Today (my birthday - 27!) I'm handing the blog over to Karina for her Mind Over Mind Book Tour. Take it away, Karina!
Would you want to have telepathic powers? Nicole asked me this question because my latest novel, Mind Over Mind (DragonMoon Press) involves a psychic. Deryl has had telepathy and telekinesis since he was thirteen. Pretty cool, right? Not for him. In the daily onslaught of others' thoughts and emotions, he could barely remember his own name, much less get through a full day of school. No one believed him, of course. The telekinesis was worse, though--if he let his guard down, he could act upon a desire (his or someone else's) and hurt someone without realizing it. By the beginning of the book, he's managed the most rudimentary of control, but it's still not enough for him to leave the asylum where he's been for most of his adolescence.
But for this blog, let's assume control. Would I want telekinesis? I don’t think so. People have secrets--from themselves, from each other--little things thought about in the heat of emotion or in daydreams but which should never see the light of day. I don't want to be able to invade that kind of privacy--and, to be frank, I'm worried what I'd find there. There's a great filk song about a guy who broke up with his girlfriend because he was telepathic and couldn't handle knowing her thoughts all the time. TMI (Too Much Information) definitely plays here.
Maybe it could be useful to read others' thoughts now and again, but in my everyday life, I don't see a lot of use. It might be useful to know the thoughts of my teens, for example, but I still remember how my own thoughts went when I was in a teenage funk, and frankly, I to this day do not know what anyone could have said or done to make me feel better, change my attitude, etc. Sometimes, I just had to work things out myself; sometimes, something would just happen to make life better. Frankly, I think a lot of times when someone is upset or disappointed, there's not particular answer they need--or at least, that they can spell out. So really, telepathy would only help me if it also came with the ability to know what to do about what I'd just "read." Then, of course, it would also have to be something that is workable for me as well--and how awful would it be to know that the only way to make a person feel better would be something that violated your own happiness--or worse yet, your principles?
No, telepathy does not appeal to me--and it didn't appeal to my character Deryl in Mind Over Mind, either. Unlike me, he's stuck with his ability. Fortunately, in the book, he has the help of a psychiatric intern and a good friend to help him survive it.
Title: Mind Over Mind
Author: Karina Fabian
ISBN: 978-1897942369
Back Cover Blurb/summary: Deryl Stephen’s uncontrollable telepathic abilities have landed him in a mental health institution, where no one believes in his powers.
But when Joshua Lawson, a student of neuro linguistic programming, takes part in a summer internship, he takes the unique step of accepting Deryl’s reality and teaches him to work with it. As Deryl learns control, he finds his next challenge is to face the aliens who have been contacting him psychically for years—aliens who would use him to further their cause in an interplanetary war.
Bio of Karina Fabian: Unlike her characters, Karina Fabian lives a comfortably ordinary life. Wife to Air Force Colonel Robert Fabian and mother of four, her adventures usually involve packing and moving, attending conventions, or giving writing and marketing advice in one of her many workshops. She's always had an overactive imagination, however, and started writing in order to quell the voices in her head--characters who insisted on living lives in her mind and telling her their stories. Winner of the 2010 INDIE award, winner and finalist for the EPPIE and finalist for the Global e-book awards, she's glad people enjoy reading the tales her characters tell.
Excerpt:
“Obviously. Did Edith tell you about the one time they did release me? The first thing I did was smash all the bottles in my uncle’s liquor cabinet because the butler—yes, Joshua, they have a butler—is an alcoholic and was obsessing on it, had been obsessing on it for years. It was that or drink myself stupid, just because he wanted to. That was nothing. My aunt took me
shopping. All those people, all those thoughts…It was like ants crawling in my skull. I was just managing to ignore them, and I felt this woman screaming—”
“’Felt?’”
“Yeah, felt. Inside my head. I couldn’t help it. I snuck away from my aunt, followed the thoughts—she was so scared!—I found her in a part of the mall that was being renovated. This guy had her pinned. He was going to—” Ydrel broke off.
“What did you do?” Joshua asked.
Ydrel shivered. “Beat him unconscious. Then I tried to knock myself out, too. See, he was so full of hate, and he wanted to— So I did, too. And the girl tried to stop me and I yelled at her and scared her all over again and I tried to run but the police showed up. So I ended up back here, where the environment, at least, is controlled, even if it isn’t exactly normal. Even then, it’s not always safe for me. Sometimes, Malachai puts someone in the room next to me…to study my reaction, sometimes to punish me.” He looked up and his eyes were wide with fear. “I’ve got to get out of here, Joshua. It’s not safe for me anymore.”
Joshua was beginning to think it wasn’t safe for him either. The last thing he needed on his internship was to get caught up in some problem between a patient he wasn’t supposed to be taking on, and the head of the institution—a friend of his father. Still…
Earlier, when Ydrel had laughed at the idea of Joshua helping him, Joshua had moved his arm in a very deliberate way. Now he used that same motion to recall those feelings of hope and interest Ydrel had expressed. He waited as Ydrel calmed, watching him take a shaky breath and release his hold on his hair, his fingers running through the length, before he spoke again.
“We’ll work on it, Ydrel.”
The younger man nodded.
“OK. You have some barriers. You’ve said that they work sometimes. I want you to think about one thing that keeps you here that your current barriers don’t protect you from.” He couldn’t see Ydrel’s eyes, for the patient had shut them, but waited for other cues.
“When my barriers work sometimes, or not at all?”
“Your choice.”
“The Miscria.”
“You don’t have to tell—the what?” Curiosity got the better of him.
“The Miscria. It calls me, and when it does, I can’t help it—I fall into this trance. I can be doing anything, even walking, and just—boom. Then I have to tell it everything it wants to know before it lets me go with some new assignment, and for weeks I’m studying God-knows-what until it calls me again.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Information, Joshua.” Ydrel opened his eyes and waved impatiently to the pile of books on his desk.
Joshua walked over and examined the covers. “The Miscria wants to know military history?”
“Tactics. Swordsmithing. Triage. Medieval fortress architecture. So I go cra—I have to learn everything I can about the subject, and it just wants more. At least we have a good librarian. He humors me, you know.”
Joshua set down the book he was leafing through: Eye in the Sky, A Warfighter’s Guide to Space Reconnaissance, by Felix Monroe.
“So this ‘Miscria’ calls you, you pass out in your oatmeal, and you tell it everything you know about whatever subject it’s told you to study? So...ever refuse?”
Ydrel blinked. “I— But it needs to know.”
“Why? Ever ask it?”
Now Ydrel sat forward, dumbfounded. “I… It never occurred to me to ask.”
“How about going inside yourself and asking it now?”
Ydrel shut his eyes, furrowed his brow. Joshua stayed standing by the desk, watching the young man first tense completely, then seem to relax every muscle, much the way someone under hypnosis would relax while remaining straight in their seat.
Several minutes passed in silence before Ydrel shook his head. “I can’t. It has to call me.”
“Then that’s your first assignment. When it calls you, try this: First, see if you can establish some kind of arrangement so that it doesn’t call you at inconvenient times—you decide together what that means. Second, find out more about it, like why it needs this information so badly.”
“What if it refuses?”
“That’s really up to you. Myself, I’d hold out. Blackmail can work wonders.”
Ydrel met his eyes in a steady gaze, not challenging and not trying to see into him, yet searching. “You don’t believe me about the Miscria, do you? You think it’s some weird part of my unconscious. You don’t believe it’s an outside entity.”
Joshua moved his hand as part of a shrug. It was a visual anchor he’d used many times and it was a natural movement for him. “It doesn’t matter either way. The process works the same. Just give it a try. You don’t have anything to lose.” A yawn escaped his mouth, surprising him. He hadn’t realized he was so tired. “I’m sorry, but I’m beat. Finish that drink off, if you want it, and go to bed. I’ll see ya in the morning.”
He started for the door when Ydrel called him back. “Are we going to be friends? I mean, regardless of what Edith asked you to do?” he asked.
He regarded him for a moment, a spoiled and snarky kid dealing with something he didn’t think he could control. Josh could help him; he knew that. But be friends?
Then he thought about how this spoiled kid had jumped up to protect the nurse he considered the one good person in his life. There was definitely more to him than met the eye.
Joshua smiled. “Yeah, Ydrel. I think we are.”
