Psi/Net, by Billy Dee Williams
and Rob MacGregor

Book Description of "Psi/Net", by Billy Dee Williams and Rob MacGregor:
On November 12, 1995 the CIA issued a report admitting that military and intelligence services had used psychics for spying or "remote viewing". Project Stargate, as it was called, is the premise of this nerve-jangling thriller.

Former Air Force Major Trent Calloway just wants to forget about his past, especially the tragedy that changed his life when he was involved in a government remote viewing project. With his marriage ruined in the aftermath of his psychic spying, he wanders the Southwest, occasionally guiding river rafting tours. And then suddenly his painful past returns and threatens to damage him again.

He finds out that he had been drugged during his remote viewing sessions and that the drug, now years later, is causing ever increasing side-effects in himself and the other government psychic spies he worked with - and that their psychic abilities are still expanding at frightening rates.

He realizes that the unknown drug he and the other psychic spies unwillingly took has bound them all together in a deadly psychic nexus, a "PSI net", that has trapped Callaway, who must now fight for his life and his sanity as he struggles for the security of the United States and its people.


Amazon.com:
Billy Dee Williams is a modern Renaissance man. An accomplished stage, television, and screen actor, he's best known to science fiction fans as Lando Calrissian of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. He's also a painter whose works have been shown across the U.S. and are part of the National Gallery's permanent collection. Now he has teamed up with Edgar award winner Rob MacGregor (Prophecy Rock and many others) to write PSI/Net, an account of psychic warfare set against the background of an America facing a possible schism.

In reality, the CIA revealed in 1995 that it performed experiments in "remote viewing"--psychic spying. This is the jumping-off point for the novel. Trent Calloway is a (fictional) retired member of the project whose quiet life as a river-rafting tour guide is disrupted by a vision of Washington D.C. destroyed by a nuclear bomb. Soon he's swept into a secret war against the Freedom Nation--separatists tied to the militia movement who want to carve their own country out of the western United States. Calloway labors to psychically observe Freedom Nation's operatives and try to learn their plans, but Freedom Nation retains its own psychics--also former CIA operatives--whose job is to conceal their campaign and disrupt Calloway's efforts. He and his enemies play a mental game of cat and mouse using remote viewing, precognition, and mind control that becomes more deadly with each chapter.

A tightly focused novel that spans just five days, PSI/Net is firmly grounded in real-world issues such as race relations and federalism. Because the settings and conflicts are so realistic and familiar, the ESP elements become entirely believable--they slide right in like puzzle pieces that complete the whole, no more outlandish than helicopters or Secret Service agents. Anyone looking for page-turning suspense with a subtle science fiction twist will definitely enjoy this energetic story. --J.B. Peck


From Publishers Weekly:
Slim but briskly paced, this near-future thriller launches a new and promising collaboration between actorAand debut novelistAWilliams (best known for his role as Lando Calrissian in Return of the Jedi) and novelist MacGregor (Prophecy Rock, etc.). Their protagonist is Trent Calloway, a retired African-American Air Force major who is a survivor of a secret project to turn people capable of "remote-viewing" (i.e., psychics) into a military asset. Suspicious psychic phenomena make Calloway wonder if a new remote-viewing plan is in the worksAand indeed it is. His old project director, Gordon Maxwell, has entered into an alliance with a right-wing former general and his militia followers, and is trying to use remote viewing as a weapon to overthrow the U.S. government. They intend to plant a Russian-built suitcase-nuke in Washington, D.C., and to convince American president David Dustin that he has been contacted by UFOs.



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Calloway, his ex-wife and several other retired psychics (all bearing psychological scars from the first project) desperately race against time and terrorism to save the country. The story plays out tightly, with high excitement, and the authors do an excellent job not only in generating convincing characters but in making their bizarre scenario appear plausible. It hardly matters which author contributed what to the novel, as it should garner more than enough praise to spread around. ©1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

 
From Library Journal:
Once part of a secret government experiment in "remote viewing," Trent Calloway now finds himself linked involuntarily with the minds of other psychic spies. When he receives a premonition of danger involving a nuclear weapon and the Capitol, Calloway returns reluctantly to active duty, regardless of the cost. This collaborative effort by actor Williams and author MacGregor (Prophecy Rock) emphasizes fast-paced action and a race-against-time plot over characterization, making this an optional purchase for large sf collections. ©1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Kirkus Reviews:
First-novelist Williams (better known as a film actor) and coauthor MacGregor (Edgar Awardwinner for Prophecy Rock, a YA paperback) come up with a modest thriller based on the more restrained forms of parapsychology, a.k.a. PSI. A former member of a team of remote viewers (psychics hired to spy for the CIA), retired Major PSI/NETBilly Dee WilliamsTrent Calloway now lives alone in an Airstream trailer and acts as a whitewater rafting guide in the Southwest. Trent finds himself being invaded by strange images, then is approached by his onetime sidekick in spying for the military, ``Doc'' Miriam Boyle, who tells him that they were secretly given a booster shot that increased their psychic abilities and tied the whole team into a PSI net. Now several other members of the old net have been herded together by their former CIA boss, Gordon Maxwell, who has himself been hired by renegade George Wiley, a right-wing nut hiding out from the police who wants several western states to secede from the Union. What's more, Wiley has sent his daughter Jill and teenager Matt Hennig off to Washington with a nuclear bomb in a backpack: theyre meant to blow up the White House, the president, and much of the capital. Meanwhile, President David Dustin has made a strange allusion in a recent speech to being visited by aliens. Has the president gone tabloidal and joined the alien abductee folks? His spokesperson, Calloways ex-wife Camila Hidalgo, tells reporters that Dustin spoke in metaphor. But then the president tells her to leak word to CNN that he really means it. How do space aliens tie in with nuking D.C., not to mention Wiley's plan to build Freedom Nation out of the seceding states? Stay tuned. The authors avoid over-the-top Men in Black special effects and try hard to keep their tale within the bounds of reasonthe premise is based on an actual government program, after allthough the developments are still pretty lurid. -- ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About the Authors:
Billy Dee Williams is a renowned stage, television and film actor most noted for his roles in The Empire Strikes Backs, Return of the Jedi, and Lady Sings the Blues. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

Rob MacGregor is the Edgar Award winning author of Prophecy Rock and many other novels. He lives in Boynton Beach, Florida.

From "Psi/Net", by Billy Dee Williams and Rob MacGregor
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