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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: In this early story, only the third published by Sargent but among her most reprinted (it appears in both Jack Dann's Wandering Stars and Ursula K. Le Guin's Norton Book of Science Fiction), an empath in retreat from the world recalls her childhood and her discovery of her power--or affliction.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 1971
Fictionwise Release Date: May 2002

68 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [41 KB], eReader (PDB) [21 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [7 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [7 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [62 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [78 KB], hiebook (KML) [46 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [33 KB], iSilo (PDB) [6 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [8 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [35 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [13 KB]
Words: 2181
Reading time: 6-8 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

"Gather Blue Roses" portrays what it is to be an Empath--one able to experience, in a very real and direct way, the pain and anger and fear of others. When Sargent alludes to the horror of Nazi concentration camps, one can imagine only too well what it would be like for someone with the gift--or curse--of Empathy to be thrust into such a place. A poignant, powerful read from a very talented author. -Tammy Cravit, Fictionwise Recommender

"If you have not read Pamela Sargent, then you should make it your business to do so at once. She is in many ways a pioneer, both as a novelist and a short story writer ... she is one of the best."--Michael Moorcock

I cannot remember ever having asked my mother outright about the tattooed numbers. We must have known very early that we should not ask; perhaps my brother Simon or I had said something inadvertently as very small children and had seen the look of sorrow on her face at the statement; perhaps my father had told us never to ask.

Of course, we were always aware of the numbers. There were those times when the weather was particularly warm, and my mother would not button her blouse at the top, and she would lean over us to hug us or pick us up, and we would see them written across her, an inch above her breasts.

(By the time I reached my adolescence, I had heard all the horror stories about the death camps and the ovens; about those who had to remove gold teeth from the bodies; the women used, despite the Reich's edicts, by the soldiers and guards. I then regarded my mother with ambivalence, saying to myself, I would have died first, I would have found some way rather than suffering such dishonor, wondering what had happened to her and what secret sins she had on her conscience, and what she had done to survive. An old man, a doctor, had said to me once, "The best ones of us died, the most honorable, the most sensitive." And I would thank God I had been born in 1949; there was no chance that I was the daughter of a Nazi rape.)