The Telzey Toy

Telzey and Trigger #3

by James H. Schmitz

Four great adventures featuring science fiction's most beloved character, Telzey Amberdon.

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fantasy

175 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

James Henry Schmitz (October 15, 1911–April 18, 1981) was an American writer born in Hamburg, Germany of American parents. Aside from two years at business school in Chicago, Schmitz lived in Germany until 1938, leaving before World War II broke out in Europe in 1939. During World War II, Schmitz served as an aerial photographer in the Pacific for the United States Army Air Corps. After the war, he and his brother-in-law ran a business which manufactured trailers until they broke up the business in 1949.

Schmitz is best known as a writer of space opera, and for strong female characters (including Telzey Amberdon and Trigger Argee) that didn't fit into the damsel in distress stereotype typical of science fiction during the time he was writing. His first published story was Greenface, published in August 1943 in Unknown. Most of his works are part of the "Hub" series, though his best known novel is the non-Hub The Witches of Karres, concerning juvenile "witches" with genuine psi-powers and their escape from slavery. Karres was nominated for a Hugo Award.

In recent years, his novels and short stories have been republished by Baen Books (which bought the rights to his estate for $6500), edited (sometimes heavily edited) and with notes by Eric Flint. Baen have also published new works based in the Karres universe.

Schmitz died of congestive lung failure in 1981 after a five week stay in the hospital in Los Angeles. He was survived by his wife, Betty Mae Chapman Schmitz.

Reviews

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

DAW Collectors #82

Cover Artist: Kelly Freas

Name: Schmitz, James Henry, Birthplace: Free Hanseatic City of Hamburg, German Empire,
(15 October 1911 - 18 April 1981)

Baen Books put out a collection of four volumes collecting all of Schmitz’s tales of the star-spanning human civilization known as the Hub, which they called “The Complete Federation of the Hub.” The four volumes were Telzey Amberdon, T’nT: Telzey & Trigger, Trigger & Friends, and The Hub: Dangerous Territory. These volumes, which also include some historical essays, give us the clearest picture ever assembled of Schmitz’s fascinating civilization of the far future. It is a time when Earth is remembered as an abandoned backwater, if it is remembered at all. Humanity has found a star cluster, the Hub, where stars orbited by habitable worlds are closely packed, allowing easy travel. Finding it impossible to exert tight control over such a widespread civilization, the Overgovernment of the Hub Federation provides only minimal organization, allowing member worlds broad latitude in their internal affairs. There is a Space Navy, but it is a time of peace, and most conflicts appear to be handled by intelligence services or through diplomacy.

Telzey Amberdon is a sixteen-year-old student with psi powers. She notices something strange: a woman who appears human, but her mind is wrong. She's a Martri puppet, an artificial person programmed to act out parts in a play. Martri puppets look human, but they aren't. But this one is acting as if she's human. When Telzey investigates further, she gets kidnapped.

Her kidnapper, Ti, whisks her off to a private island, creates a Martri duplicate of her, and holds them both prisoner. He has created a whole island populated with advanced Martri puppets to do his nefarious bidding, but he needs more. He wants a Martri with psi powers. Ti intends to create copies of Telzey, then use his powerful computer to program their minds to do his bidding. What, precisely, his bidding is, well, that's never explored.

Telzey and her duplicate take everything in stride. In fact, Ti is quite put out that he can't faze her--none of the horrors he shows her make Telzey lose her composure.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of four novelettes featuring Schmitz's iconic character Telzey Ameberdon that were originally published in Analog SF in 1970 and '71, the last two years that the magazine was edited by John W. Campbell. Schmitz was remarkable for writing about female characters in an era when the field (especially Analog) was male dominated. In addition to powerful telepath Telzey, Schmitz also created Trigger Argee (who appears in one of the stories in this volume, and their team-up is dynamic), not to mention the witches of Karres. This DAW edition contains the original stories as Schmitz wrote them; the later omnibus volumes from Baen Books were edited and revised by Eric Flint. They're very well-written and thought-provoking fare, from one of the unfortunately neglected masters of the form. The cover by Kelly Freas is quite striking, though perhaps a bit inappropriate since Telzey is only in her mid-teen years.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 1 out of 5]

The third Schmitz book I've read and the second one about Telzey. These books follow a pattern. The Telzey character is like a cardboard cut out, in that she has no empathy or emotions of any kind. And her mental powers keep becoming more superhuman each story. With the lack of morals as well, in terms of prying into other people's minds and restructuring their personality to make them nicer people, she comes across as monstrous but it is clear that isn't how the author wants the reader to see her.

It is so far away from how a real teenage girl would act/react it suggests that the author lacked empathy with other people. The stories set up ingenious situations but lack real drama - even in the Witches of Karres which isn't quite so bad - there is a wimp out every time some excitement needs to be racked up. Things are resolved far too simply, by coincidence or in the case of the Telzey books by her general ability to do just about anything.

[Demerara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good old-fashioned science fiction, with a pretty young heroine who has strong psi powers and can't stay out of trouble.

[Jammies · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very quick and enjoyable read. The book is a collection of short stories about Telzey Amberdon, a telepath on a planet called Orado in an unspecified future time. The entire book fits perfectly in the zeitgeist of the 1970s. The eponymous opening story reminded me a great deal of The Prisoner.

[SciFiOne · Rating 4 out of 5]

1994 grade B

Short novels

series book T2