Review - The Stars My Destination

Title:  The Stars My Destination
Author:  Alfred Bester

"Marooned in outer space after an attack on his ship, Gulliver Foyle lives to obsessively pursue the crew of a rescue vessel that had intended to leave him to die."

Though first published in 1956, The Stars My Destination remains among the most well-known and recommended science fiction novels in history because of its story follows classic themes, its science remains unrealized but imaginable, and its sideways attacks at humanity's desires for wealth-above-all, power-above-all and amusement-above-all.

Gulliver Foyle is Captain Ahab - driven mad.  He is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  But he is also Everyman, discounted as unimportant in the Grand Schemes of the Grand. 

Bester creates a short, but interesting set of "what if" situations in which to tell this story. What if people had colonized the solar system? (Pretty typical sci-fi.)   What if people discovered a way to instantaneously transport themselves with a mere act of will?  Now place that in a reality where such teleportation had certain physical limitations (limited distances and needing to know the target location.)  Now put our obsessed main character (I hesitate to call him a hero) in this setting.

There are anachronisms, as there are in any science fiction story more than 60 years old, but surprisingly few.  And most of the ones which remain seem intentional -- Bester knew they would age, but that the context of his time would translate the message.  And he was clever enough to anticipate the idea that lower levels of technology might become status symbols as they became something only the wealthy could afford to create and maintain.  Snobs will always find some way to distinguish themselves, even if they have to redefine what is "in" to do so.

I have had this book on my "must read some day" list for a long time.  I am glad to have finally read it.  Very worth the read.

A warning though:  Gully Foyle is not a good guy.  He does some nasty things.  This, too, is ahead of its time for a lead character in a sci-fi novel of the '50s.  Some of what he does will anger you, as it was intended to do.  The advantage of a novel of this age, however, is that Gully's actions will not be as graphically described as they would be in a work written in this century.  And, all in all, that's not a bad thing sometimes.