Charisma

by Steven Barnes

Book Overview

A powerful thriller of redemption, hope, and courage that overcomes all obstacles. It began well - an experiment in techniques to teach high-risk children - poor, minority, children - the life-strategies that will allow them to succeed in life. And not just succeed, but overcome the odds and become wildly successful. They chose as their model a man who had done it all - Alexander Marcus; a black man who raised himself up from poverty to become one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in America. The imprinting is effective. The children are focused, driven. They are inventive, intelligent, and love learning. But there is a mysterious darkness to them - a ruthlessness that is surprising. Renny Sand first met the children as a journalist covering the sensational trial of a preschool operator. There were terrible charges of sex abuse, but the thing that stayed with Renny was the strange poise and power of a group of eight year old children. That, and the face of the mother of one of them, Vivian Emory. Now the children are thirteen years old, and one of them has been killed in a mysterious hit-and-run accident. Renny Sands sees the possibility of big story, a human interest story, a story that might jump-start his flagging career. He'll do a follow-up on the preschool scandal; and he might get a chance to restart his love life as well - Vivian Emory has divorced her husband in the five years since he met her.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812568966
• ISBN13: 9780812568967
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Length: 464 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 4.1" x 6.9"

Customer Reviews

Intelligently Scary

This tale made me shiver. I'm not paranoid but Barnes spun a yarn that makes you think, "Do we really know what the powers that be are up to? Do we even want to know?" Charisma is intelligently scary!

A very satisfying multi-genre thriller

Those who only know Barnes through his collaborations with hard sci-fi master Larry Niven should be pleasantly surprised by this genre-esque novel about a group of highly intelligent and amazingly motivated children from small-town, USA. There are elements of horror, romance, mystery, western, and yes, even a touch of sci-fi, but the result is none of the above, but rather a basically mainstream story about what makes successful people tick. Although one may question the characters' motivations, and there's at least one scientific point that seems like quite a stretch, there's no denying the power of this engrossing mystery. The kids tend to steal the spotlight, of course, especially when we see how they play the system and manipulate the adult world as they see fit. Renny Sand is the inquisitive reporter who covered an infamous scandal that shook the town years earlier. He returns now, after some reversals, driven by his desire for Vivian, the beautiful mother of one of the boys. And while Sand is a pleasant and engaging enough character, he ultimately doesn't seem to have much to do in this novel. We think he's being set up as the hero of this tale, but when all's said and done, it's really the gun-slingin' grandma who saves the day, and the sections featuring her and her husband seem slow and largely irrelevant until the climax where all the pieces come together. Barnes probably should have dropped these two altogether and made Sands the hero. That quibble aside however, this book is a serious page-turner, with mysteries at every turn: the Aristotle project, the pre-school scandal, Sheriff D'Angelo's secret, and the late great Alexander Marcus' weakness, are all explained in good time, but not so quickly that we lose interest in the story before it's been played out. A very entertaining and altogether satisfying read, but not yet the masterpiece we're hoping for from Barnes.

Barnes is writers writer

As an avid SF reader for over 30 years I wholeheartedly recommend reading this one! Barnes is the kind of writer whose brilliant use of language and characterization add rich layers to an already great story concept. Hard core SF readers will find this to be more of a psychological thriller in the vein of Phillip Dick than a hard science focussed work. His central premise of using the essential nature of a hyper sucessful person as a template to be transferred a group of young "at risk" children is described a bit vaguely. However as the cornerstone of the story it does have impact as he unfolds all the clever twists that expose the flaw in the template's character. As we follow several of the children through several harrowing experiences the dark truth unfolds in a fine example of the thriller mystery form.His acute observations of character details and inner emotional dialog draw you inside each of the central characters very rapidly. Each character - particularly the children have story arcs that pull you relentlessly forward. This is a true page turner, very hard to put down!

Nature VS. Nurture

Charisma is, insofar as I am aware, the ninth solo SF novel by Steven Barnes. He has also collaborated with Larry Niven (and others) in seven other SF novels.In all his novels, Barnes focuses on the realization of human potential. Initially, such realization was based on the principles of martial arts and continues to do so to some extent, as witness the prominence in this book of the Nine Principles of Musashi. In his later works, Barnes draws more upon the discoveries and speculations of psychology.In Charisma, a behavioral research laboratory has developed a series of treatments that can impress a person's personality unto the mind of a young child. Moreover, this regime can be applied en masse -- i.e., to many small groups of children -- by relatively unskilled personnel. With secret funding from another group, the laboratory precedes to test these procedures on selected, but uninformed, children throughout the country.One of the test groups is involved in an infamous childcare abuse scandal in Claremont, Washington. Renny Sand had covered the case and met the family of Patrick Emory, one of the allegedly abused children. He was impressed by all three, but greatly stirred by the poise and beauty of Vivian, the mother. Six years later, the now down and almost out reporter stays overnight in Claremont, asks a few questions, learns that Otis, the father, has left his wife, and almost decides to visit the family, but instead sends a friendly email to Vivian.Now 13 year old Patrick Emory, and his buddies from Claremont Daycare, are small-time entrepreneurs, earning money for themselves and helping Vivian increase the profits from her shop, Costumes, Period. The local dopers are having trouble with an outside motorcycle gang who intend to take over the drug trade. The outsiders beat up Manny, the dopers' youngest son and Patrick's friend, and then call out the locals to a meet by throwing a brick with a note through the front window. Since the locals are not home, Patrick and associates find the note and then throw the brick, note and all, through the front window of a local gay gym. When the outsiders get to the meeting place, the overdeveloped ironpumpers work them over so bad that several gang members leave town.Patrick is fated to have other contacts with the motorcycle gang and to learn more about his nightmares and other oddities.This novel tackles the old question of nature versus nurture and illustrates how both influence behavior. While the central premise -- impressing personality traits -- is probably not possible at this time -- except maybe in CIA labs -- it could well become feasible. How far should it be used? Other books have addressed this question -- see Phoenix Ship by the Richmonds -- but Barnes has approached the subject in a different way.Barnes keeps getting better with each book. If you thought Blood Brothers was good, read this one. Recommended for all Steven Barnes fans and anyone who likes deep psycholog

Look out James Patterson

Plan, by the time you are halfway through this book, to allot all your time to reading it. You won't want to put it down. Steve Barnes is quite an extraordinary writer having co-authored best-selling science fiction with top-seller Larry Niven, and having written episodes of Outer Limits, Star Trek and Baywatch. Baywatch? Yes, he's blended all these different genres together here, in this book to provide a superb read. This is a very smart book that does a great job including touchstones from contemporary life-- little details that we all live, experience and touch. They make it more real, more immediate, so we connect better with the characters, the scenes where the action unfolds. It's hard to define the genre, but I'd compare it to James Patterson's Where the Wind Blows, which also used a plot about an experiment to build better children, gone awry. Call it mainstream fantasy with a slightly science fictional touch. There are five or six different interwoven story threads that Steve Barnes does a beautiful job tying up neatly by the books suspenseful end. Each one develops characters we get to know and love or hate. I had a chance to meet Steve Barnes recently. He is an amazing bundle of positive energy. This shines through in the writing. He's a disciplined, passionate writer, martial arts black belt, loving father and principled good guy. Yes. He made a good impression on me. There's a lot of character and integrity that shines through in the book, plus just enough sexuality to make it an adult book.What blows my mind is the premise for the scifi aspect of the story-- that you can record behavior patterns and train others to reproduce the patterns of special people-- fits very nicely with some research I presented in 1981, using ski biofeedback to train beginners to move like experts. My model back then theorized that "template athletic biofeedback" could be used to teach average people to perform like great experts. Steve Barnes has taken this idea (obviously something he independently came up with) and woven it into a great story.