Precog

by Lee Duigon and Alex Brown

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1558173048
• ISBN13: 9781558173040
• Release Date: January 1990
• Publisher: Pinnacle Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A decent tap-tap-tapping in the mind

His brilliant parents never could comprehend why their loner 12-year-old son Robin only ever garners Cs in school, why he isn't as equally smart or why he tends to be easily distracted, frequently losing track of memory and time. Robin has been made to take the IQ test repeatedly, has seen various child psychologists. And lately his scientist father and his father's fishy Russian boss have been conducting experiments on Robin, treating him with injections and mysterious medicine intended to boost his latent psychic abilities. And then one day Robin collapses into a coma. He wakes up almost one year later, his world changed irrevocably. His mother had died and his father had vanished. Some years later, Robin is in college now, and the experiments seem to have done the trick. Because Robin is a precog now, granted uncontrollable glimpses of events that haven't happened yet, events that are either just around the corner or set in the far flung future. He's also suffering from a constant barrage of nightmares and of moments in which he's lost in a fugue. And in the recesses of his mind a dark presence calls out to him, recognizes him. Finally, finally, nineteen years old and having had enough of it, Robin begins to seek out answers. His first step is to try to solve the mystery of his disappeared dad. Except that, in doing this, Robin has brought attention to himself. Now a relentless bounty hunter is sniffing out his trail. Because the Biotechnix Institute - the research company Robin's dad used to work for - it wants Robin back. It wants its science project back. If you enjoy reading psychic thrillers, then keep PRECOG in mind. It's a shame that Lee Duigon hasn't written more thrillers or horror novels, as the man (or woman?) has demonstrated a knack for producing interesting ones. I happen to think that Duigon's Lifeblood and Schoolhouse are also very much worth looking up. PRECOG, coming out in 1990, does present a suspenseful tone, but the pace is more contemplative than crackling with action. Duigon allows the characters to develop and carry the story. He shows that Robin Lloyd may have a psychic gift, but the price that comes with it should give one pause. Robin can only control two aspects of his clairvoyance; he's able to consistently predict winners in horse races and he's never lost a chess match. Mostly, his visions appear out of the blue, rendering him instantly unaware of his surroundings. Then there's also that other intelligence crawling around in his consciousness, able to forcibly transport his mind to the frightful landscape he calls the Dark Place. Robin is a tortured soul, and all the earnings psychically won at the track can't alleviate what ails him. There's a chance you'll roll your eyes at Robin later on in the book, perhaps thinking him gullible, but he's so desperate to find answers that he's rather easily manipulated by the furtive bounty hunter. So you may scoff at the kid, but to me this just makes him more realistic.