The Telzey Toy

The third Schmitz book I've read and the second one about Telzey. These books follow a pattern. The Telzey character is like a cardboard cut out, in that she has no empathy or emotions of any kind. And her mental powers keep becoming more superhuman each story. With the lack of morals as well, in terms of prying into other people's minds and restructuring their personality to make them nicer people, she comes across as monstrous but it is clear that isn't how the author wants the reader to see her.

It is so far away from how a real teenage girl would act/react it suggests that the author lacked empathy with other people. The stories set up ingenious situations but lack real drama - even in the Witches of Karres which isn't quite so bad - show more there is a wimp out every time some excitement needs to be racked up. Things are resolved far too simply, by coincidence or in the case of the Telzey books by her general ability to do just about anything. show less

What a delightful collection of stories. There are times when the prose is so restrained it seems almost artless, but underneath that there is some very interesting thinking going on. What is psi? How might it operate in a real world setting? What challenges might a powerful psi face, and how might she think and finesse her way out of them?

And all in a main character who is sixteen, female, smart as a whip and courageous and ethical to boot. Schmitz, an American who grew up in Germany, has a playful and often humorous approach in his otherwise serious and always flamboyant stories. A nice respite from the gloom of serious lit.

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/schmitz_james_h

The only story I really remembered from this was The Telzey Toy, and I mostly recognized things as they came along rather than anticipating. The other stories didn't feel new, but I had no idea what would happen in them. Enjoyable, minor adventures for Telzey (Toy was a somewhat larger one). I recognized references to other Telzey stories - the psi who didn't know it, for instance. And nice to meet Trigger here, in one story. I am going to read Flint's edited versions soon, and see what's changed (aside from, I'm sure, tapes).

Excellent early science fiction. And like the first cat you see with blue eyes, this was the first that treated women as competent, functioning people instead of sex objects. I'm forever grateful to Schmitz.

Oh, yes, the story... Telzey Amberdon, the xenotelepath, investigates something curious and find herself trapped on an island with a mad scientist and a duplicate of herself.

This has been re-issued as "Ti's Toys" in the anthology, T 'n T: Telzey Amberdon & Trigger Argee Together: Complete Federation of the Hub, Volume 2.

This was a very quick and enjoyable read. The book is a collection of short stories about Telzey Amberdon, a telepath on a planet called Orado in an unspecified future time. The entire book fits perfectly in the zeitgeist of the 1970s. The eponymous opening story reminded me a great deal of The Prisoner.