Alfred Bester The Stars My Destination Great Sci-fi

[mhatchett]

I Love this Book. I have a fine copy put out by Franklin Watts in 1987. This book deserves to be republished in a collectors edition. Bester is a fantastic Author. If you haven't read it, you're in for a treat if you do.
MDH

[srboone]

This 3rd print 1961 paperback was part of my grandmother's collection (which is now my collection) and has been on my TBR list since 1996, but keeps getting pushed back.

AB1.jpgAB2.jpg

I did read The Demolished Man, which was also part of what my grandmother left me.

[Grant Wootton]

Awesome grannie you had Mr Boone

[srboone]

She was! I'm having fun looking through all the stuff she left me--again. I just got done putting up about 12 shelves of mysteries and whodunnit?s.

[Dave1442397]

Yes, a great book. He wrote a lot of good books...can't remember one I didn't like.

[mhatchett]

The best!

[srboone]

Okay, it's moved up to 2012 for sure, now!

[divemaster]

One thing I found interesting about The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man is that in both cases the main character is not a person the reader can really sympathize with. Typically, the protagonist in a story is the "good guy"; or, if he is a rogue or not necessarily good, he at least has qualities the author wants us to relate to or sympathize with. But Gully Foyle (Stars) is pretty much a total egomaniacal amoral bastard, and Reich (DM) is a calculating, cold-blooded murderer. And those are the folks we ride along with in these novels.

[mhatchett]

Foyle was "created" by his circumstances. We really don't know what he was like, other than the fact that he was a lower class worker trapped on the treadmill of failure by that society, before he is, well, no real spoilers, right! HAHAHA!!. Total driven bastard, hell yeah, revenge can do that. But there is redemption as well and love. And fantastical weirdness! I Love this book!!! Right next to Dune in my all time favorite category. And I agree about with your assessment of The Demolished Man, but I would add cunning and interesting.
MDH

[mhatchett]

HPIM1384.jpg

" Gully Foyle is my name
and Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place
and death's my destination."
" He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead."
MDH