What would it be like to be able to read minds? by Mark Terence Chapman

I’m really into reading paranormal lately so I thought a series of blogs about the weird, uncanny, and maybe even electrifying would be in order. Guest blogger, Mark Terence Chapman, is a fellow Red Rose author who agreed to drop by and share a bit of his idea of paranormal.  Enjoy his blog and make sure you visit his site as well. (He has a gripping prologue and first chapter!) I for one can’t wait for his upcoming novel to release…

 What would it be like to be able to read minds?

When I was a kid, I thought that would be a cool superpower to have. I could tell when the bad guys were lying, I could force them to reveal where they’d hidden the bomb or the hostages, and I would know friend from enemy at a glance.

 

When I discovered science fiction as an adolescent, I couldn’t get enough of stories about telepathy and other psi powers. I ate up books like A.E. van Vogt’s Slan (about humans who had evolved telepathy and super intelligence), Robert A. Heinlein’s Time for the Stars (twins able to communicate telepathically), and others. Then came later tales, such as Star Trek with its telepathic Vulcans (via mind-meld), and Star Wars with the Jedi who could mentally tap into the Force. I couldn’t get enough of that stuff.

 

As I grew older my musings expanded to encompass larger questions. Would it be exhilarating, knowing what other people thought, or would I feel dirty, dishonest? And what if I wasn’t alone? What would a society of telepaths be like, where everyone could read everyone else’s minds? Would we share thoughts freely, or would we close our minds to one another and guard our thoughts jealously? Would we use our abilities for good—for the greater enlightenment of humanity—or for evil (stealing credit card and bank account numbers, for example). Knowing people, I figured probably both.

 

Those questions were intriguing enough for humans. But what if those telepaths were aliens? What would a society of telepathic aliens be like? And what would happen if nontelepathic humans encountered them?

 

I kept these ideas in mind when I wrote my novel, Sunrise Destiny. It begins as an ordinary detective novel, with private investigator Donatello Sunrise summoned by a mob boss to help find his missing daughter. But it quickly changes to something else when Sunrise encounters telepathic aliens along the way. Soon he and his hooker girlfriend are being chased by Mob goons who want their heads; the cops, who want them for serial murders; and even a faction of the telepathic aliens, who want them for still other reasons.

 

In order to protect Earth, Sunrise and Lola find themselves in the situation of having to help the good aliens defeat the evil ones—but first they have to figure out which are which.

 

Along the way, Sunrise and Lola learn some of the pros and cons of telepathy, and with it humanity’s hope for the future.

 

Sunrise Destiny will be released shortly by Red Rose Publishing (no date yet). You can read an excerpt on Red Rose’s website at http://redrosepublishing.com/bookstore/excerpts/unedited/SunriseDestiny__excerpt.html. For information about my other books and short stories, please visit my web site at http://tesserene.com, or my blog at http://tesserene.blogspot.com.