Psionic Book Two: The Tower by Adrian Howell

 

The Psionic series is a pentalogy revolving around a highly detailed world of humans and Psionics. Psionics refer to people who have acquired extra mental capacities such as telekinesis, mind control and a whole range of completely original abilities too.

The Pentalogy follows the story of Adrian Howell who coincidentally shares the name of the author. (Henceforth if I refer to Howell I mean the author and Adrian, the character.) After initially discovering he has the power of telekinesis he is plagued by headaches sent by an agent of the Angels. After his parents are murdered and his sister goes missing Adrian is alone with two rival factions vying for his allegiance.

He narrowly escapes Ralph and manages to find a quasi-family he can just about tolerate. But the new family isn’t enough, he is still haunted by the idea that his sister is captured and alone. So he risks it all to find her. Landing himself and Alia in an underground prison.

Book Two: The Tower sees the return of Adrian, slightly older and yet still facing a mass of trouble due to his recently gained powers.

Fresh out of captivity, Adrian looks forward to respite in a safe environment surrounded by people like himself. Cindy and Alia live with him and they find between them a semblance of normal family life. Then he meets Terry. She abuses, humiliates and bullies him, all in the name of education.

The safe environment doesn’t stay so for long. At the welcoming ceremony a spy is released from their prison and it looks like an inside job. The Angels seem to be able to obtain alarmingly detailed information about Cindy putting everyone’s lives in serious danger. The guardians are convinced there’s another spy. And Adrian seems the likeliest suspect…

Howell does a lot of character development with the younger members of the cast. Alia no longer cowers and whimpers in the presence of strangers but she still relies on her older brother to keep her safe. Adrian is learning to listen to authority but still struggles to surrender complete control. Terry is an enigma to Adrian in the beginning and their eventual truce impacts both of their developments.

It is interesting when characters develop because of their interaction with each other rather than the happenings in the plot. It gives the characters an extra dimension of humanity. Alia is able to communicate with strangers because she feels safe and protected by Adrian and also through being desensitised to it after her incarceration. This shows she is overcoming her past demons and accepting her current situation as her new family.

The Tower takes place in very few locations compared to the first book but the development and dilemmas faced by the characters are increased ten fold as the Angels seek what they are truly after and doubt creeps into the mind of Adrian. What do his dreams really mean?

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The complete series is now available for download via Amazon.

If you want to know more about the author or the series you can read Howell’s blog here. It is not written in character but he has retained his pen name for the time being. There you will find details and links to all of the books in the Psionic Series and more detailed information about the author and contact details.