The ‘Sense of Silence’ series is aimed at Young Adult readers and above.
Starting with ‘A Sense of Silence – the first of the Sam Wright Adventures’ the Peter Reisz books are novels that deal with thought-provoking ideas. For example, what would YOU do if you found that you were telepathic?
Here’s a flavour of the problem with which you would have to cope:
Extract:
“There are those who believe that we are all born with a telepathic gift, but we almost always fail to discover it. Even if we do find it, fear, cynicism and hostility to the unknown will prevent us from living at ease with an ability that is not regarded as ‘normal’.”
Extract:
“If we are to escape the confines of this planet, the human race must evolve. We are not well equipped for travel through interstellar space and we are still constrained by the law that states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Science has so far failed to supply a solution. But evolution might.
“Consider the shape that such evolution might take. It will not be enough simply to grow taller, faster and cleverer or to live longer or more healthily. That is not evolution in the sense that Darwin would have recognised it, but merely the by-product of better food, improved living conditions, medicine and accessible education – at least in the developed world.
“Evolution of a species isn’t about doing the same things better. It’s about developing new skills. When early life acquired the ability to live on land and thereby left the water – that was evolution. When our ancestors learnt to walk upright and to manufacture tools, that was evolution.
“Future humans must acquire skills that none of us currently possess. Such abilities, till now confined to the imagination of creative authors and film-makers, may help the human race reach outwards, to populate other planets and to spread among the stars.
“Some people believe that technological advances will suffice. They are wrong. We cannot vest our future in inanimate machines. They are not the answer.
“Indeed, over-reliance on technology may send the human race backwards, lazing itself towards extinction. No: to leave this Earth we must develop skills of which we currently only dream.
“I predict that we will learn the ability to communicate without the use of speech or machines, through the power of thought alone. I believe there may be people living among us today who can already do this.
“It is expansion of the mind in which we must place our hopes for human survival. That, Ladies and gentlemen, is the Destination of the Species.
“But here’s the tragedy of the human way. If there are people out there today who can do these things, my advice to them is to keep very quiet about it. It is the nature of man to destroy anything that he perceives as abnormal or different. We are the first species in the history of our planet to have developed the power to halt our own evolution.”
“Extract from New Year Lecture delivered by Professor Stamford Harkness to the Royal Society.”
Could YOU cope with the pressures of being so different?
Peter Reisz Books 