Dagger of the Mind

by Bob Shaw

‘THE ENTIRE HEAD HAD BEEN STRIPPED OF SKIN. CREATING A NIGHTMARISH SCULPTURE IN GELLED BLOOD…’The hideous apparition that confronted him almost defied description. It was the beginning of a horrific ordeal that would cause him to question his own sanity…A member of a telepathic research project, Redpath believes the cause to be side-effects from the experimental drugs he is taking - but then stranger things begin to happen. He wakes to find himself in America… he drawn to a local house occupied by a bizarre group of people which events are really happening?SLOWLY AN EXPLANATION EMERGES MORE TERRIFYING THAN ANYTHING HE COULD HAVE IMAGINED…

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, British Literature

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Bob Shaw was born in Northern Ireland. After working in structural engineering, industrial public relations, and journalism he became a full time science fiction writer in 1975.

Shaw was noted for his originality and wit. He was two-time recipient (in 1979 and 1980) of the Hugo Award for Best Fan Writer. His short story Light of Other Days was a Hugo Award nominee in 1967, as was his novel The Ragged Astronauts in 1987.

Reviews

[Ajeje Brazov · Rating 3 out of 5]

Il racconto parte subito in quarta e mi ha tenuto incollato alle pagine fino ad arrivare a poco dopo la metà, dove si conoscerà l'arcano e da lì il tutto è iniziato ad annoiarmi, nel finale si riprende leggermente, ma nel complesso l'ho trovato appena sufficiente, forse è invecchiato male.
Cosa succederà se una mattina ci si svegliasse e si sentisse: una voce? un presentimento? un qualcosa all'interno di noi stessi come, appunto, un terzo occhio della mente? e tutto ciò che ci circonda iniziasse a risultarci sconosciuto o addirittura anormale?
Il protagonista scoprirà qualcosa di sorprendente e rivelatore, ma...

[Two Envelopes And A Phone · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very strange re-read for me, decades after becoming a huge fan of this author in my teens - but I did enjoy it (again). 3.5 stars, rounded up maybe for sentimental reasons, as 54 year old me can see the flaws better than 18 year old me.

Sort of Bob Shaw's Horror effort; Fire Pattern has a Horror feel until about halfway, as I recall, but then it chucks that and flips the plot on its head and proudly screams "I'm SF!". IMO, Dagger of the Mind is the more entertaining and successful novel, but even in its last few chapters it talks and quacks SF, in a way that might peeve Horror fans who had liked the creepy tone of the book until Bob Shaw decided to, uh, reverse the polarity of the neutron flow. So, there's that - and just the rushed nature of the ending in general, which means not every freaky head-trippy thing gets fully explained.

Except for the ending, we've got pretty effective SF/Horror hybridism here, with the emphasis on "what's real, what's illusion, what's in here that just wants to eat me?" Twilight-Zoning going on. Main character a victim of telepathy experiments gone wrong? Seeing vile gross things, doing nasty stuff for real, or just dreaming? Getting homicidal because it's his hidden nature and the mindjob on him is bringing it out? Getting homicidal and yet it was not really in his nature (Leila and possibly not-real Leila - is Leila really there half the time? - seems to think he's a teddy bear no matter how nightmarish things get) but the drugs have changed his brain? Or...something even worse is creepin' around out there?

The book at times reminded me of Incarnate by Ramsey Campbell, The Sleep Police by Jay Bonansinga, House of Thunder by Dean Koontz...or maybe it's some 195-page, stripped-to-the-bone, mutated high-speed version of the back half of Stephen King's It, complete with dubious finale choices/"best bits were earlier" feel.

[Sterling Wesson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good! I do think it jumps the shark a little towards the end, as my favourite part was definitely when you can’t quite tell what’s real and what’s fake (much like the protagonist). Pretty engaging characters and plot, though it does suffer from the other two similarly aged women characters mainly being reduced to just a male gazey object of desire.

[UmBlogueSobreLivros · Rating 2 out of 5]

Review completa em UmBlogueSobreLivros
Opinião | "Pesadelo Cósmico" de Bob Shaw

O verdadeiro pesadelo foi ler o livro até ao fim.

Pessoalmente achei que este livro estava cheio de boas ideias mas que foram muito pouco exploradas. Durante grande parte do livro o autor consegue manter uma certa aura de mistério, em que não sabemos ao certo se o que estamos a ler faz parte de uma alucinação ou realidade, e depois, a determinado ponto, temos duas folhas em que praticamente despeja tudo. A ideia que dá é que começou a escrever a história com uma ideia em mente, depois aquilo começou a ficar uma embrulhada e decidiu "ó pá, isto é ficção científica! Mete-se aqui uns alienígenas e damos o caso por encerrado".

Mas ... e este é um grande "MAS" as personagens são péssimas e há coisas que não fazem realmente sentido. Redpath é um tipo absolutamente detestável. Leila, que ao início até parece ser uma mulher independente e interessante, acaba por ser uma desilusão neste relação de dependência que mantém com Redpath. Percebo que a ideia devia ser haver ali o factor "romance" mas, decididamente, não correu muito bem.

Não foi um livro que me tivesse prendido e não será um livro que volte a ler mas, para todos os curiosos que, como eu, querem explorar as obras de ficção científica, vale a pena a leitura, até porque é um livro pequeno (201 páginas) e tem umas ideias interessantes.

[José Gomes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aventurei-me neste livro por ter sido referenciado pelo o João Vagos.

Gostei do início, o primeiro capítulo estava fantástico e as ideias eram muito boas:
"John Redpath é um doente, um epiléctico. Visões estranhas, horrorosas, envolvem-no. Que são elas? Um efeito inesperado da sua doença e dos medicamentos experimentais que é pago para tomar? Ou a realidade? Ou algo pior, incrivelmente pior - algo tão incrível que John Redpath não tem coragem de o revelar a quer quer que seja?"
No entanto, faltou sal. As personagens eram muito superficiais, as descrições de terror eram insípidas. Isto nas mãos do Stephen King ficaria uma obra prima.

Mesmo as cenas de suspense, não criavam em mim a expetativa, a absorvência na leitura.
Esta ausência de interesse pelo desenlace da obra ocorreu-me de tal modo, que rapidamente pegava noutro livro e lia de uma ponta a outra, enquanto este andava de um lado para outra na mala.

E depois, num virar de página - sim, eu voltei a trás na esperança que tivesse saltado umas páginas sem querer, mas não - John Redpath resolve o enigma, tudo graças a um filme que ele gosta e vê na TV. Não conheço o filme e talvez por isso não percebi o que se passou.

Para culminar, o fim foi o elemento mais fraco do livro.
Primeiro, pela "facilidade" com que Redpath aniquila O Primeiro Nascido. Ser altamente desenvolvido no intelecto e com poderes mentais, mas que prefere manipular 3 humanos em vez de manipular unicamente o atacante.
Segundo, no fim Leila aceita casar com o tresloucado Redpath. Talvez tenha sido por pena.

Com a ajuda do Goodreads, percebi que comecei a leitura deste livro no dia 2 de Setembro e terminei-o no dia 3 de Novembro, foi um arrastar a leitura para 2 meses.

[Bill Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a slow and confusing warm-up to a science fiction horror style tale, but this builds to a suitably satisfying ending. I felt the setting was rather too American for a tale set mostly in Eastern England, but this doesn't distract from the slow build-up. Worth the effort to get to the body of the tale.

[Michael Hill · Rating 1 out of 5]

I managed to get halfway through but the book never got any better. A man who suffers from epilepsy has a hint of telepathy. He also suffers from what he calls nightmares having delusional episodes. Also he lives in a house of weirdos.

[José GG · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

[Druss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my bag. Interesting

[Dave Morris · Rating 2 out of 5]

This one struck me as an interesting but failed experiment. We're introduced to a protagonist, John Redpath, who we don't know much about and who comes across as a slightly sinister creep. We're told that he has charm and a sense of humour, but we don't see it in action. His behaviour towards his sometime girlfriend verges on stalking. We're given an example of his desperate attempts at Wildean wit, weakened even further by the lack of confidence that makes him add an explanation of the witticism.

I don't demand a likable protagonist, but I do need a reason to care. Redpath is thrown into a very long series of escalating situations that appear to be hallucinations. At least one traumatizing event, in which he believes he has committed a very serious crime, turns out to be a figment of his imagination. So is he a Patrick Bateman, fantasizing all this? We don't know. He certainly seems to be an unstable narcissist, and the author doesn't give us any sense of what Redpath is like on a normal day, so for all we know this is the study of a drug-induced breakdown. And pretty soon weird fatigue sets in, so I ceased to try to make sense of all the strange events and just accepted them all as hallucinations.

It's kind of a shame because there is an interesting concept underlying all this - interesting enough to sustain a novelette, anyway. And some of the writing is nice, even if overdone. (Example: our attention is drawn to a character's odd gait. The first time it's mentioned it works as a quirk that adds flavour. When it's mentioned again it surely must have plot significance - as any detail might, in such a nightmarish scenario - but no. It was just a character quirk that the author liked so much he thought it was worth belabouring.) The bigger problems that can't be overlooked are people behaving unbelievably ("You broke into my home? And thought you murdered me? Don't worry, you only slashed a few sofa cushions. Hey, let's have sex.") and plot developments that just don't work - somebody getting off a transatlantic flight as the doors are closing by threatening to write to the newspapers, somebody wandering around with a stab wound in the abdomen.

In the hands of Philip K Dick, this could have been a masterpiece of paranoia and unreliability. Redpath would have been much nastier, sleazier, sneakier - and so much more interesting, and we'd never know if he was really saving the world or just spinning himself an ego-serving yarn.

[Fishface · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neato sci-fi story about a guy who is treated as, and thinks of himself as, a second-class citizen because of his epilepsy. He discovers unexpected, and frankly scary abilities in himself that might mean he is losing his mind, but might also mean that he has the power to stop something terrible from happening.

[João Sousa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book and very well written. But it left me a bitter feeling at the end, as I was expecting something heavier and more complex rather than a somehow weak resolution. Still, I think it was not a waste of time at all, I might even look for some more work by Bob Shaw.

[SciFiOne · Rating 2 out of 5]

1984 grade D+