Prisoner of Fire is a 1974 dystopian science fiction novel by British novelist Edmund Cooper. Set in an alternate 1990s, it follows the political ramifications of the existence of paranormals, or 'espeople' (a portmanteau of ESP, or extra-sensory perception, and people).
The story takes place in a near-future Britain and follows telepath Vanessa Smith, a 17-year-old orphan, who escapes from Random Hill Residential School - an alleged private school for gifted children, but secretly a prison to train psychic children - and goes on the run into the countryside. There, she is taken in by Dr. Roland Badel, a disgraced psychologist and now recluse, who takes pity on her for his own twisted reasons.
Meanwhile, the British government hires Denzil Ingram, a talented assassin, to locate, capture or kill Vanessa in order to secure an important bill that would allow them to gather and control all known espeople in the country. At the same time, Jenny Pargetter, Vanessa's biological mother, develops a telepathic link to her daughter and begins searching for her. To complicate matters further, Professor Marius Raeder, who had fallen out of favor with Prime Minister Joseph Humboldt, plots to enlist Vanessa into his army of telepathic children by force to take revenge on the government.
With all of these competing factions out to get Vanessa, it's only a matter of time before a series of unfortunate events bring the story to its tragic climax.
Tropes:
- The '90s: As imagined from the The '70s. Near-future Britain is filled with plausible technologies, like hovercars and holographic televisions ('tri-di'), and more complex tech like laser pistols and electronic brain implants to prevent telepaths from reading people's minds.
- Age-Gap Romance: Between 17-year-old Vanessa and 37-year-old Roland. He finds her contemptible at first but warms up to her gradually.
- All Your Powers Combined: Professor Raeder's plan to assassinate Humboldt is to have all of his children channel their energies into Vanessa, which combines their shared consciousness into one being.
- Big Bad: Sir Joseph Humboldt is not only the Prime Minister of an increasingly draconian UK government, he's also a right-wing fascist who has ordered the assassinations of various left-wing enemies. His main plan is to get Britain's espeople under his thumb and turn them into a powerful military force.
- Bittersweet Ending: Vanessa is used as a vessel to channel the combined telergy of Professor Raeder's squad. They slip by the telepaths standing guard and project a fiery image of Vanessa to scare Humboldt into falling to his death over a balcony. Back in the secluded Scottish house of Raeder, Vanessa redirects the built up telergy of the group back at them, killing them and Raeder in the process. Vanessa's mental age reverts to that of a child. Roland adopts her as his daughter and escapes with her to America, where she dies years later after physically deteriorating. Despite these tragic events, the media exposes the whole debacle and the newly elected government of M.P. Thomas Green reforms the treatment of paranormals.
- Crapsack World: The UK is in the midst of a right-wing dictatorship that wants to manipulate telepaths into becoming an asset to their geopolitical pursuits. Freedom of speech is actively being eradicated and all political opposition is being squashed under Humboldt's policies.
- Driven to Suicide: Dugal Nemo hangs himself in the Random House boy's lavatory after probing Dr. Lindemann's brain and finding his true intentions.
- In the novel's epilogue, Vanessa's mother screams after a traumatic psychic vision of her daughter, which causes a car accident that ends up killing her husband, Simon Pargetter. She also loses her legs in the accident. The grief of losing her daughter, her husband and her legs is enough for her to commit suicide.
- Earworm: To prevent other telepaths from reading her deepest thoughts, Vanessa uses the old children's rhyme "Ten Green Bottles".
- Dysfunction Junction: Professor Raeder's team of telepathic children are mainly made up of psychopaths and perverts and some of them intend to kill Vanessa out of spite.
- Facial Horror: It's revealed in his backstory that half of Roland Badel's face had been slashed out from the shattered glass of a broken water carafe he'd been assaulted with. Additionally, the assailant, who was one of his patients, nearly finished him off by sawing into his throat with a chunk of glass, leaving a prominent scar across his neck.
- Fan Disservice: Vanessa is subjected to disturbing mental imagery from Professor Raeder's psychic children and one of the images is a beheaded nude girl lying on the grass.
- Maria Mancini, Humboldt's mistress, is initially described as being voluptuous, but once Raeder's children start messing with his mind, he sees her as old, overweight and sagging everywhere.
- Kill the Cutie: Vanessa's young friend, Dugal Nemo, is manipulated into probing for Vanessa after she runs away from Random House. The strain and stress of the telepathic search, as well being sleep deprived by Dr. Lindemann, is enough to drive him to suicide.
- Parental Abandonment: Jenny Pargetter (née Smith) ran away to London as a teenager and develops an intimate connection to John, an activist who lived in the same apartment building. They sleep together and he dies six weeks later in a violent protest, leaving her alone and pregnant. Not wanting to burden her fiancé, Simon, with a child that wasn't his own, she abandons baby Vanessa in an orphange.
- Pretty Little Headshots: Ingram is shot in the head with a laser pistol by Professor Raeder. A steaming hole is left in his head and there's no mention of blood or gore.
- Shattered Sanity: The final result of Vanessa's Mind Rape from Professor Raeder's experiment to assassinate Humboldt. Her mind reverts to childhood and she's led to believe that Roland is her father.
- Starting a New Life: After falling for Vanessa, Roland develops a new identity for himself as a northern painter and plans to leave his cottage and take her with him to the remote Scottish highlands, where they can live as a couple in peace. However, after her mind is broken by Professor Raeder's assassination of the Prime Minister, Roland adopts the now age regressed Vanessa and flees with her to California. She passes away at age 32 and he continued to live for another 13 years as a famous painter.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth: Both Dugal and Vanessa are the nicest kids imaginable and don't deserve all the horrible things that happen to them.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The epilogue of the book is titled "CODA" and briefly summarizes where the surviving characters are and the state of the world following the last chapter.
- Would Hurt a Child: Dr. Lindemann bribes Dugal with chocolate bars to coax him into scanning for Vanessa's whereabouts and ends up depriving him of sleep until Ingram orders him to stop. Eventually, Lindemann uses Ampalia Nine, a drug that amplifies telepathic powers, to enhance Dugal's telepathy and probe deeper into Vanessa's mind. However, Ampalia Nine destroys brain cells everytime it's used and can eventually render someone as mentally disabled. Dugal, wracked by guilt and aware of Lindemann's evil intentions, decides to kill himself in order to protect Vanessa.
