Psion (Cat, #1) by Joan D. Vinge

Psion (Cat, #1) Reviews

• 
  ☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣

  I've been procrastinating to stave off reading this series for, like, 5 years? And now I finally have gotten to reading it. And it is as good as expected, maybe even a bit better. Love this.
  
  This is one of the most seriously underrated sci-fi series.
  
  Q:
  ... poetry was like psi, she said, like thought, a thing that compressed images to essence. (c)
• 
  Kirsten

  Cat, a street kid, is arrested and given a choice: he can submit to training to develop his latent psychic abilities, or he can be shipped offworld as an indentured laborer. Although he doesn't really believe he could be anything special, Cat chooses to take part in the training, and is swiftly drawn into a world of interplanetary intrigue. Vinge once again shows she can write sweeping science fiction and give it a human element. The "abused teen with psychic abilities" was done many times in the 80s (when this was published) but few did it as well as Vinge.
• 
  Dave

  One thing I've noticed as I rerereread this, in the context of years of gaming and gaming theory, is that the protagonist not only makes poor decisions much of the time, but repeatedly fails at standard "heroic" tasks. He makes messes of his relationships. He gets caught every time he runs. He loses every fight. He gets beaten, poisoned, enslaved, mindraped, and emotionally battered at every point throughout the story.
  
  And yet the story remains compelling despite this.
  
  Huh. Interesting.
• 
  Tracy

  This was ok. I remember reading Catspaw a long time ago and I really loved it. I will be reading it soon to see if I liked it better than this. Joan Vinge says in the forward that she started writing this character when she was a teenager and finished it as an adult. I think I could see that in this book. I thought I had read it before but now I’m not sure. Anyhow it was enjoyable, I did like the evolution of Cat’s character and I really liked the short story Psiren at the end of the book.
• 
  Aricia Gavriel

  Reading Psion for the third time (in twenty years) I find myself wondering if this story was actually intended as a ya novel, or if the publisher made the decision to market it to that readership, specifically because the central character -- Cat -- is a mid/late-teen at the time this story takes place. It doesn’t look like a ya novel to me: it’s dark, downbeat, cruel, with a vein of desperate hopelessness that would have thoroughly depressed me when I was a kid! (It’s like selling The Silver Sword as a children’s book. Perhaps the central character is a young kid, but I remember my mother being horrified when she scanned the copy I brought home from school. Hmm.)
  
  I actually read Psion second in this loose trilogy of Psion - Catspaw - Dreamfall, specifically to get the oft-referred-to backstory of our reluctant hero. One gathered from Catspaw that Cat had been through a number of utterly traumatic experiences, the first of which involved being no more than a tot when he was abandoned to the gutter, because he’s a human-alien half-caste … the other involved being sent to the radioactive mines, where escape is supposedly impossible and one’s life will be as short as it’s brutal.
  
  Not pleasant reading, in fact (which would make me hesitate to give it to a very sensitive younger reader), but the story is extremely well crafted, told without recourse to sex or bad language, as one would actually expect of a story written for a young readership. We follow Cat through a series of misadventures, where he learns that he’s a psion (telepath), and discovers how to use his gift.
  
  Nor is it a happy ending, though Cat obviously survives to fight another day. Psion is a fairly quick read, at something like 75k words, so one doesn’t need to dwell on the darkness too much; and if you do want the full backstory to the best book of the trilogy -- Catspaw -- you need to read this one, no matter how quickly. The second novel, which appeared some years later, justifies the bleakness of this read ... though I’m pretty sure the saga of Cat was not originally planned as a trilogy. Far too many years separate out the installments, and the three books are too radically different, each from the other, to really constitute a trilogy. Three interconnected novels featuring the same character at different points n his turbulent, somewhat tragic life ... not a trilogy.
  
  For Psion, I’d actually give 3.5 stars, if Goodreads would allow it, and recommend it not for young adults at all, but for adult readers who want the backstory to the exceptional novel which Catspaw is.
  
• 
  Matt Shaw

  Pretty clearly a first novel. While Vinge does a pretty decent job with telepaths, their interactions, and the cultural issues between them and non-psi humans, the general world-building is unsatisfying; corporate mercantilism run amok among the stars has been done more thoroughly elsewhere. The plot stumbles its way along to the finish line as if continuity was a chore; perhaps keeping this as a novella might have been better.
  
  Oddly, it's the very imperfect characters that appeal to me. There aren't any easily likeable characters, but no out-and-out execrable souls either; each has a past, a set of bugaboos to deal with, and no one seems to be made of infinite patience or avarice. This can be frustrating to a reader, but it makes the characters believable.
  
  This is serviceable, journeyman SF but a pale representative of the struggling-youth, coming-of-age corner of the market.
• 
  Monique Atgood

  I just finished re-reading this book for I think my 10th time. It hasn't lost it's flavor over the years, and I enjoy it more each time I pick it up - sorta like going back for your favorite flavor of ice cream time and again, providing much the same enjoyment that a good vanilla/strawberry fix provides.
  
  SYNOPSIS:
  Psion is about a street kid who is half alien. His alien half provided him with the ability to read minds, but he is helpless to use the talent. Some trauma so deeply hurt him that he is incapable of using his psychic abilities. Cat is taken to this institute where government agents try to put humpty back together and 'fix' his mind reading abilities. He befriends a fellow mind reader Dere and falls for a sweet girl Jule, a teleport who is the only person who believes Cat is not worthless. Jule believes Cat can help the government mind readers stop an infamous terrorist/mind reader/teleporter/telekenesis multi-talented 'Quicksilver' from taking over the FTA mines.
  
  Cat gets kicked out of the institute and sold into a slavery into the very mines that Quicksilver wants to overtake. The Cinder mines are haunted by an alien race of teleporting mind reading Hydrans. Cat is half Hydran and quickly becomes their 'key' to ending the humans reign on Cinder. Hydrans are helpless and cannot hurt or kill anyone without feeling the effects mirrored back at them.
  
  Cat is essentially a spy in a nest of mind readers, so he walks a fine and frighting line, as he and his small group try to thwart Quicksilver and his revolutionaries.
  
  What I love about it:
  The characters are portrayed in such a complex manner. The book is in first person format and you know and feel everything Cat does, the good the bad and the ugly.
  
  It is a timeless book that has drawn me back time and again for the pure enjoyment of entering Cat's heart in his harsh and heoric world.
  
  Negatives:
  I still want to know if Seibling is Cat's father. That question is never answered in any of the Cat books. Ever hear of DNA tests?
  
  SPOILER:
  The final confronation scene on Cinder is confusing. The knowledge that Seibling forces Cat through a 3 way joining to kill isn't obvious from the scene. The recap helps the reader to understand exactly what happened.
  
  This book is on my top 10 sci-fi books of all time. I love it. 'nough said.
• 
  egelantier

  cat, a half-breed kid trying to survive in the slums of big galactic city, tries to escape the forced labor press-gang, finds out he has a latent telepathic talent and ends up in a middle of a deadly game between greedy, corrupt human government and a psychopathic rebellious telepath. it doesn't end well for him or, frankly, everybody, but cat sure tries his best.
  
  i don't think me and vinge are a good match - i remember vaguely liking her snow queen homage a while back, but the way this book went? no. it's pretty straightforward soft sci-fi centered on an outcast hero, xenophobia and trying to find some applicable ethics in a setting where pretty much everybody is a hopeless asshole, and, well. there was nobody in there, except maybe cat, for me to like, and neither the writing nor the setting were especially good for me to settle for the book as a grimy but fascinating thought experiment.
  
  cat is tenacious, lonely and hurting, but there's nobody there for him to reach out for. the "good" side ranges from vaguely kind but absolutely inactive (see: jule taming, resident empath, and if she'd be any more inert she'd stop breathing) to actively assholish yet repeatedly exonerated by narartive (see: dr. siebeling, who repeatedly sabotages and betrays cat, and honestly, all i can do there is to quote rocket the raccoon: boo hoo, my wife and child are dead! everybody dies, and tell him to grow a fucking conscience). cat picks one bad side against the other, citing tenuous human connections and whatnot, but all that i, as a reader, took out of this book is that i'd like to erase this entire setting with a fire and start it over.
• 
  Molly

  I'll just come straight out of the gate saying that Psion feels twice as long as it needs to be. It has great ideas, good characters, and a fun setting. The themes that peak through aren't groundbreaking but well executed. For a Young Adult novel.
  
  It also suffers from being Young Adult, as those books are primarily made as a power fantasy rather than an exploration of character or themes. Another thing that bothered me was that the villain of this piece was queer coded cause this was written in the early '80s and being "gay" was the same as "scary."
  
  In total, I'd say this book is a fine Young Adult book and that I'm hoping for more maturity in future works. Despite my immense disappointment that a series called "Cat" is actually not about an actual cat.
• 
  Allison Stock

  Found this book at random from a lending library mailbox in my neighborhood and honestly I only grabbed it because the cover felt so nostalgic and old school sci-fi, but I was so charmed by this book! Yes it’s a bit rife with sci-fi tropes, but they’re done so well that I hardly noticed. Coming at things from Cat’s POV was surprisingly free of too much wallowing, and instead we get this refreshing and unique perspective that’s honestly so interesting. This book was so enjoyable and I’m really looking forward to reading the next!
• 
  Scottsdale Public Library

  Homeless, illiterate Cat makes an engaging and unlikely hero in this futuristic tale of psychic powers, aliens and grimy underworlds. Cat is half human, half alien and wholly ostracized for both his genetics and his lifestyle until it turns out he has powers that everyone wants to use. Great start to an interesting series. -- Rebekka
  
• 
  M.M. Strawberry Library & Reviews

  Joan D. Vinge is a solid sci-fi author, and I read this book before I read the Snow Queen books. This is a really cool book about a half human/alien child who has had a rough life due to his heredity. It is the first of several books, and I recommend them all.
• 
  Stuart

  Joan Vinge deserves so much more success than she has received. Snow Queen was good and Summer Queen was somehow even better, though I didn't think at the time Snow Queen could even have a sequel.
  
  Anyway, one of the reasons Vinge is so great (and probably why she hasn't had, like, star wars level success) is that her science fiction adventures foreground the internal world of the characters--they advance before the plot does, and their increased ability to function in society/get over their traumas (or their failure to do so) typically advance the plot, rather than having the plot make change for the characters.
  
  Ms. Vinge paints a compelling picture of a galactic humanity struggling with income inequality, corruption and bigotry, but rather than treating those as "just so stories" she explores how each is propagated by the economic and political structures of society. She then uses this to explore how poverty and toxic masculinity both shape characters and their responses to Extraordinary Events. She can take a very small amount of plot action and twist it into a very lengthy psychological episode for each character, and I find that she strikes the balance between introspection and action far better than anyone other sci fi author (or author generally) I have read.
  
  Super great read!
• 
  Mel McIvor

  I’m counting a 2.5 as a 3 here…feeling generous.
  
  So…I read Catspaw (the second book in this series) before this one, and Vinge clearly learned a LOT about storytelling and character development between these two books. I loved Catspaw…Psion was much rougher.
  
  The story here is really rushed, and the character development almost non existent (which is weird, ‘cause she does both of those things REALLY well in the second one). Many of the characters are shameless placeholders—THIS is the Kind Best Friend/Love Interest; THIS is the Bad Guy; etc. no surprises in who they turn out to be or the choices they make. Don’t expect twists. Almost everyone (except the MC) is a cardboard trope filling an empty slot in your typical adventure tale.
  
  Cat (the MC)—there’s still something I love about him, but MAN does he grow up a lot between this book and the next. Not *during* this book…somewhere after this one ends. (And not during the sequel story Psiren, either.)
  
  I’ll for sure read the third book Vinge has in this series, but not because of this one. Lucky for me, I already know Vinge can do way better.
• 
  Akiva Ѯ

  The idea at its heart (psychics all need hella trauma therapy) is pretty interesting, but then it's cluttered up with much too much unrelated plot. Cat is a remarkably passive character, too: I thought he'd finally made a decision of his own in the fight scene at the end, but no, he was actually manipulated into that too. wtf, seriously.
  
  Another very strange decision was to let the question of whether Cat is related to another character just... go unanswered. The only way I can read it is that they both know it's true and really don't want to admit it to themselves? It makes the love triangle something out of a psychoanalytic fever dream. That has to be intentional?! But if it is, why did Vinge let her Freud-in-space crack!fic get so sidetracked with all this nonsense about heists?
  
  Villain is a sinister bisexual sociopath and flirts briefly with the hero while monologuing, so far so 1982. Cat is *such* a twink stereotype however (literally a catboy rentboy) that his shock and horror at being desired by a man and massive crush on a lady are both jarring.
  
  Come to think of it, the vibe Cat gives off is quite
  Vanyel. "Oh dear, I just keep getting beaten up, but in a sexy vulnerable subby way." Is there a name for this genre when it's published as a mass market paperback and not as hurt/comfort slashfic? (Vanyel comes 7 years later and turned up to 11, so it's not a completely fair comparison.)
• 
  Maria Carmo

  What an interesting novel, and what a pity that I do not have it's two next books! I remembered that it had been interesting to read this book some 30 years ago (lol) but I couldn't remember the details any more. One of the things that I found fascinating (hope it will not be prophetic) is that the action occurs during a time (2417) when independent states have been replaced by multinational business corporations (does it not sound familiar??) and Humans have colonized and exploited other planets and civilizations to the point of ruining those also!
  
  Cat is an amazing character and Jule and Siebeling, Joralemann and Dere as well. Loved this book!
  
  Maria Carmo,
  
  Lisbon, 23 April 2018.
• 
  The Captain

  Ahoy there mateys! I don't know where I heard about this book either.  The version I bought contained the first book and the story "Psiren."  The book follows Cat, an orphan, as he develops his telepathic powers and learns to trust other people.  It is a strange sci-fi that is classified as a young adult book.  I enjoyed the character of Cat very much.  The plot was interesting and the world building felt a bit light.  Cat carries the story because I wanted to know what happened to him.  I did not like the story "Psiren" at all even if I enjoyed reading more about Cat.  I am not sure if I will read the next two books in the series.  Arrr!
• 
  R.

  I grabbed this up because I wanted to read up more on psionics in fantasy and science fiction and this book continually comes up on reading lists on the subject. I can't say that I was particularly impressed with this though. I would not recommend it and I'm hoping there's some better things out there on the same lists.
  
  Some people might really enjoy this, but it seemed a bit hokey and not up to the regular standard that I want in books. Life is too short to read bad books, but it's also too short to read books that are just okay most of the time as well.
• 
  Bridget

  I wanted to like it more but it was just okay. I can see how people really enjoyed this one if they read it when they were a teen. It's very YA, wish I knew that before I started reading.
  
  Not bad but definitely not a must read. The ending sets up the next book to be better than this one, but that's just a guess.
• 
  Rhuddem Gwelin

  It started out so well, a young slum kid, half human, half somethng else, telepathic but not knowing it, recruited to a school for the psychically gifted. Then bam. It fell into a deep boring bog and though it picked up after a while (after many skimmed pages, to be honest) it never captured my interest again. The sequel is said to be better. I might give it a try.
• 
  Tasha

  3.5 stars
  
  I’m still not exactly sure how I feel about this book. At some points I disliked it and almost stopped listening, but the story drew me in and I just had to keep going. In the end, I liked it and want to read the next one.
• 
  Ian Hamilton

  A solid example into telepathy-centric sci fi; I didn’t love it, didn’t hate it. Thematically, this was done much better pre-1980s in the genre, but I hear Psion’s successor (Catspaw) is the triumph of the trilogy. Probably will visit that one somewhere down the road.
• 
  Casey Henderson

  I waffled between a 4 and a 5, but kept it a 5 because I've been in such a reading slump. This book was fun, it kept me on my toes, and the pace was excellent. I read this in Alien Blood, which also includes Catspaw. I definitely intend to read the next novel.
• 
  Thomas

  Dull and trite. That is the best I can say.
• 
  Peggy

  Third reading It does seem pretty dark on re-reading. I know she's won prestigious awards, bu I always think Joan D. Vinge is an under-appreciated author.
• 
  Penny

  Great old classic. I thought I'd read it years ago but evidently not. Well done, complex, flawed Cat.