result, in many ways Simak's body of work presages that of the mature Robert Silverberg and deserves a proper revival. This is a good place to start.
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