SCIENCE FICTION

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31576, 13 January 1968, Page 4

SCIENCE FICTION

Breakthrough. By Richard Cowper. Dennis Dobson. 214 pp. Extra - sensory perception and the “psi-powers” have been extensively investigated by science fiction writers, and refreshingly original and convincing treatments of the quality of “Breakthrough” are becoming increasingly uncommon. This novel, Mr Cowper's first venture into science fiction, portrays in a contemporary setting the manifestations of strange and frightening powers by two otherwise “ordinary” people. The characterisation is convincing and adequate, giving the whole an unusual degree of credibility for a book in which fantasy elements bulk so large. The two protagonists, a university lecturer (the narrator) and a student, find that their strange dreams and psychic awareness are integral elements in the final act of a cosmic drama which is playing itself out in the magnificent world of Keats’s “The Fall of Hyperion.” Mr Cowper has woven various segments of Keats’s noble epic fragment into a coherent and beautiful myth which becomes a reality for the novel’s central characters. The mood is fundamentally optimistic and joyful, but the book has considerable tension and pace. The successful merging of a world of fantasy with contemporary reality is perhaps the most striking element of this thoroughly entertaining novel.