Psychlone

by Greg Bear

What kind of force can freeze a lynx solid in seconds, so fast that, once thawed, the cat can walk away in perfect health?

What kind of force can murder almost all the inhabitants of a small New Mexico town in seconds?

Larry Fowler is a scientist--he doesn't want to be frightened by things he doesn't understand. he'd rather run away from the frozen cat than have to believe it existed. However, he can't stop asking questions--questions that will bring him face to face with psychlone!

Genres: Science Fiction, Horror, Fiction, Fantasy, Thriller, Ebooks, Science Fiction Fantasy

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Greg Bear was an American writer and illustrator best known for science fiction. His work covered themes of galactic conflict (Forge of God books), parallel universes (The Way series), consciousness and cultural practices (Queen of Angels), and accelerated evolution (Blood Music, Darwin’s Radio, and Darwin’s Children). His last work was the 2021 novel The Unfinished Land. Greg Bear wrote over 50 books in total.

(For a more complete biography, see Wikipedia.)

Reviews

[Ethan’s Books · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.50 rounded up.

Not sure what everyone’s beef is with this book. The character development could be a lot better, but it was a good scifi-horror.

Greg Bear is a different kind of writer. I can’t quite put my thumb on it but the story doesn’t flow and it was more choppy than not. The story itself was interesting enough to keep you reading.

An awesome spooky beginning with some drag in the middle but overall an interesting read.

[Tom Hudson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nowhere near as good as Greg Bear's other works. This is a very early example of his writing, and it shows both in his somewhat tone deaf moral lesson and his flatly drawn characters. Be warned as well that while Bear tries to wrap it in a scientific explanatory framework, this is a work with deeply paranormal currents and a great deal of horror driving the narrative progress. It was well enough written to keep my attention, but it's not a book I'd recommend under any circumstances.

[Devero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un buon romanzo di Greg Bear, dove affronta il tema del poltergeist da un punto di vista horror ma naturalistico, con una definizione di un fenomeno analogo ma molto maggiore per proporzione, che dà il titolo al romanzo ed è, tra l'altro, terribilmente evocativo. Romanzo corale, con personaggi magari un poco scarni come caratterizzazione, ma forse è meglio così, visto che per lo più fanno una brutta fine. Niente Dio ne Diavolo, ma medium e forze naturali, nonché una riflessione caustica sulla corsa agli armamenti.
Si legge bene, ha diversi colpi di scena specialmente all'inizio, dove tra l'altro Bear riesce a creare un'atmosfera decisamente inquietante.
3 stelle piene.

[Kevin Phyland · Rating 3 out of 5]

When the 800-odd residents of Lorobu New Mexico disappear leaving only three survivors (two of whom die in a murder-suicide days later) Laurie Fowler (a physicist) is drawn to the town as a friend and his son were two of the victims. The lone survivor, the 10 year-old boy Tim, is hearing voices and seeing images of terrifying violence. Fowler and a group of psychics are subsumed into a military operation (Silent Night) to try to destroy the psychic tornado - dubbed a psychlone - that manifests itself as incorporeal rage, capable of freezing organisms to death or flattening cars. Greg Bear never makes it exactly clear what the force is - elemental or spiritual - but a strong correlation is found between the deaths of some US prisoners-of-war in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the towns being targeted. Has humanity developed a weapon so damaging that it can destroy the human soul, and can the psychic weapon developed by Silent Night destroy the malevolent entities thus unleashed? Not a bad way to spend a day.

[Tentatively, Convenience · Rating 3 out of 5]

review of
Greg Bear's Psychlone
by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 27, 2017

You'd think this guy is one of my favorite writers or something. This is the 17th bk I've read by him & I always pick up any titles of his that I don't already have. It helps that they're cheap. He always has a grandiose idea that he develops fully. This wasn't one of my favorites but then I read ANOTHER ONE that I liked so much that he was instantly 'redeemed'.

The PROLOGUE:

"Final message from the U.S.S. Matheson, received 1630 hours May 24, 1964:

""Mayday, repeat, Mayday. Situation is getting worse. They are all over the decks now. Blue fire crawling over my radio and the ports.["]"

[..]

"From The Los Angeles Times, March 17, 1977:

"PAPEETE, Tahiti (AP)—Police are investigating the death at sea of five members of an English family whose boast was found drifting erratically near Anaa island in the Tuamotu group, 240 miles east of Tahiti. The yacht Enchanted, rented from owners in Tahiti["]" - p 1

If these are true stories I can understand why they might've inspired Bear to provide a fictional explanation, in this case a highly imaginative & dramatic one. However, I didn't find either online in an extremely cursory search. Searching for "USS Matheson" did yield a link to Psychlone so I conclude that they're fictional but may be based on other stories of the same ilk. After I did the search a strange vehicle did appear outside my bedrm window & a pink light was beamed in but I was too busy writing this review to pay it no mind.

""Stay the night at least. You'll know as much as I do, which right now is nothing. He's not senile, Larry. I know him pretty well—we've gotten reacquainted in the last few years. He's just as skeptical as you and I."

""But these books—"

""I know, some are ridiculous. Not all, however. There's genuine scholarship on that shelf."

""Mixed with a healthy dose of bullshit. All this Frank Edwards crap, Jeane Dixon, strictly National Perspirer stuff. Are you two trying to set me up for a night in a haunted cabin?"" - p 10

I'd never heard of Frank Edwards but, yeah, he apparently really was a writer of popular bks on UFOs & paranormal subjects. Jeane Dixon's a little more familiar to me, she was an astrologer & claimed to be a psychic. The National Perspirer is probably an obvious joke to most readers of this review but since historians will be reading my reviews a thousand yrs or more in the future it's my duty to explain even this: The National Inquirer is a celebrity gossip magazine that's sensationalist & lurid. What's a "celebrity" you ask? Be glad you're in the future.

"Officer Lawrence Perez Preston—nicknamed "Sergeant Preston of the Mexies" (p 34) - presumably a take-off of "Sergeant Preston of The Yukon", a 1950s American TV show about a Canadian Mountie. Get yr yuk on.

We get our BIG CLUE fairly early on:

"The door to the hardware store was open. The light had gone out or been moved, however, and now the store was dark. He waved the beam of his flashlight back and forth in slow arcs. Everything seemed to be in order. Then the light fell on the floor and he saw paperback books scattered all over. The wire display rack was resting across the yellow wood magazine stand, a few books still leaning in the wire bins. There were bits of paper scattered, but not a whole lot of them—as if one book had been picked out and torn to shreds. He retrieved a corner of a mangled cover. "Hiro—" he read. "By John—" - p 36

After that I went to take a break to eat a Hershey bar but all I found was its shadow. The clues just keep coming:

"Tim knew he had problems to solve—personal problems. His nightmares were bad. Sometimes he would dream he was back in the house when everything happened. Other times he would dream his mother and father and somebody else were coming to visit him. They were very unhappy. The third person was a man in uniform. Tim was pretty good at recognizing uniforms, but this fellow's was a puzzle." - p 56

"He wrote a name down on the cardboard model box, using the citrus-smelling glue tube. The glue made the name shiny and transparent, just like his night visitors. Dream visitors, he corrected himself. he was asleep—must have been asleep—when he saw them. The name was Corporal S.K. Percher." - p 57

Percher being another fictional character, doncha know. &, yeah, a bunch people die violent deaths & nobody knows what the heck's going on:

"Most of the news stories concerned Lorobu. There were conjectures about "killer" satellites, hidden caches of nerve gas, germ warfare and even UFO attacks. Several religious groups used the story to further their own ends. One evangelist in North Carolina announced that Lorobu was merely the beginning of God's wrath, brought down on the United States because of loosening laws against homosexuality." (p 58)

Weren't they surprised when they went to heaven & found out that, yes, God & Allah were both old men w/ long white beards who just happened to be screwing the shit out of each other when they arrived. Oopsie! The plot thickens!:

"Now he was the last one. Beverly Winegrade—the blond clerk he had had a crush on several months ago—had killed Cynthia. Next she would try to get him, and if she didn't succeed, she would kill herself. That was the way it had been before.

"He was the last one to hold out against the insistent voices behind the smiling images of his parents and the man in the uniform.

"Maybe Cynthia would join them.

"Welcome

"And Beverly, eventually. Then they would all come for him. And behind them, controlling them like puppets, would be the voices, screaming in a language he didn't understand." - p 64

Of course, the reader is mystified, even w/ these clues & plot-thickeners.. but a few glimmers of light peep thru those dark, dark clouds of death:

""It may take those it kills along with it. Perhaps that's how so many names are connected with it."

""A giant string of spiritual flypaper, winding across the land," Jacobs said." - p 91

It's that word "with" that gave it away for me. Note that it appears TWICE in 2 sentences. I wonder what it means?! Poor Tim.. & you think YOU have problems:

"He scrunched his eyes shut. The faces of people from Lorobu flashed in his head like images on a pack of shuffled cards. He twisted his head back and forth, trying to drive out the vision.

"He couldn't. Behind the faces, rapidly fading, there arose redness, then a purple smoke, something like water . . . and for the first time, he saw them. . . .

"Eyeless, mouths open.

"He screamed." - p 100

Wdn't you?!

""It killed my best friend and his father. We haven't done anything to it, but it wants to kill us, now. Why?"

""Maybe we're thorns in its side." Prohaska seemed to struggle for the proper phrasing, his lips working. "Have you ever been in a room with a very dull person, and watched the hate grow when he met a smart person?["]" - p 114

I'll bet you think I'm going to go off on a tangent inspired by that last part. You. Are. Wrong. (Although I admit it's tempting.)

"Taylor, unlike many people in his business, genuinely believed in his merchandise. He had put tiny pyramids in his bathroom and bedroom, and in them he kept his razor blades, bars of soap, even bottles of vitamin C, to preserve them. When he swore an oath about his merchandise's efficacy in concentrating the pyramidic energy of the cosmos, he was honest and devoted." - p 146

When I was too young to have hair on my face to shave off, probably around 15, I read somewhere about pyramids aligned in a certain way to compass points kept razor blades sharp that were kept in them. It seemed unlikely, after all razor blades got dull b/c of the friction they were subjected to. I mean wd you get a manicure if you kept your finger tips in a pyramid overnight? Anyway, I decided to try it anyway so I made a cardboard pyramid, aligned it properly & asked my stepfather to keep his razor in it. Much to my astonishment my stepdad reported it as working. Since then, I've read that keeping one's penis inside a vagina has remarkable health benefits & I've tried to test that out too.. but that's a different story.

""Is it unprecedented? You're an expert on folklore. Has anything like this ever happened before>"

""We say this and it so often—haven't we any names? Of course—but they are swear words to the scientists and the liberals, as much as sexual language is to the conservatives. We are talking about a possession of some sort, but no, I know of nothing like it—except perhaps the invasions of nunneries and monasteries, or incidents of mass hysteria."

""Like The Devils of Loudon."" - p 175

Damn! There I go, spoiling the whole plot, thanks to my sexual frustration the whole world becomes violently hysterical & everyone goes crazy & kills everyone off. There's a paradox in there somewhere. Anyway, I really just quoted the above to give me an excuse to plug one of my favorite movies, The Devils by Ken Russell.

"Fowler pulled change out of his pocket and counted the quarters to see if he had enough to complete the call. He fit the stack of coins into the telephone slot and waited for the switching-equipment sounds to give way to strong ringing." - p 186

Ok, so I lied, I didn't give away the plot, it has nothing to do w/ my sexual frustration; it has everything to do w/ how maddening pay phones used to be. Pay toilets were even worse. Do they still exist anymore? After the revolution whoever invented pay toilets will have to PAY.

[Mitch · Rating 2 out of 5]

I generally like Greg Bear's stuff, but this one failed to make the grade.

This novel is a cross between Stephen King's horror efforts and sci-fi. Toss in some Hieronymous Bosch and you realize it's time to back away slowly.

This was supposed to be about the soul-destroying effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings- with some connection between the physical world and that of the spirit- but it just didn't come off in any satisfying way. The characters were cardboard as well.

Don't give up on Greg Bear because of this, though. The man has produced much more readable, thought-provoking work.

[Criticalsock · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this book up in a charity shop because I like the author or, rather, I like some of his other books that he has written. Psychlone was a disappointment however. The overall idea, once I'd finished the book, was interesting and thought provoking, however the characters were not well developed, probably because there were so many of them. The plotting was too complicated (for me) and there were a couple of Deus Ex Machina moments.

Having said that I didn't feel compelled to hurl the book across the room at any point and some of the imagery was really good. Fecal graffiti and elemental boars made out of gravel. Good stuff.

[Nihal Vrana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, it is great that the publisher did not give up on Greg Bear after this one. I genuinely enjoyed some of his later books (Eon, Darwin's Children) but this one is rather weak. The plot is not well developed, the characters are not very believable and the whole science/Supernatural debate going as an underflow is rather tired and uninteresting. There are 2-3 great ideas in it, which were unfortunately underutilized. It is not a bad book per se; but don't expect too much. but, I think that without Greg Bear's name, I'm not sure I would have finished it.

[Patrick Hayes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Above the title it states "An OCCULT SCIENCE-FICTION Thriller". I would say this is more occult than science fiction, but it does become very old school 1950's sci-fi in its conclusion.

Over eight hundred people die horribly in the city of Lorobu, New Mexico. They have either killed one another or committed suicide. Just before this occurs, Larry Fowler joins his friend Henry Taggart at the cabin of the latter's father, who is also there. Larry is there to see "something." He does, but doesn't want to stay. His leaving allows him to survive.

This is definitely an interesting way to hook the reader, however what follows becomes split between sci-fi pulp and fantasy-horror. I enjoyed the moments at the cabin more so than those involving the others who journey to Lorobu. The reason for the massive killings, and why they are only going to increase, is given in Lorobu and it's a pretty far fetched idea that just didn't hold with me. The climax is right out of a Toho Kaiju film. If I had taken a drink every time the hairs on Larry's neck went up I would have been unconscious by page 200.

This was an interesting idea that just didn't pan out.

[Lorraine Lake]

While this is an older book by Greg Bear, it is one of my favorites. I read it in 1979 and the story STILL sticks with me. Having re-read the book recently, I still got caught up in his riveting story. He was so inventive in this book (he always is). I could not put down the book in 1979, and at the time I had 3 active kids. I couldn't put it down in 2022. The story is still fresh, exciting and riveting. My original book has long since disappeared after several moves. I found it again through eBay as a used book, still in very good condition, so I have it in my 'library' to reread again whenever I choose. This would make a great movie. This book was the first book by Greg Bear I read. I have been a fan of his ever since.

[Steve Rainwater · Rating 2 out of 5]

An attempt at a science vs the supernatural story.

This wasn't what I expected when I picked up a Greg Bear book. It really wants to be a Stephen King style horror story more than a hard science fiction story. It's about a giant, supernatural entity roaming the countryside, trying to drive people to murder and suicide so it can absorb their souls and grow bigger. The military enlists a variety of psychics and physicists who must work together to figure out what it is and how to destroy it before it consumes all human life.

It was reasonably fast paced so I found it a tolerable read despite the goofy subject matter. If you liked Ghostbusters but wished it had less humor and more questionable physics, you might like this book.

It's not horrible but I really don't recommend it.

[Доберман Сатэ · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second book I’ve read from Greg, and I will agree with other reviews, that’s this work wasn’t as sci-fi as others but nevertheless has some science lauded down.
The story is interesting and I found it full of morality and psychology aspects that served as templates to the development of the writing.
In some parts I felt scared which is something that I liked and enjoyed, and pushed me to keep reading.
I think blood music, which also was the first book I read, was more interesting and captive, full of science and emotion.

[Hugo · Rating 2 out of 5]

From an author better known for his hard SF, this is something of a disappointment: too many characters, too flat and underdeveloped - too easily, and unemotionally, disposed of - in the sort of late '70s horror tale which would have flared briefly and faded to obscurity had Bear not gone on to a career of better things. A heart-on-its-sleeve book about the horrors and guilts of war, coupled with the uncomfortable fit of New Age hippy-dippy nonsense like psychics and pyramids, increasingly rushed and summarised as it stumbles to a dull climax.

[A.L. Sirois · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Bear's fiction, and this one was no exception. Very imaginative premise, carried out well. Good characters and dialog. Less "science-y" and more toward the horror end of the spectrum than most of his stuff. Not unlike Dean Koontz in some ways, but I think Bear is a batter writer than Koontz. A mysterious "force" freezes a lynx solid, kills everyone in a small town, and terrorizes investigators. A quick read; I'll doubtless re-read one of these years.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have heard good things about Greg Bear but this was a poor introduction to his work for me,it felt like half the book had been cut out and things happened with little or no context and some big ideas were introduced without any world building or explanation. At no point did i feel it was particularly effective at either the science fiction or horror vibes it was going for and i finished it just to get it done as opposed any real interest in the conclusion.

[Richie Luke · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you pick this up in the hope of reading some good science fiction, you’ll be disappointed. No need to spoiler the plot, which is very contrived. The novel is more on the occult / paranormal spectrum, does very half-hearted attempts at offering scientific explanations for the described phenomena, leaves tons of questions completely unanswered, uses terrible plot devices, and has very flat character development. Not at all the Greg Bear I’m used to

[Billie's Not So Secret Diary · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing... While the plot of the story was interesting the characters were so generic and blah that it fell flat. There a few really nice descriptions and emotional connections, it wasn't enough to over come the plainest.

I had a hard time really connecting with the characters, I did not feel any emotion for them because they didn't come across as having emotions.

[Angela Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

What there was of it was good: great idea, good writing. But when I finished I wondered if I had missed several chapters. It just seems incomplete.

[Nick Ray · Rating 1 out of 5]

Just couldn't get into it. Like a horror story? Strange energies cause people to kill in American town. DNF

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

Starts off so well but loses focus completely.

[Ananda · Rating 2 out of 5]

Più che psychlone borechlone. Due stelle proprio per l'idea.

[Huub · Rating 2 out of 5]

Niet echt mijn ding , dit horror gebeuren over onverwachte naweeën van de atoombommen. Ook niet echt goed geschreven imho, ik vond zijn andere werk (korte verhalen) beter.

[T.S.S. Fulk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started interesting and ended "meh."

[Federico Mangano · Rating 2 out of 5]

A nice plot that goes on for the right amount of pages but doesn't do much more.

[Solim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great pace and tension but when you realize what the psychlone is in the end, it is a little silly. That made me knock off a star. Bear can write like nobody’s business.

[Kayley · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many characters and switching POVs is tricky to keep up with. Not a fan of how it ended.

[Dark-Draco · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a SF author that I enjoy a lot and this novel was no exception, although it was more a supernatural horror with a SF twist at the end. A number of strange occurences are happening throughout America. In a remote log cabin, animals freeze solid, only to come alive again as they thaw and a father and son are driven into murdering each other. A town turns on each other, murdering and scrawling messages of pain in their death throes. The only survivor, a small boy, hears the voices of the love ones he saw die, as well as seeing a stranger in his dreams, a soldier trying to tell him something. As the phenomenon increase, a band of pyshics and scientists are drafted in an effort to discover what it is that is haunting and attacking an entire nation. The answer is very, very scary. I won't spoil it for you, but I was blown away by the punchline to the book. Another lecture on man'sfolly? Maybe, but that doesn't subtract from the enjoyment of the novel.

[Hien · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may be just a wuss because some parts of this book really scared me! I guess this is more horror than science fiction. It's about a psychlone which is a cyclone of psychic energy.

The psychlone is made of vengeful Japanese who were killed in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. If you're caught in the middle of a nuclear blast then not only is your body vaporized but your soul is destroyed as well. You die a complete death. However, if you're at the fringe of the explosion, your body dies but your soul is mangled. These mangled souls came together to form a very powerful and malevolent psychic storm. This storm wandered aimlessly over the Pacific for decades until it touched down in the US. Then lots of bad things happen!

[Voxie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everything before the last 50 pages of this book is well-written, interesting, and fun to read. When the author finally decides to bring the multiple, concurrent story-lines together, however, the book takes a turn for the worse. The story-lines integrate very poorly, one significant piece of the puzzles ends up completely forgotten, and the book finishes with an uninteresting climax. Which is quite a shame, since the book started off so well.

[Jewell Moreno · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book. I don't even know how to catorgize it. Horror, Science Fiction, Thriller. It's all of the above. Very fast paced and hard to put down. There is a strange phenomena happening across america, and it came out of one of America's darkest actions. Very relevant even today. I don't want to give too much away, any spoilers would ruin the fascination. I really, really liked this story. I will be reading more by him.