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2.85 AVERAGE
2.85 AVERAGE
Interesting premise, but some problematic old fashioned sociology
Sunburst, published in 1964, was Canadian poet Phyllis Gotlieb’s first science fiction novel, written because she was experiencing writer’s block with her poetry. After Sunburst, all Gotlieb’s science fiction is set in her GalFed universe of multiple alien races and multiple inhabited planets. The action in Sunburst takes place on Earth, and there are no alien races.
A nuclear accident took place a number of years before the start of the novel. Radiation from the accident has led to many children born with mutations. The mutations, however, have given the children psychic abilities, including telekinesis, pyrokinesis, telepathy, and so on.
Telepathy plays a large role in Gotlieb’s GalFed, although she usually refers to it in these later works as ESP, or “esping,” which generally has a broader meaning than telepathy. In Sunburst and in her later works, the powerful telepaths have the ability not only to read the thoughts of others but to transmit their own thoughts and to change the thoughts of others.
The mutant children in Sunburst are a dangerous group of delinquents who must be imprisoned in the “Dump” to protect the rest of humanity from their powerful psychic abilities. These “Dumplings” eventually escape and threaten to cause chaos in the world.
The main character in Sunburst is the girl Shandy, who has a very special kind of mutation, she is an “impervious," meaning that the psychic abilities of the Dumplings are unable to affect her. Aided by several other renegade psychics, Shandy saves the world from the Dumplings.
Sunburst is good science fiction. Indeed, the Sunburst Award for Canadian science fiction is named after it. I don’t think it is in the same class as some of Gotlieb’s later work—her Lyhhrt Trilogy, for example. Nevertheless, Sunburst is a first novel after all, and hints of what will come later with the GalFed universe.
A nuclear accident took place a number of years before the start of the novel. Radiation from the accident has led to many children born with mutations. The mutations, however, have given the children psychic abilities, including telekinesis, pyrokinesis, telepathy, and so on.
Telepathy plays a large role in Gotlieb’s GalFed, although she usually refers to it in these later works as ESP, or “esping,” which generally has a broader meaning than telepathy. In Sunburst and in her later works, the powerful telepaths have the ability not only to read the thoughts of others but to transmit their own thoughts and to change the thoughts of others.
The mutant children in Sunburst are a dangerous group of delinquents who must be imprisoned in the “Dump” to protect the rest of humanity from their powerful psychic abilities. These “Dumplings” eventually escape and threaten to cause chaos in the world.
The main character in Sunburst is the girl Shandy, who has a very special kind of mutation, she is an “impervious," meaning that the psychic abilities of the Dumplings are unable to affect her. Aided by several other renegade psychics, Shandy saves the world from the Dumplings.
Sunburst is good science fiction. Indeed, the Sunburst Award for Canadian science fiction is named after it. I don’t think it is in the same class as some of Gotlieb’s later work—her Lyhhrt Trilogy, for example. Nevertheless, Sunburst is a first novel after all, and hints of what will come later with the GalFed universe.
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A muddled and messy showing from Gotlieb. Sunburst takes place after some sort of nuclear disaster, where radiation has killed off a lot of the older generation, whose surviving children are sometimes left with latent psychic, teleportation, or other superhero powers. These children are rounded up by a government-esque group that locks them in a force field where they can't escape. Shandy, a child that is immune to psychic powers, is eventually rounded up by the government and taken to the facilitate, where she tries to understand her place in freeing the tortured group of children.
If Gotlieb does something well, it's writing characters with emotion. The children in this story are very much people with valid concerns and believable emotions. Certainly for the time, Gotlieb also writes women well, and portrays youth as persons capable of immense mental and emotional strength.
Unfortunately, Gotlieb does a lot more telling than showing. There are many sections of lengthy exposition where the history of the world, the way that powers work, and the government agency are all explained dryly. The limited amount of action that's written here is a jumbled mess that's both confusing and off putting. The prose is at best passable, with no real sense of mastery or artistry to the writing. Overall it just feels like it was written by an amateur.
What's really cringey though is the horribly outdated sociology/psychology that Gotlieb uses as an explanation for why children and delinquents are the only ones to have psi powers:
"Their minds are organized more primitively".
"Most come from families without very strong morals - often immigrants".
"I think these kinds of shirtless helpless people could be a cause of poverty too."
Yeesh. Sort of out of the blue, Gotlieb starts having her main character, a child, go on long expositional diatribes about what a nuisance these kids are, and how their minds are close to that of animals. I don't know if mental illness was really thought of this way in the 60's, but Jesus, even if it was this ages so poorly as to be almost comical. Regardless of the few positive qualities in Sunburst, this turn towards the end of the novel casts a dim shadow over my opinion of it.
Mediocre, forgettable, and sometimes distasteful. I'm glad I only paid a dollar for it, and back to some used bookstore's stack of pulp paperbacks it will go.
If Gotlieb does something well, it's writing characters with emotion. The children in this story are very much people with valid concerns and believable emotions. Certainly for the time, Gotlieb also writes women well, and portrays youth as persons capable of immense mental and emotional strength.
Unfortunately, Gotlieb does a lot more telling than showing. There are many sections of lengthy exposition where the history of the world, the way that powers work, and the government agency are all explained dryly. The limited amount of action that's written here is a jumbled mess that's both confusing and off putting. The prose is at best passable, with no real sense of mastery or artistry to the writing. Overall it just feels like it was written by an amateur.
What's really cringey though is the horribly outdated sociology/psychology that Gotlieb uses as an explanation for why children and delinquents are the only ones to have psi powers:
"Their minds are organized more primitively".
"Most come from families without very strong morals - often immigrants".
"I think these kinds of shirtless helpless people could be a cause of poverty too."
Yeesh. Sort of out of the blue, Gotlieb starts having her main character, a child, go on long expositional diatribes about what a nuisance these kids are, and how their minds are close to that of animals. I don't know if mental illness was really thought of this way in the 60's, but Jesus, even if it was this ages so poorly as to be almost comical. Regardless of the few positive qualities in Sunburst, this turn towards the end of the novel casts a dim shadow over my opinion of it.
Mediocre, forgettable, and sometimes distasteful. I'm glad I only paid a dollar for it, and back to some used bookstore's stack of pulp paperbacks it will go.
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
can't believe i paid four dollars for this
este libro es tan malo que ni siquiera es simpático. en el afán del autor de describir algo grotesco, transformó la narración completa en algo vacío de belleza, de admiración. no nos ha dejado nada a lo cual aferrarnos.