Mind of My Mind
Review
Mind of My Mind, by , is the second book in the Patternist series. It tells the origin story of the Patternists.
Mind of My Mind is set in a fictional suburb of 1970s Los Angeles. The LA of the book is a violent and dangerous place, filled with gangs, murders, fatal traffic collisions, and other accidental deaths. The danger is amplified by the presence of Doro and his telepathic children, who react violently to one another. The story is told from multiple perspectives, including Doro, Emma, Mary, Karl, Seth, Rachael, Jesse, Ada, and Jan. Seth is the brother of Clay Dana, the titular character from Clay’s Ark. In the book, Mary undergoes her transition, discovers her ability to control and shield other telepaths, and establishes a massive community called the Patternists.
I didn’t enjoy Mind of My Mind very much. Like Wild Seed, it focuses mainly on the characters and their relationships, but this time there were too many characters, none of whom I cared about. As a result, the book felt hollow, with little plot to fill the gaps.
The biggest issue for me was that Wild Seed did such a great job building up Doro and Anyanwu—who goes by Emma in this book—that I became invested in them, only for them to be nearly absent here. None of the new characters have their same force of personality.
The themes of othering and slavery are still present, but muted. The Patternists enslave normal humans and even have a slur for them. The Patternists are clearly evil, which made it hard to root for any of them.
If it weren’t for my book club, I would have stopped reading halfway through. I’ll give Clay’s Ark a try, but I’m not optimistic about finishing it.