The Phenomenon — Russell Smith

Imagine living in a world where your inner voice; your private, involuntary thoughts and comments are 'heard' by others. Most relationships would become impossible. Society would start to gradually break down.In a fragmented future world, where civilisation has already had to adapt to higher sea levels, Jason Cobb is a clinical psychologist head-hunted by a government department dedicated to eradicating The Phenomenon, the telepathic 'disease' which suddenly manifested 30 years previously, when he was just a toddler. His parents had rapidly split as a result of this uncontrollable transfer of opinion: not an unusual consequence, but there is something special about Jay Cobb, or Jacob as he prefers to be called. Jacob is one of those rare individuals who doesn't normally think in sound. Among other things, he is able to have a relationship - enter the similarly gifted and quite enigmatic Eleanor Pike, a cosmologist who is also working for the Ministry of Phenomenon Sciences.As we journey through this often surreal world, it becomes clear that some kind of conspiracy is in operation. Jacob and an ex-patient of his, a failed poet with some unscientific ideas, come to the uneasy conclusion that they are being watched by mysterious figures in grey, who also appear not to have an inner voice. Revealing who they are and what they have to do with Jacob's work will change his reality forever.