This book is very good, it's depressing but it is an attempt to deal with fundamental issues in humanity in a way that is interesting, with just enough sci-fi/fantasy veneer as to keep you thoughtful but off the true subject matter, which is sex and aging. A more reasonable ending would have meant five stars.

This book is about getting old, but more directly, it's about sex. It's all about sex. If you think of the book, and replace "mind reading ability" with "sexual potency and drive" you'll see it as it is.

Selig is currently in his 40's and seeing an ongoing decline in himself, especially in his ability to read minds. Like a man entering middle age and seeing his sexual abilities and urges vanish, he's forced into introspection, wandering about if he'd made better use in the past. Not cursing the loss so much as cursing his own past in which he did not use his capacity to it's full and best use. He remembers when he was 25 and at his peak, happy thenwhe he met a woman whom he couldn't use his ability on. Now he is old and falling apart. His life hasn't amounted to much, despite having the ability to read minds. He's become neurotic generally and uses his ability to it's minimum practical use. His former also-gifted best friend became a sociopath, using the ability with freedom, but misusing it to an extreme, deciding that he is godlike and thus will not accept any of societies rules because he can easily ignore them. How does Selig discover this? It's when his friend takes his girl from him.

During the story he mentions an ancient philosopher, who works his whole life, then as an old man has lost all his sexual aspects, becoming in essence a neuter, he mentions that this is freeing, because he has lost an aspect of his life and now is free to devote those energies elsewhere. At the end of the story Selig also follows this route, though it does seem to me (as a 25 year old feeling the starts of a depressing downward spiral) that this is the author making a grope in the dark for a positive ending. Selig most certainly would have made more of himself without the ability, he is clearly very very smart, but has entered into an aimless life. Even as a youth he led an aimless life, most directly due to his gift.

Maybe this is a side effect of my own circumstances, but this story feels like it is written from a perspective that I hope I will have, but doubt it. The loss of much of what I feel make life worth living as I grow old will be ok, because I will accept that loss as simply an opportunity to grow more with the excess capacity I'm left with in my life. I hope that life is like this, that when I'm aging and seeing myself fail in all the main ways that I currently find happiness I will find different ways. But then again, this is just a hope. Until I get that perspective, I can see the allegory in this story, and fear that when I come to become more like this character, I will simply feel like the title states, Dying inside.