Psi/Net

Rating:
Summary: An afternoon's light read
Review: A novel set in contemporary America dealing with Radical milita groups and psychic spying. I read this book in an afternoon. I didn't find it particulary deep or ground breaking.

The plot - save the president of the usa - therefore save the world - is not particulary new. I've seen it in countless movies and thriller novels before.

The novel's characters aren't badly written, but not terribly involving either. I can't say I'd be bothered if I never picked up this book again, but I also finished it quickly which proves it's not too bad. Enjoy this book, but don't expect a how-to psycic manual or anything too original.

Rating:
Summary: An afternoon's light read
Review: A novel set in contemporary America dealing with Radical milita groups and psychic spying. I read this book in an afternoon. I didn't find it particulary deep or ground breaking.

The plot - save the president of the usa - therefore save the world - is not particulary new. I've seen it in countless movies and thriller novels before.

The novel's characters aren't badly written, but not terribly involving either. I can't say I'd be bothered if I never picked up this book again, but I also finished it quickly which proves it's not too bad. Enjoy this book, but don't expect a how-to psycic manual or anything too original.

Rating:
Summary: A passable read from an actor/ghostwriter combo.
Review: Following in the footsteps of William Shatner and a number of other SF-franchise actors bringing ghostwritten genre novels to market, Billy Dee Williams teams up with author Rob MacGregor with PSI/NET, a strange exploration into the alleged phenomenon of "remote viewing." Like a TV movie, PSI/NET takes the flimsiest of concepts - American intelligence agencies' documented experiments with psychic reconnaissance - and packs it with a few oddball elements that don't seem a perfect fit, but up the spectacle quotient. In this case it's aliens, white supremacists and a nuclear threat on Washington, DC. Coming next week on Fox?

Perhaps knowing that no one picking up a novel ostensibly written by an actor without a literary background will care whether the material is up to snuff, the editors of PSI/NET have let the manuscript slip through their grasp without smoothing out its bumps. There's good stuff here, to be sure. The idea of "remote viewers," trained psychics with the ability to see anyone and anything simply by focusing their minds, is a fairly creepy, X-FILES-ish concept. The book is at its best when the hero, retired government psychic Trent Calloway, struggles to use his erratic abilities to track down the cabal of baddies that populate the story.

Unfortunately PSI/NET doesn't maintain this atmosphere of foggy mystery, with bits of an ESP-driven puzzle slowly falling into place. PSI/NET is a fairly slim book, and it becomes rapidly clear that the author(s) have little interest in dragging things out. By the end Trent and his allied psychics are engaging in high-powered mental warfare with their enemies, and all the flavor of the early "remote viewing" elements are lost. PSI/NET quickly becomes a sort of action story where psionics replace guns.

PSI/NET seems hurried overall. The prime rule of "show, don't tell" is regularly violated, with undigested chunks of exposition passing through the narrative on a regular basis. There's hardly any time taken to define the characters as people, and by the end the reader will still have questions about key moments in Calloway's background. The villains barely get any space to develop, and remain ciphers to the last. The narrative gets tangled up in itself about two-thirds of the way through.

Despite all its problems PSI/NET isn't a terrible book. In a way its brevity works to its advantage, as the reader is too occupied turning pages to be genuinely bothered by the shortcomings of the author(s). By the time the plot begins to irritate with its confused knot of plot threads, the story is over.

There's definite potential in PSI/NET but, like the latent powers of its psychic heroes and villains, it remains largely untapped. What could have made for a dark and paranoid tale devolves into gunfights, car chases, and last-minute machinations by powerful forces. Whether it was Williams or MacGregor who came up with the basic ideas behind the book, it's clear neither possessed the skill to bring out the best their story had to offer.

Rating:
Summary: Slow but involving.
Review: If anyone remembers the movie "Scanners" you can get into the story of Psi/Net. The story is kind of slow moving but I was always wondering how the story would turn out. No major action happens until near the end of the book. This reads more like a PG rated movie. Jedi mind tricks Mr. Williams? I'll buy the sequel to Psi/Net.

Rating:
Summary: Slow but involving.
Review: If anyone remembers the movie "Scanners" you can get into the story of Psi/Net. The story is kind of slow moving but I was always wondering how the story would turn out. No major action happens until near the end of the book. This reads more like a PG rated movie. Jedi mind tricks Mr. Williams? I'll buy the sequel to Psi/Net.