Nightmare Journey by Dean R. Koontz
"Nightmare Journey" is a speculative fiction narrative set 100,000 years in the future, exploring themes of identity, societal division, and the quest for belonging. The story follows Jask Zinn, who escapes from the "Pures," an elite group that despises individuals with genetic alterations, including telepaths like Jask. His journey transitions from aimless flight to purposeful exploration when he is joined by four companions: Tedesco, a bearlike subhuman; Chaney, a wolf-man; Kiera, Chaney's wife; and Melopina, a genetically modified human. Together, they seek the Black Presence, an alien entity that has been on Earth for millennia, which they believe holds the key to their future.
The novel unfolds in three distinct sections, each detailing their attempts to find the Black Presence, including encounters with remnants of a spaceship and a massive alien organism. As they traverse various landscapes, Jask grapples with his identity as a telepath, which is viewed as a contamination by the Pures. Ultimately, after facing peril and loss, Jask and his companions are restored and prepared to share their unique telepathic abilities with the Black Presence. Interwoven with their main journey is a subplot involving Merka Shanley, a cunning courtesan whose ambitions lead to her downfall when her telepathic powers are revealed. The narrative presents a rich tapestry of character development and philosophical inquiry about what it means to be human in a world marked by fear and prejudice.
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Nightmare Journey
First published: 1975
Type of work: Novel
Type of plot: Science fiction—future history
Time of work: 100,000 years in the future
Locale: Various locations on Earth
The Plot
Nightmare Journey is the account of Jask Zinn, who flees the enclave of “Pures” when it is discovered that he has developed telepathic powers. Jask’s journey, at first aimless and compelled only by Jask’s need to escape, takes purpose when he is joined at various stages by four companions: Tedesco, a bearlike subhuman; Chaney, a wolf-man; Chaney’s wife, Kiera; and Melopina, a human with minor genetic alterations who was conceived in an artificial womb. Together, the five travelers seek and eventually find the Black Presence, an alien power from another planet.
Set 100,000 years in the future, Nightmare Journey depicts Earth after a last great war has substantially reduced the number of surviving humans. The ruling elite among them, known as “Pures,” are contemptuous of altered humans who have been conceived in artificial wombs, as well as of other humans who have been poisoned by radiation.
The central character, Jask, at first believes that he is a Pure, but he is in fact an “esper,” or telepath. This condition should mean death for him because the Pures regard telepathy as a form of contamination. Jask flees the Pure enclave and reaches a nearby town, where he reluctantly joins forces with Tedesco. Together they journey on, Jask because he has no alternative and Tedesco because he believes in the existence of the Black Presence, a “monitor” left on Earth 85,000 years ago by alien visitors.
The novel is divided into three sections. The first, titled “The First Journey: The Black Glass,” takes the travelers to a post-holocaust village on the outskirts of the Wildlands. There, Jask sees the broken remains of a spaceship, but because his Pure indoctrination has rejected the history of space travel and cultivated instead a false religion based on the worship of Lady Nature and hatred of her foe, the Ruiner, he refuses to acknowledge the spaceship for what it is.
Jask and Tedesco struggle for thirty-four days in the Wildlands, a strange place of bacterial jewel-like forests. After traversing it, they join up with three other telepaths, Chaney, Kiera, and the lovely Melopina (with whom Jask falls in love). Tedesco has a map showing three possible locations for the Black Presence. The five travelers arrive at the first of them, the Black Glass craters, but the Black Presence is not there.
In the second section of the novel, “The Second Journey: The Glacier of Light,” they have no better luck. Although they feel a compelling telepathic presence probing them, it proves to be an alien form different from the Black Presence—an organism as large as a city, in which other humans have lived and perished.
In the final section, “Coda: Deathpit and Beyond,” the travelers find the Black Presence. Although Jask is unwittingly killed by the alien, it restores him to life through miraculous machinery. In the end, he and his companions await transportation with other espers to the distant stars, where they can teach the Black Presence and its kind the human espers’ unique telepathic powers of psychic bonding and projection.
Woven throughout the novel is a second, minor plot involving Merka Shanley, an opportunistic courtesan to a Pure general. She successfully plots to kill him and have herself proclaimed general, but she is destroyed by the Pures when she proves to have telepathic powers.