Distant Friends and Others

by Timothy Zahn

In love with fellow telepath Colleen Isaac, Dale Ravenhall realizes that the very thing that enables him and Colleen to read each other's minds would kill them both if they came within twenty miles of each other.

Contents:
Red Thoughts at Morning (1981)
Dark Thoughts at Noon (1982)
Black Thoughts at Midnight (1992)
The Peaceful Man (1982)
The Evidence of Things Not Seen (1986)
Guardian Angel (1986)
Expanded Charter (1983)
Final Solution (1982)
Pawn's Gambit (1982)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Romance, Fantasy, Ebooks, Anthologies

320 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1992

About the author

Timothy Zahn attended Michigan State University, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in physics in 1973. He then moved to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and achieved an M.S. degree in physics in 1975. While he was pursuing a doctorate in physics, his adviser became ill and died. Zahn never completed the doctorate. In 1975 he had begun writing science fiction as a hobby, and he became a professional writer. He and his wife Anna live in Bandon, Oregon. They have a son, Corwin Zahn.

Reviews

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Distant Friends and Others is a collection of short works by Zahn that Baen published in 1992. The first three stories form a short novel, and Zahn wrote a fourth a year or two ago which was added to the original trio and published as a very good stand-alone, Distant Telepaths. The other six stories in the Friends iteration were originally from Baen's Far Frontiers series and The Magazine of F & SF (one each), and the rest from Analog, all from the early-t0-mid 1980s. (Zahn just almost -owned- Schmidt's Analog before Lucas came calling.) My favorites were Final Solution (one of his Hive Mind stories), Guardian Angel, and especially Pawn's Gambit, which was on the final Hugo ballot for best novelette of the year. (It lost to the excellent Fire Watch by Connie Willis.) Zahn always blends intriguing concepts with hard science, and his characters are always convincing.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Timothy Zahn is an excellent writer. I always look forward to his new works.

[John Loyd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Distant Friends and others (1992) 314 pages by Timothy Zahn

I read most of these stories 30 years ago when they first appeared in Analog, but they were all worth a re-read. Telepaths in the first three stories have the ability to read ordinary minds up to about 20 feet except for the other telepaths. There they can communicate two-way for hundreds of miles, the trouble is if they are closer than 20 miles it will kill them. The stories revolve around technological innovations pertaining to their ability.

A compliment of soldiers are sent to a world to deal with the native aliens in The Peaceful Man. Evidence of Things Not Seen is set in the Cascade Point universe. The protagonists have to work out what has happened basically from a missing cascade image. In Guardian Angel a reporter tries to find the ulterior motive of the Druat corporation in giving body guards to the elderly. Final Solution is a dystopic future where the humans on a colonized planet are on the verge of mutual destruction. Expanded Charter is a setup for the twist at the end.

Pawn's Gambit was the one story where I remembered the plot. It was awesome when I read it the first time, and I caught more nuances this time. Kelly McClain is abducted by the Stryf and pitted in games of strategy against different aliens.


Red Thoughts at Morning 26 pages
Dark Thoughts at Noon 38 pages
Black Thoughts at Midnight 65 pages
The Evidence of Things Not Seen 60 pages
Pawn's Gambit 32 pages
Outstanding!

The Peaceful Man 24 pages
Guardian Angel 22 pages
Final Solution 38 pages
Excellent.

Expanded Charter 6 pages
Very good+

[August · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've come to enjoy short story collections much more than I used to, and "Distant Friends and Others" is a good example of why: I like to become quickly engaged with a set of characters and circumstances, and Zahn is the master of engaging me. I did pick this book up years ago and try to read it, and sure enough, on second reading, the first story is as dull as I remember. But there was a spark of something interesting, so I kept reading, and after the initial three title stories, I really loved what Zahn had to offer here.

[Todd · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty standard science fiction short stories. The typical insights into human nature and wild imagination about the future and the universe around us. Ok, I guess I don't know enough sci-fi to say typical, but it was entertaining. Zahn wrote some Star Wars books back in the day, so that is how I know of him.

[D.M. Dutcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mostly average collection of shorter Zahn works. The centerpiece of the book are three short stories about telepaths who cannot get too close too each other because of death by personality assimilation. There's another story set in the "Cascade Point" universe, but most of the stories don't have much in the way of any spark to them. For Zahn completionists only.

[David Hibberd · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an entertaining collections of short stories. The first three deal with telepaths that the world is aware of but not concerned about because they have a limited range when reading non-telepaths. They can communicate with each other over long distances but should they come within 20 miles things get dicey. Their personalities can begin to merge and if they get too close, both will die.
Dale and Colleen are long-distance telepathic lovers. Their telepathic friends are Gordy and Calvin. They learn about the death of Amos, an elder statesman to the telepaths. Dale has questions about his death and begins to investigate. He learns that Amos had invented a telepath detector which would help eliminate the accidental intrusion of the 20-mile limit. He eventually learns about how and why Amos died and comes close to dying himself.
In the second story Dale hires someone to help develop a telepath shield that will overcome the 20-mile barrier. He wants to be able to be with Colleen physically. A shield is created but the man working on it wants to invent a mechanical process for telepathy. The friends are able to overcome that problem.
The third story finds that Colleen is now pregnant with Dale's child because of the telepath shield. However, the developing child appears to have telepathic abilities creating migraine headaches for Colleen. The telepath shield allows her and the fetus to exist together but they need to be able to explain how two telepaths can be together and not reveal the existence of the shield. Once more they overcome the problem.
There are some interesting aspects of being telepathic. They are aware of other's thoughts as background noise and enjoy the instant communication with other telepaths. However, under the influence of the shield, they are totally alone. For Colleen this is difficult since she has lived in a world where thoughts are all around her but because of her developing child, she must live isolated from the world and her friends.
The remaining six stories are all fun and very clever. One story deals with invisible Guardian Angels. Another has a starship encountering a ship of hive-mind aliens and decide that being a hive-mind can be the solution to their planet's imminent threat of world war. Another story deals with a human teleported to another world to be pitted against a variety of aliens to play games. The purpose is for the race overseeing the games to learn about the abilities of the different races and identify potential threats. I enjoyed this story because of the unique way the human, Kelly, overcomes the situation.
Overall, this book was a lot of fun to read.