This is technically a reread – I was cleaning out my stored books, and came across the omnibus this was a part of. I’d read it so long ago I figured it was time to revisit and figure out if I still wanted to keep it around.
Holy product of the 70s, batman! The book is actually four novellas brought together, and one of them – “A Womanly Talent” has not aged well at all. There was a point where I became acutely embarrassed that it was written by a woman, because holy-god-the-sexism! I’m actually holding off from reading the other book in the omnibus just to give myself a little palette cleanser. (I actually picked up two paperbacks of the books, because it would take up less room than the omnibus, and they were both on Bookmooch. The cover for this one is also awful – definite 70s edition, and the women just look ridiculous.)
The basic background to this stories is that it’s pretty much present day today (so nearish future to when they were originally written), and people have finally figured out how to scientifically measure and quantify psychic talents like telepathy and telekinetics. The four novellas in this book tell four distinct stories of people with these Talents, and how they eventually band together, both for recognition of these Talents, but also for protection from the non-talented, who are naturally afraid of them. I still really love the concepts behind this, but some of the writing really doesn’t hold up.