Skip to main content

story identification - 70s/80s book: Cold-war Psychic superweapons


I read this quite a while back, part of my parents library (they're in their 50s now)
I think the book was probably published in the 70s or 80s, my copy was paperback. I don't recall the cover art, but I have vague recollections of a satellite on the cover and maybe blue with grid-lines below it?


I've made concerted efforts to find it again but to no avail. My parents don't remember it either, but mum's an avowed book-aholic and buys a lot of books, reads them once and forgets about them, so that's not so surprising.


The key parts I remember:



  • Both the Soviets and Americans were working on psychic techniques and technologies, with real and tangible results including Remote Viewing. MK-ULTRA was explicitly namedropped in relation to the American psychic program.


  • The Soviets and Americans both had orbiting superweapons, One was a microwave laser (or something very similar) and the other used slivers of the brains of psychics to blow people's brains up in a wide area.

  • A super-psychic (male) took offence to the state of the cold-war and took control over the orbital weapons by manipulating the onboard computers psychically.

  • There's a gruesome description of a psychic weapon being tested on monkeys in a lab, the POV character throws up afterwards in horror.

  • I think there might have been more than one POV character.

  • There's an extended description of the psychic orbital weapon as experienced by people in its area of effect. Similar to the monkeys, it builds up, starting with alzheimer-esque hand-shaking and building up to seizures and screaming before their brain liquifies fully and either comes out the nose and ears or outright blows the skull open. (this is one of the more vivid recollections I have of the book)

  • I remember that the super-psychic was working wholly alone and did most of his psychic stuff from motels halfway around the world from events.

  • I believe the super-psychic also killed other psychics explicitly.

  • The weapon satellites had code-names

  • Both weapons were used on cities in the course of the story

  • I vaguely recall an office building getting targeted specifically at one point.




Answer



This sounds like Star Fire by Ingo Swann published in 1978.


Your plot points match my recollection of the story. but I don't have access to a copy right now to confirm.


From memory Star Fire has



  • a protagonist who becomes a super psychic

  • he discovers psychic weapons programs being run by the USSR/USA

  • he intervenes to shut down those programs?

  • a one point he hides by pretending to be in a coma


  • there are lots of remote viewing scenes as he learns about the weapons programs


There is also another answer referencing this book that mentions the graphic scene where a weapon is tested on monkeys


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...
1 comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...
Post a Comment
Read more