Distant Telepaths: Stories

by Timothy Zahn

A group of telepaths navigate the challenges of their power in four linked stories from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of the Star Wars Thrawn trilogy.
Dale Ravenhall is part of a small network of telepaths spread throughout North America. Although they can communicate with each other across hundreds of miles, if they get within twenty miles of each other, the mental pressure is fatal. Their situation requires them to be a cautiously tight-knit community, but when one of them is murdered, things begin to unravel . . .
The gripping world of Dale and his distant friends first appeared in "Red Thoughts at Morning" in 1981, and continued with "Dark Thoughts at Noon" and "Black Thoughts at Midnight. Now, in Distant Telepaths, Hugo Award–winning author Timothy Zahn brings the saga to a dramatic close with an all-new original story, "Bright Thoughts at Dawn."

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

227 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 7, 2025

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 Telepaths is a contemporary fix-up novel that differs from our world by the recent appearance of a small number of telepathic people who receive celebrity status because of their unique abilities. An interesting complication is that they can't come within close proximity to one another because their minds meld and destroys them; it's like the set-up Tanya Huff used with her vampires in the Blood books. A device is developed that dampens their powers and circumvents the problem, but it uses mysterious electrical "kernels" to power it, and they have been invented by a character who conveniently dies before anyone else can determine how they work (might as well call it magic) or how to build more. Our main character Dale Ravenhall finally gets together with his distant love Colleen, and she becomes pregnant with a telepathic child that raises more complex problems. An evil millionaire wants to take the child to use for nefarious purposes like corporate and economic espionage, and Dale and his small band of friends (both powered and non-) have to band together to save the day. There are four sequential stories that follow immediately after one another. The first two were published in Stanley Schmidt's Analog in April of 1981 and December of 1982, the third was written for a Baen collection (Distant Friends) in 1992, and the final appeared for the first time in this book in 2025. It's interesting to compare the differences in style and technology over the forty-some years between the times the different sections were written, especially since the setting time remains the same. In the earlier stories references are made to newspapers, trains, planes being hijacked to Cuba, portable tape players, and the most amazing bit, it's assumed that one would always keep a carbon copy of a letter that one sent through the mail to someone else. There's reference made to payment of two dollars an hour for electrical research, the idea of computers is that they're big, rare, and prohibitively expensive, there are phone booths and phones are attached to buildings by wires. By the third story there are cellular phones, but they're unusual. The final section sounds like now, so it's a fun progression. The book as a whole is engaging and well-written and makes for a nice addition close to the end of your shelf.

[Jaime K · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the worst things with this book (at least the e-book) is that the font is all the same. So when there is mental communication, not even italics are used and it is extremely difficult to differentiate when someone is thinking to themselves and when they are talking to others.

In this AU, telepaths are a rare mutation that allows the person to read anyone's mind (with focus) provided they're in close proximity. Unless it's with each other. Then, a 20-mile radius gets them killed, and anything within like 100 miles makes them start going insane as the two personalities begin to meld into one. There are 12 in North America, most of whom are in the US.

Dale Ravenhall is looking into the death of a telepath that is suspicious. He died without a struggle when a plane was hijacked. He was working on some telepath finder in secret, which Dale learns about through his impromptu investigation. There also seems to be some relationship to gambling.

It's very easy to see that one of the other telepaths is responsible for Amos' death. The telepath finder would allow the user to find telepaths.
Dale wants this to also stop telepathy so that he and others could be in close proximity to each other without going insane. His girlfriend, after all, is a telepath and they can never meet.
Unfortunately, the insane telepath practically melds with Dale, causing him to have daymares despite the other's death, and both his health concerns, selfishness for a device, and potential paranoia prevents him from seeing the danger of hiring a grad student to work on the electronics for him.

That shield plays a big part in the rest of the shorts, causing some benefits and some major issues. Indeed, the telepaths find themselves in life-or-death situations with some awful inky man behind it all.

I feel like things dragged on a bit at the end, though the overall book was quick to get through.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

When 2 minds meet

Dale is and always has been a telepath, without which he could live a normal life. But he fell in love with a woman and lived with that for years. Happy? Telepathy are killed, both mentally and physically, if they get too close to another telepath. Add to that, the battle of power others would have over governments, countries, people, if they had a telepath under their control. Such is the world Dale lives in. But there is so much more to endure. Take the journey of a lifetime with Dale and view the rawness of greed and evil.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just kind of skimmed through this short story series. Really liked his concept and characters were pretty well drawn. Feel like this could have been expanded into a novel, some of the plot lines were superficial. But I get that he wrote each of these stories over a quite a few years.

[Bill Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great stories good concussion !