![]() ![]() ![]() Though violent, there is a point to Bester’s prescient tale, and it makes the The Stars My Destination worth the reading, even as bleak Bester paints the future world. The rest of the characters tend to be paper thin, but the point of the story is the story, not the characters. Bester tells you exactly what Gully is, and Gully is as predictable as intended. Gravelly, violent, and raw, the plot is in your face and wastes no time with excess story or meandering character development, to say nothing of description. The story opens on anti-hero Gully Foyle marooned in space, far from Earth or any other planet from whence rescue might come, and the action quickly rises as Foyle discovers powers almost magical in nature hiding within him, but released by the stress and strain of likely death. As Neil Gaiman says in a foreword to the edition I read, many sci-fi novels are out-of-date within a few years, but this one manages to be relevant today and will for many years. Written by Hugo winner Alfred Bester in the mid-1950s, the short novel, stays away from the technobabble and neologisms that might date it and as a result it retains potency decades after publication. The Stars My Destination is one of the more memorable books I’ve read in recent years, as well as one of my favorites. ![]()
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