Joan D. Vinge - Cat 1 - Psion

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Joan D. Vinge

Editorial Reviews

Ingram

Orphaned young and forced to survive on the streets of a distant planet, telepathic Cat is

the ultimate future punk, but he is swept into a struggle for his life when two interstellar

powers want to use his mind as a weapon. Reprint. H. AB. --This text refers to an out of

print or unavailable edition of this title.

Card catalog description

A sixteen-year-old delinquent who has spent his life lying and stealing becomes involved

in a research project which unleashes his extraordinary telepathic powers. --This text

refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Spotlight Reviews

Fine, fine story, July 8, 2001

Reviewer:

I discovered this jewel of a book completely by accident one day in my univerity's

library. It was shelved in the children's storybook section, oddly enough. An obvious,

glaring mistake. I knew it had to be something more, not only by its thickness, but by it's

title. Show me a five year old who would know how to pronounce the word 'psion.' I

checked it out, and damn, am I glad I did. Vinge gives her stories a character, a mood,

and a depth that is absent from many sci-fi novels, which love to focus on infathomable

technology instead of a good story. You can't help but to like Cat, and to feel for him

throughout the hell he's put through. 'Psion' is just the first in the Cat trilogy, followed by

'Catspaw' and 'Dreamfall.' If you like your sci-fi with just the right amount of character

and the right amount tech, then get these three books if you can. And be sure you get

them all at the same time, or you'll find yourself going nuts waiting to read the next part.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title

All Customer Reviews

Avg. Customer Review:

Just a question...., February 9, 2003

Reviewer:

I haven't actually read this book. I checked out Catspaw from the library, started it,

and realized I didn't have a clue about what was going on. So I had to place a hold on the

two (?) other books that come before. Psion and Phoenix in the Ashes, right? But then I

noticed that Psion and Catspaw are offered as a set along with another book, Alien Blood.

Is that part of this series as well? I can't find any information on it...So that's just my

kinda stupid question. I was just wondering if anyone knew the answer and would like to

make a post. It would really be appreciated. I hate not starting at the beginning of a

series...hehe. Thanks so much.

Psion, May 31, 2002

Reviewer:

Psion is about a penniless orphan boy named Cat because of his strange appearance.

For his entire solitary life Cat is discriminated against for reasons unknown to him. But

one night he is caught by government officials, and instead of selling him into legal slave

labor they send him to an institute for psychics. There he is told he is an exceptionally

powerful telepath because rather than having a remnant of alien blood as do the other

psychics he is half alien, which accounts for his catlike pupils, and the government wants

his help in catching a renegade psychic who sells his power and wants to destroy those in

power. This from the people who insult, abuse, mistreat, and cheat him and his kind

whenever possible. When Cat is sold into the slavery by the people he had only just

begun to trust and is then recruited by the feared Quicksilver he has to decide which side

he's going to choose. Whether he is going to join Quicksilver and have riches rather than

derision or whether he will risk his life and try to trick Quicksilver for the people who

betrayed him and the empath who was the only one who ever cared. Only.... While he is

there, he meets the other half of the family tree.

If you can get this book do it. You certainly won't regret it. --This text refers to an out

of print or unavailable edition of this title

Psion, May 31, 2002

Reviewer:

Psion is followed by a short story in Pheonix in the Ashes, Catspaw, and then

Dreamfall. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title

Fun, if fluffy reading, November 22, 2001

Reviewer:

This story explores the use of the telepathy rather nicely. Mrs. Vinge imagines a

compelling plot and her characters are original and many-dimensional.

Unfortunatly, Psion falls victim to a common trend in 1980s Science Fiction- cliches and

stupidity.

The author apparently feels compelled to stick certain things in the book, even if they

don't always fit. The hero's love intrest is taken by the hero's enemy, the hero is hurt

seriously and cared for by the love intrest, the hero kills someone, ect.

Also, Mrs. Vinge's book is a light read. There are plot twists, but the book doesn't make

on think. The subject of telepathy could be used to explore certain tendancies of human

nature, or privacy laws. But it isn't.

All in all, a well rounded book. Read it on vacation or on the beach. --This text refers to

an out of print or unavailable edition of this title

To Carol Pugner,

who always believed in Cat.

And to Andre Norton,

who is Cat’s spiritual godmother.

Contents

PART I CAT

PART II CRAB

PART III

PART I CAT

The gem-colored dream shattered, and left the kid gaping on the street. Jarred by

passers-by and stunned by ugliness, he gulped humid night air. The dreamtime he had

paid his last marker for was over, and somewhere in the street voices sang, “Reality is no

one’s dream. . . .”

A richly robed customer of the Last Chance suicide gaming house knocked him

against a pitted wall, not even seeing him. He cursed wearily and fumbled his way to the

end of the building. Pressure-sensitive lighting flickered beneath the heavy translucent

pavement squares, trailing him as he stepped into the funnel of an alleyway. Aching with

more than one kind of hunger, he crept into the darkness to sleep it off.

And one of the three Contract Labor recruiters who had been watching nodded, and

said, “Now.”

The kid settled into a crevice between piles of cast-off boxes, where the unsleeping

gleam of the pavement was buried under layers of back-alley filth. He didn’t mind dirt;

he didn’t even notice it. Dirt grayed his worn clothes, the pale curls of his hair, the warm

brown of his skin. Dirt was a part of his life: like the smell, like the constant drip of

sewage somewhere in the darkness, leaking down through the roof of his world from

Quarro, the new city that had buried Oldcity alive.

Water striking a metal walkway rang like endless bells through the fibers of his abused

nerves. He raised unsteady hands to cover his ears, trying to stop the sound of the water

torture and the sounds of the furious argument in a room up over his head. He felt the

throbbing of distant music . . . the beat of heavy footsteps coming down the alley toward

him.

He froze, sitting as still as death, caught in a sudden premonition. His eyes came open

slowly, intensely green eyes with long slitted pupils like a cat’s. The pupils widened, his

eyes became pools of blackness absorbing every particle of available light-showing him

with unhuman clarity three heavy bodies wearing shadow-black uniforms: the carrion

crows of Contract Labor, a press gang searching the night for “volunteers.” Searching for

him.

“Jeezu!” His drug-heavy body jerked with panic. He dropped forward onto his knees,

hands groping in the trash around him. His fingers closed over the plass-smooth coolness

of a bottleneck. He pulled it to him as the alley filled with dazzling, confused motion and

he was surrounded by men in black. Their hands caught his clothing, dragging him up,

off-balance; he was slapped, shoved. Trying to find words, breath, time to protest . . . he

found his arm instead, his hand, the bottle clutched in it. He brought it up in one hard

sudden rush.

The heavy shatterproof plass struck the side of a man’s head with a dull sponk; the

impact jarred the kid against the greasy building wall, and the recruiter fell. Two were

still coming, their faces dark with vengeance, ready to make him pay. He dodged left,

right, making them counter; suddenly he kicked out and up with ruthless urgency. A

second man went to his knees with a bellow of agony.

The third one was on him as he tried to break away, dragging him back and down. The

kid clawed at the pile of crates beside him, twisting like a snake in the recruiter’s grip.

The load shifted and swayed; he felt it begin to fall-

He sprawled free as the crates came down. He was on his feet and running before the

crashes and cursing ended, before any of them were even up off their knees to follow

him.

“Kid!”

He had almost reached the alley mouth when the shout caught up with him. He kept

running, knowing the recruiters were not armed. Something struck him in the back of the

head; he cried out as painstars burst inside his eyes. Warm wetness showered over his

hair, sluiced down his neck, drenched his jerkin. He lifted a hand, brought it down from

his forehead wet with luminous orange dye, not blood. “Shit.” He swore again, half in

relief, half in fresh panic: they had marked him for a police pickup. He stripped off his

jerkin as he ran, running harder out into the midnight crowds of Godshouse Circle. But

the dye had already soaked through to his skin, and even the crowds could not hide him.

Night was when the upsiders came slumming, came to wallow in Oldcity sin; and the

Corporate Security Police came with them, to protect the rich from the poor. He elbowed

aside thieves and beggars, musicians, pimps, and jugglers, along with the silken

customers who fed and bled them all.

He had been a thief for most of his life; on another night he would have welcomed this

crowd. But tonight startled heads were turning, angry voices were rising, arms waving,

pointing, clutching. Somewhere an arm in gray would lift a stungun-

He broke through into the Street of Dreams; its throat of golden light swallowed him

up in incense and honey and loud, rhythmic music. He had never run down this street

before. He had stood gawking in it a thousand times, seduced by the promise that all his

wildest dreams would be fulfilled if only he would step through this door . . . this door . .

. my door . . . no, mine. But none of those doors had ever let him past, given him refuge,

welcomed or even pitied him. Tonight would be no different. He pushed on through the

yielding chaos of real and holo-flesh, feeling the crowd drain the bright energy of his

panic. A mistake, this was a mistake- Orange sweat ran into his eyes; the street’s glaring

assault on his tortured senses was making him sick.

Someone shouted, and this time he saw uniform gray. He began to run again, trying to

keep the crowd between them; running through nightmare. But he still knew the streets

better than he knew his own face. Instinct saved him, and he dodged into a narrow crack

below a shadowed archway. He ran down steps, up steps, clattering through sudden light

and blackness along a metal catwalk-out into another alley, between rows of silent pillars;

navigating by constellations of distant streetlights.

Footsteps and shouting still trailed him, but they were falling behind now, out of sight.

He let himself slow, almost missing the break between abandoned buildings-the

crumbling wall that left him room enough to squeeze through, just below the hanging

entrails of Quarro. He clambered up a fallen girder, his breath coming in sobs. He

crouched and leaped, straining to bridge the gap. But his legs gave way; his body had no

strength left to give him. His fingers caught, clung, slipped from the lip of broken stone.

He dropped back into the rubble four meters below. An ankle cracked as he came down;

as his body, abused for too long, betrayed him at last.

He huddled over, cursing the white-hot pain softly, until they came for him. Again he

crouched in a yellow wash of light until rough hands dragged him up and held him

against the wall. This time there were guns, and this time he didn’t try to struggle. He

whimpered as they prodded his leg; they made him stand on the other one, hands locked

behind him, until the pickup unit arrived. They knew who had marked him. They worked

for the Federation Transport Authority, and the FTA took care of its own, they said. They

knew his kind, they said; they knew his record, too. He couldn’t do what he’d just done

and think he wouldn’t pay. “Get used to it, kid. This is the end of everything for you.”

But they were wrong. It was only the beginning.

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JoanD.VingeEditorialReviewsIngramOrphanedyoungandforcedtosurviveonthestreetsofadistantplanet,telepathicCatistheultimatefuturepunk,butheissweptintoastruggleforhislifewhentwointerstellarpowerswanttousehismindasaweapon.Reprint.H.AB.--Thistextreferstoanoutofprintorunavailableeditionofthistitle.Cardcatal...

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