SPECULATIVE FICTION REVIEW by Stephanie Young

TITLE Mind One

AUTHOR Mike Dolinsky

PUBLISHER Dell

COPYWRIGHT 1972

PRINTING 1972

Janice passed this book on to me because we had a discussion about a world where everyone could read each other’s mind. In a nutshell that is the premise of this book. It starts out with Bert Roland, an institutionalized schizophrenic, dealing with being able to hear other’s thoughts and feel their emotions. This neural overload is the result of a new drug that is supposed to treat patients with schizophrenia. Someone missed this side effect on the warning label.

Bert comes to a predictable end which prompts the four people who know what happened; the psychiatrist, the doctor, the biochemist, and the drug company owner, to take the drug themselves to prove whether it was the cause of Bert’s telepathy or not.

It does and the resulting cacophony of thoughts and emotions gets ugly, especially since the doctor and the shrink have some history. Did I mention that the doctor is also a Catholic priest? Eventually the government gets involved and that is when everything goes to crap.

Not everyone gets their dose of wonder drug, but enough do causing society to quickly break down. Fortunately we as a species manage to come back from the edge of oblivion and learn a lesson or two.

I liked the book because the premise is terrific, the characters are well written, and the end is satisfying. What surprised me is that this is the only science fiction novel Dolinsky wrote. He was, however, a prolific television script writer. In the 60’s and early 70’s he wrote scripts for a couple dozen different shows. Of interest to most who will read this review is an episode of Star Trek called Plato’s Stepchildren. If you recall, that episode dealt with a planet of telepath who also possessed kinetic abilities as well. I suspect that was the seed for this novel.

If you can find this book in a used bookstore or on E Bay, buy it and read it. Maybe if you’re lucky you’ll find a science fiction who that has an old enough collection to have it.

I give it 4 rings of Saturn.