Blind Voices is a 1978 science fiction novel by Tom Reamy. Reamy's only novel, it was published "posthumously in a complete but not final draft"[1] by Berkley Books.
Synopsis
In the early 1930s, three young women in a small Kansas town discover Haverstock's Traveling Curiosus and Wonder Show, and find themselves attracted to its exhibits — some of whom are far more than they seem.
Reception
Blind Voices won the 1979 Balrog Award for best novel,[2] and was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novel of 1978[3] the 1979 Hugo Award for Best Novel,[4] and the 1979 BSFA Award for Best Novel.[5]
Kirkus Reviews considered the novel to be "unsatisfying" and "disappointing", faulting Reamy's exposition as "plodding", and "at odds" with the "grotesqueness" of the subject matter.[6] Jo Walton, conversely, described it as "beautifully written" and "Bradburyesque".[7]
Roz Kaveney found its ending to be "slightly tentative and elegiac", and noted that Haverstock's creation of the freaks via rudimentary genetic engineering was a "pretext" for classifying the book as science fiction — one which "has little to do with the feel or plot."[1] Algis Budrys called the novel "substantial" and "adventurous and suspenseful", lauding Reamy's depictions of characters and setting, and stating that if he were to — like Reamy — be found dead at his typewriter, he "wouldn't be ashamed if something like Blind Voices were in it."[8]