Mind of My Mind by Octavia E. Butler
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Doro, an immortal being who has lived for thousands of years, moving from body to body of hosts he kills, has a breeding programme which eventually produces Mary, at telepath who has powers almost equal to his own. She discovers, or creates, the Pattern, which enables her to draw others to herself, and creates a kind of community. But Doro seeks to inhibit its growth.
This belongs to a subgenre of the science fiction I read in my youth, most of which was written in the "psi boom" of the early 1950s. These stories featured people who had "psi-powers", such as telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, precognition and the like. Mind of My Mind deals mainly with people who are telepathic, and thus able to read other people's minds. When young, this ability is latent but those who have it undergo a rather traumatic transition to become "active", which causes many of those who have the ability to go mad or die.
Over the years the subgenre has broadened and extended to fantasy literature, where characters have a much wider range of "superpowers" available to them, over and above the traditional psi powers.
I was introduced to Octavia Butler's work by Prof David Levey, of the English Department at Unisa (University of South Africa). Before the Covid pandemic we had a monthly coffee klatsch, where we would get together to discuss books, and Octavia Butler came up at one of these gatherings. But it was another five years before I found one of her books in a book shop.
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