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A review by kerry_handscomb
Sunburst by Phyllis Gotlieb
3.75
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.