I remember reading Enchantress from the Stars as a teenager and being kind of irritated by it. The central idea stuck with me enough that I kept trying other Engdahl books and not quite liking those either. (The keeping on trying may have had more to do with the lack of available options at our local public library than with anything else. I had to really and truly loathe a book not to try others by that author if the library had them.)

I seem to recall that my reaction to Telempath was, "Really? You just did that? Why?" Of course, I stopped reading Robinson after college because that was turning out to be my reaction to every single book. I'm not sure if the things of his I read and liked in high school were actually better or if, well, I was in high school.