Telepathy

1995 · Robin Hobb · 435 pages · Fantasy

Robin Hobb's debut is a masterclass in making readers care about a character so deeply that his suffering becomes their own. FitzChivalry Farseer is a royal bastard trained as an assassin, and Hobb writes his childhood and adolescence with such intimacy that every betrayal and every small kindness lands with outsized force. The first-person narration is immersive to a degree that few fantasy novels achieve. It's also a slow book that prioritizes emotional truth over action, which means readers who need plot momentum will struggle with stretches where the story is more about how Fitz feels than what he does. For those who connect with it, though, nothing else in fantasy quite compares.

2015 · 2 Seasons · Netflix · Sci-Fi, Drama

Sense8 is the Wachowskis' sprawling, emotionally generous celebration of human connection, following eight strangers across the globe who share a psychic link, delivering some of the most exhilarating and tender moments Netflix has produced.

1953 · Alfred Bester · 250 pages · Science Fiction

Bester's Hugo Award-winning debut novel imagines a future where telepathic police should make murder impossible, then asks what happens when a powerful man tries it anyway.

2019 · Stephen King · 561 pages · Science Fiction, Thriller

The Institute is Stephen King returning to the subject of gifted children in captivity, and while the Firestarter comparisons are inevitable, this is a more politically charged and structurally deliberate novel. The kids are great. The facility is chilling. The resolution is where it stumbles, resolving a tightly wound thriller with mechanisms that feel too convenient for the stakes that preceded them.