One of my favorite Science Fiction authors is the Hugo- Award winning Mike Resnick, famous for (among other things), his Santiago Novel, the story of the most infamous of super-outlaws in Futuristic Outer Space. One of the more interesting aspects of Santiago are the colorful characters and the detailed Planetary Systems, and he has subsequently written many other novels based in this same “world”, the blurb on the book cover usually reading “return to the world of Santiago!”
Out of these stories came SOOTHSAYER in 1991, the first chapter of a trilogy. The book was followed in 1992 by ORACLE, and concluded in 1993 with PROPHET.
The story is about a very young girl named Penelope Bailey. Penelope has a very unusual gift that makes her very desired by everyone concerned. She has the ability to see into the future, and by performing certain actions, can manipulate the outcome. Naturally, a talent like this is very, very useful for anybody, whether they be gambler, outlaw or politician, and when we first meet her, she is prisoner of an alien who stole her away from some other kidnappers, and she is trying to work out the variables in her head that will help her escape and be “left alone” The only problem is that sometimes her visions don’t come quickly enough, and occasionally, there is no “good” future to pick from, and she has to roll with the incident.
Thus she crosses paths with a man named Carlos Mendoza, known to the Outer Rim as The Iceman. Unlike the various people who want her to further their own personal exploits, he sees the young girl as one thing only: A Threat. Unlike everyone else, he realizes that although she has limited control over her power, Penelope is only a scared little girl, and her skills will only increase as she gets older, growing as she does, until she becomes an entity who might be able to control the outcome of the entire Universe!
When we first meet up with Penelope, she uses her powers like so: If, for example, someone is chasing her, she may “see” four or five different outcomes in her mind. She sees in one of the “futures” that if she places her doll on the steps, the pursuer will slip and break his neck. Or she may choose another “future” where they simple get away by turning a corner. It’s all a matter of orchestrating things for a favorable outcome.
When Mendoza meets up with Penelope again in ORACLE, she is now a young lady, and has progressed much like he’d predicted she would, but her powers are still growing, and by the time the Iceman catches up with her in PROPHET, she is a fully grown woman who has mastered her gift to its fullest, where she need only stand in a certain way, or gesture with her hands, that hundreds of scenarios and untold futures bend to her will.
By the last book, Carlos Mendoza is an fat balding old man with a pot belly and a limp, but he alone knows that Penelope is orchestrating some huge, diabolical plot that will involve the destiny of the galaxy. But when he catches up with her, will he Kill her, or join her?
