Brendan Bellecourt was raised in the cold climes of rural Wisconsin, where he lives still with his family and trio of cats. His love of science fiction was sparked early by Frank Herbert’s Dune and C. J. Cherryh’s Faded Sun Trilogy. Later influences include Robert Charles Wilson, Ted Chiang, and China Miéville. His favorite stories are those with flawed protagonists who are deeply affected by, and later come to influence, some jaw-dropping, world-altering change.
Bellecourt's debut sci-fi novel is Absynthe.
At Tor.com he tagged five "books that make interesting use of telepathy," including:
Ancillary Justice by Ann LeckieRead about the other entries on the list at Tor.com.
In Ancillary Justice, Breq was once the Justice of Toren, a starship with an artificial intelligence that linked thousands of soldierstogether—a hivemind, in essence, with Breq at its core. It was a mesmerizing experience entering Breq’s world and getting glimpses of the life it once led, linking so many in service of the Radtch Empire and its unquenchable thirst for expansion.
The way Ancillary Justice addresses the notions of empire and the costs of war and domination was masterful, but my favorite part was Leckie’s take on an AI navigating the world of humanity after leading a very different life as a starship. The “telepathy” in Ancillary Justice is more like networked data communication, a neural network of sorts, but it still certainly qualifies. It’s an excellent read and one I highly recommend.
Ancillary Justice is among Peter F Hamilton's top ten books about remaking the future, Gareth L. Powell's ten top spaceships in fiction, Stacey Berg's five speculative fiction books that obliterate the Bechdel Test, Andrew Liptak's six notable novels featuring Artificial Intelligence, and Jeff Somers's top five sci-fi novels that explore gender in unexpected and challenging ways.
--Marshal Zeringue
Posts
