Mindtouch (Dreamhealers 1)
Mindtouch (Dreamhealers 1)
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Seersana University is worlds-renowned for its xenopsychology program, producing the Alliance’s finest therapists, psychiatric nurses and alien researchers. When Jahir, one of the rare and reclusive Eldritch espers, arrives on campus, he’s unprepared for the challenges of a vast and multicultural society… but fortunately, second-year student Vasiht’h is willing to take him under his wing. Will the two win past their troubles and doubts and see the potential for a once-in-a-lifetime partnership?
Genre (setting): space opera (Pelted)
Tags: found family, space opera, pastoral, low conflict, friendship, elves (space)
Rating: PG for emotional situations
Excerpt from Chapter 1
According to the research Jahir had done through the Well feed, Seersana’s university had preceded even Karaka’A’s prestigious institute as the first in the Alliance, just as this solar system’s two worlds had been the first settlement for the Pelted fleeing Earth. Its renowned medical colleges had been the product of necessity, for the first generations of the Pelted had been forced to re-engineer themselves to remove the flaws humanity had bequeathed them. As the Pelted encountered the first aliens, the medical curricula grew to encompass them. Seersana’s xenopsychology school was also the oldest in the Alliance, another reason Jahir had selected it.
Now that he was here, its unalloyed beauty offered an additional lagniappe. Ancient trees guarded the campus’s walkways, nodding over the broad lawns that separated the buildings. Tiny fountains nestled in secluded copses, their commemorative plaques written in Universal rhyme, Seersan glyphs, or, as one might expect of the race that carekept the Exodus records, both and a multitude of other languages besides. Jahir traced the engravings with his fingers. His own tongue was never one of those other languages, of course. His people would never have allowed it.
Every place he walked, he saw great effort employed in the preservation of the existing flora. The path leading from the School of Healing-Assist to the Rhone Medical Library wended through what could only be called a small forest, where a series of metal arches prevented the trees from draping their leaves onto the shoulders of passersby.
It was a disappointment to reach the edge of the medical campus and discover an empty lot, so finding a centaur wrapped up in a rope and surrounded by six squealing girls was a decided improvement. Jahir stopped on the edge to stare.
The creature tangled in the ropes had four legs and two arms in the configuration of a centaur. He also had a tail and two smooth wings attached lengthwise to his lower back. His black and white pelt suggested a permanent formal suit, with white stripes down his black back, a white chest and white toes. His face was some amalgam of animal and human, with a short muzzle and floppy black bangs over brown eyes. Instead of ears, he had feathers arranged in sprays, like the back of a woman’s hat. Jahir had never seen anything like him.
The Eldritch walked forward before he could think better of the plan. “Pardon me. May I assist?”
The centauroid glanced at him; all the little girls glanced at him. In the silence, Jahir was suddenly the center of attention.
“What is that?” one of the girls asked.
Another said, “It’s a human in white paint!”
“No, no,” the centauroid said, laughing. He had a pleasant voice, a warm tenor with a furry timbre. “That’s an Eldritch, kara.”
“Those are the ones that never leave their world, right?” another asked.
“I guess not,” the centauroid said with a grin.
“You sure he’s not a painted human?” the first girl asked again. “Or maybe he’s like one of those animals that’s born without skin color?”
The centauroid laughed. “I’m certain. If he were human he wouldn’t be so elongated. He’s an Eldritch, sure as I’m fuzzy.”
“So that means he has secret powers!” This from a human girl with ragged pigtails of dull brown hair and eyes bright as a sparrow’s. “He can read people’s minds, and he has a treasure trove of gold, and he has a dragon protecting his ancient palace, and he’s probably a prince!”
“A lord anyway,” Jahir said, laughing. “But a very, very minor one. Tell me, gentles, what are you doing to yonder man?”
“We’re teaching him to jump rope,” she said.
“Trying, anyway,” another said.
“And he’s not a man,” said the third. “He’s a Glaseah.”
“He’s doing okay for someone with so many legs,” one of the girls untangling him said. She had small limp ears, naked and set on a bald head. Jahir wondered what strange aesthetic had prompted the coif.
“And wings.”
“And arms!”
“I see,” Jahir said.
“Ladies, a little more help, please?” the Glaseah said, for the discussion had distracted them. “I can’t reach some of those tangles, you know.”
“Oh! Sorry!” The human and two of the others went back to picking the rope from around the centauroid’s tail. Jahir watched, fascinated. He had never heard of jump rope, but he couldn’t fathom how they’d managed to tangle the Glaseah up so completely.
“What are you looking at?” another girl asked, the shortest of the six. “You asked if you could help, so come help!”
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Mindtouch is MCA Hogarth's light fluffy asexual science fiction romance about grief and the inevitability of death.
The novel weaves together a few different plot threads:
* The relationship between Vasiht'h and Jahir, as roommates, friends and partners
* Their tele/empathic powers and the way they interact with one another
* Their education in psychiatry and their choice of specialization/career path
* Their relationships with other students and faculty on the campus
* Their friendship with a group of six critically ill children who are patient-in-residence at a nearby hospital
I list these in approximately the order of how much I enjoyed them. The friendship and anxieties about same between the protagonists is sweet and endearing. The protagonists are well-drawn and delightful. They are distinct, each with his own strengths and weaknesses. The choice to make each a viewpoint character works well, letting the reader see both what they're like on the inside and how that differs from the way others see them.
The approach to telepathy/empathy is interesting. It's very synesthetic in description, often portrayed as flavors or scents. For both characters, it's increased by touch, particularly skin-to-skin. But otherwise, the characters have drastically different approaches. For Vasiht'h, it's a thing he can do, that he rarely uses, and that's about it. For Jahir, it's a disability that he struggles to mitigate. I read a lot of books with psychic characters in my formative years, and I'm pretty burned out on them, particularly on the psychic-powers-as-curse trope. Still, Jahir's case was interesting, because it really does feel like a crippling disability, and not even for the "society doesn't understand me" reason. Nope; it's "I can pass out from the stress of having people touch me unexpectedly". One doesn't hear much about Jahir's background, despite him being a POV character. He's a member of the mysterious, secretive, xenophobic Eldritch race. At one point during the book, one of the other characters says that Jahir's extremely reserved, controlled manner is similar to one might expect from a psychopath, military operative, or abuse victim. That last option is never mentioned again, but it resonated with me because the hints about his society sound rather dysfunctional. Not abusive in an obvious or malicious way, just ... dysfunctional.
There's a lot about the university, their studies, classes, and choices. I found this less engaging overall, but still interesting.
Then there are assorted minor characters, most of whom blended together for me. Mostly they felt like foils for the protagonists to demonstrate their skills upon or to bounce ideas off of. The six critically-ill kids especially felt interchangeable. This may be an inevitable result of having a very large cast in a single standard-length novel, but it did mean I got bored reading conversations with characters I didn't feel any attachment to. The kids compounded this by being too sweet and adorable. I wanted one of them to throw a tantrum and scream, or at least be sulky and obstinate, at least once. The scenes with them had some d'aww and good lines, but felt particularly unconvincing.
The theme of "grief and the inevitability of death" is partly brought out by the six critically ill kids, but the main reason it's an issue is that Jahir's race has a natural lifespan around 1500 years, which is 10-12 times that of all the other characters. He's 150 years old but everyone thinks of him as a "young man"; he never really acts like he's significantly older than his fellow students. Having chosen to leave his own people (at least for a while) to live with the short-lived Alliance races, Jahir is troubled by the prospect of watching generation after generation of them grow old and die. Since this is a high-tech society that's been spacefaring for centuries without major increases in lifespan, it doesn't seem likely that this problem is going to go away. Jahir thinks about it a lot. Honestly, not sure it's any less depressing to think "everyone I know will be dead in a hundred years" when that includes you than when it doesn't. (In other news, I am past due for my mid-life crisis.)
The first part of the book was slow for my tastes; it became more engaging around the second half. It's very definitely Part One of a Series: the ending leaves the central issue of the novel (ie, the asexual romance between the two protagonists) unresolved.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and as well as its sequel.
I picked up this book during the UK lockdown as a free book, I think. I quickly fell in love with the Eldritch. Who doesn’t like space elves? But Jahir is such a self effacing, wonderful character to follow as he learns the limitations of his own lived experience and embraces a new culture. This is a warm hearted story of friendships and I would recommend it. I quickly bought the next one, and then the next one, and then the rest of this author’s stories.
Whenever I feel like reading a cup of tea in a sunbeam on a cool, clear and brilliant autumn day in the company of a really good friend, this is where I go. I keep going, and it keeps working.
I came late to this one, and was familiar with the characters from Prince's Game, so there was some whiplash seeing where they came from! Enjoyable and sweet, demonstrating non-sexual love between friends, and the budding formation of family. And the girls in the hospital are the best.
(originally reviewed Feb. 7 2014)
I'd fallen for these characters long before reading the book, in the short stories the author posted to her blog. But I'm sure the book would make a wonderful introduction to them too. It could also serve nicely as an introduction to her Pelted universe, partly because one of the main characters is new to a lot of it while the other knows exactly what's going on, and she took advantage of both to help the reader along. (Briefly and approximately: there are "real aliens", but most of the sapient species in the setting started as the result of human meddling. We didn't necessarily treat them well. They left. They did very well for themselves, out in the galaxy, and then we found each other again and are getting used to each other.)
This is not story that relies much on villains -- there's the occasional antagonistic character, but most of the cast is doing their best and much of the plot is about learning the world, themselves, and each other. Appropriately for characters studying medicine, some of the plot is driven by the need to heal or at least alleviate pain, and the patients in the children's ward at the hospital are as key as the other students. The heart of it all is friendship and partnership, especially between the two central characters (a science-fiction elf and centaur... sort of), and it's a story both about love and about growing up and figuring out what to do with your life, and how they intertwine.