Alfred Bester writes a novel for the ages

The Stars My Destination – Alfred Bester (1956)

            After having heard the name Alfred Bester knocked around in the various science fiction worlds I frequent, I dug up and read Alfred Bester’s The Demolished Man, which was awesome.  Once I find a writer I like, especially in science fiction, I try to dig up anything else from them that I can read.  By using the inter-library loan department at the University of Houston’s M.D. Anderson Library, I picked up the Hugo Award-winning novel, The Stars My Destination.  It is even better than I could have imagined. 

            The frenetic pace of the plot, the twisted and amoral motivations of the characters, the deep exploration of what, at the time, was purely speculative science, and the morality inherent in the story all stand as predecessors to the dark cyberpunk novels of the late 1970’s and 1980’s.  It is amazing to me that this novel was written in 1956.  The top sci-fi/fantasy writers of the last 40 years all claim it as a primal source, as one of the best science fiction novels ever written.   It is as good as promised and deserves to be read more widely.

            The story concerns a man in the 25^th century named Gully Foyle, who has been left for dead on a decrepit spaceship drifting through our Solar System.  He survives for 6 months, until he sees a ship named VORGA, which sees his calls for help but does not stop to rescue him.  His desire for vengeance against the VORGA, its crew, and the people who made the decision to not respond to his mayday overshadows everything else in his life.  I do not want to describe too much because at every turn this book upends my expectations and proceeds to gain momentum, depth, and wonderment.  It explores so much, from the strata of such a futuristic society to the machinations of the powerful against the powerless, to the possibilities, both good and bad, inherent in the human colonization of the Solar System.  I do not want to ruin any of that for a future reader of The Stars My Destination.

            Alfred Bester was a visionary genius right up there with the likes of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Jules Verne when it came to extrapolating the possibilities scientific progress can bring.  He was also a genius in the vein of Philip K. Dick, and William Gibson, able to show the human need to use technology and to own it, oftentimes to our very own detriment.  I hope more people read Bester’s work, and keep it alive for future generations.  Stories like these are what made me love the genre of science fiction.  They keep me hopeful that originality and beauty and intelligence can be found in old writing as well as in new writing.  This is an awesome thing indeed.

(This awesome book is available for download as a PDF file here: http://americandigest.org/Bester,%20Alfred%20-%20The%20Stars%20My%20Destination.pdf )

(This book is also available for purchase here:  AMAZON  )

Finding a writer I never read before is like connecting to a mind across the decades!

The Demolished Man – Alfred Bester (1953)

            Every once in a while a name will pop out of the daily skronk that enters my ears and remain as something to be explored.  That is what happened one day, years and years ago, when I happened to be watching a Simpsons episode.  In the episode, a nerdy character named Martin was speaking in front of the school in a bid for Class President (if memory serves) and shouted out, “As your president, I would demand a science-fiction library, featuring an ABC of the overlords of the genre: Asimov, Bester, Clarke! “

Another of the nerdy kids then asked, “What about Ray Bradbury?” and Martin replied condescendingly,

“I am aware of his work.” 

I laughed and laughed because I find Ray Bradbury’s writing interminably dull, and I have never seen fit to include him in any discussion of science fiction writers to admire.  Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke are all-time idols of mine.  However, in all the years I had read science fiction I never came across the name Alfred Bester.  I had to remedy that discrepancy.

            After doing a little research online I found that one of Mr. Bester’s most highly regarded works is the book The Demolished Man, which I proceeded to request through the Inter-Library Loan System that the Library I work at has in place.  There are a great many older sci-fi stories that entertain, but few that seem truly timeless, and this book is exactly that!  I found it hard to tell whether I was reading a 60+ year old book, or a cyberpunk novel! 

This image would fit either!

            The Demolished Man is structured as a murder/murder investigation in a future world where some people have psychic abilities, and are trained and hired for them.  The writing is so fast-paced, and whip-smart, reminiscent of Phillip K. Dick at his most ADD.  The typesetting is utilized to full effect as Bester shows us the mental conversations between “Espers,” the term used for those with psychic skills.  I got completely lost in this book and it was over far too quickly!  I will have to dig up more of Mr. Bester’s work.  Finding a quality science fiction writer that I had not yet read is like finding GOLD Jerry, gold.  It has been a while since I sunk my mental teeth into a work of fiction, and it felt great to be transported to another world.  I will have to dig up Bester’s novel The Stars My Destination next!

(This book can be read online here: http://ebooksbeus.weebly.com/uploads/6/3/0/8/6308108/the_demolished_man_-_alfred_bester.pdf )

(This book can be purchased here:  AMAZON  )