Time to open discussion on The Stars My Destination. Enjoy and Happy New Year.
Time to open discussion on The Stars My Destination. Enjoy and Happy New Year.
I would say SMD is generic sci-fi. It has everything that you would expect, is packed full of ideas, has a great central character, a palpable sense of excitement and awe. To top it all it is well written and very easy to read.
But that's just it - it does everything very well, but didn't really do anything more. I was expecting a lot, as I always do from these revered books, but it left me a bit cold. I liked it but wouldn't jump to read it again. I wasn't convinced by the whole jaunting society, and the scene switching was a bit clumsy in places.
7/10, with an extra point for the experimental text, which did actually add to the wierdness at the end of the book. 8/10.
Last edited by Ropie; January 4th, 2006 at 03:05 PM.
I agree. It was totally incredible for me, so I never really could "enter" into the story. Also, the motivation of the main character and all that rage was just too much for me. I couldn't feel identified at all and I didn't care much about him.Originally Posted by Ropie
I didn't like it, especially because it was also used in "The demolished man" (which, by the way, I totally hated). The first time is surprising, the second is just boring.
Also, I should say that I am in doubt about whether this book should be classified as SF or as fantasy. The science (if jaunting can be called "science") was not very coherent, and most things looked more like magig.
Globally, I expected much more from this book (it is considered one of the classics) and I didn't like it very much (though a bit more than "The demolished man"). It seems that Bester is not my thing
Lol, you don't want much from a book do you! Great characters, loads of ideas, excitemnt, great writing. Although i'd say 8/10 is still very good.
I guess i'm lucky, in that having high expectation doesn't reduce my enjoyment of a book, so i almost always see why a book is considered classic, and quite often love them (eg, Day of the Triffids, Ender's Game, Canticle for Leibowitz etc etc)
Stars my Destination is one of the ones i love.
I thought the plot had everything a good SF book needs, ie a plot that would stand up without SF elements. The story of a man shipwreaked, who sees a ship ignore his pleas for help, which causes him to go mad and find the strength to survive just to obtain revenge would work whether or not space travel or teleportation was involved.
What was the problem with the jaunting? If you dislike books in which mankind gains mental abilities, then you have to throw out half of SF, including some all time greats (Leguin's Hainish books, Dune, Pern, Wolfe's Sun books, Childhoods End, Dying inside, etc). I agree its not science, its science fiction.
The main things that make this book stand out for me are Foyle's character, which is extremely deep and still pretty much unique in SF (heroes motivated by exclusively by hate are rare), and especially the writing, which blows most modern writers out of the water IMO. Bester has a great style, which counts for a lot considering that most SF writers have no style at all, good or bad.
One of my very favourites, I'd give it 10/10.
I thought it had all those things but the whole didn't move me as much as I hoped.
Yes, isn't it based on a non-sci-fi novel? I forget which one...I thought the plot had everything a good SF book needs, ie a plot that would stand up without SF elements.
Not the jaunting itself, but the society that builds up around this new found skill. Like Odo says, if you don't buy it it almost makes the entire book inpenetrable as much of the plot centres around it.What was the problem with the jaunting?
Yes, a good character, but I found the circus character version of Foyle extremely irritating!The main things that make this book stand out for me are Foyle's character, which is extremely deep and still pretty much unique in SF (heroes motivated by exclusively by hate are rare),
Glad you liked itOne of my very favourites, I'd give it 10/10.I can see why it is well loved - I almost loved it, but not quite.
I read this a year ago. The great thing about the book is it's tableu-the wreck of the Nomad, the Sargasso asteroid of the Scientifics (these guys are a riot),the cavern hospital -Gouffre Martel,the corporate branded empire of Presteign of Presteign (which is way ahead of it's time piece of satire,BTW). How the central protagonist gets the wreck moving is great stuff -I love all of this.
The single minded superman motivated by rage (or "violent male" as VanVogt called him) is something of a fixation from the late 30s and on, for American SF writers. Foyle is probably it's most famous incarnation. He's predated by Sam Harker in Henry Kuttner & CLMoore's Fury and has a more credible and less super descendant as Simeon Krug in Robert Silverberg's Tower of Glass. I'm sure other people can name a ton more.I don't think it's rare fictional construct at all. There are comparable characters in film: Lee Marvin's Walker in Boorman's PointBlank,Terence Stamp's Wilson in Soderbergh's The Limey and probably most famously, Clint Eastwoods stranger in High Plains Drifter. The film characters benefit a great deal from being abstracts(deliberate non characters)in the tale of revenge, but that's not a strategy that has been used to my knowledge in SF genre fiction.
My main problem with this novel, is that Bester wants Foyle, this cromagnon, to tranform into a cultivated man like Edmond Dantes of the Count of Monte Cristo, and it just doesn't work. While I'm aware from personal experience that male rage is great rocket fuel, I'm not into the wetdream that your male rage will transform you from a grunt into a cultured, wine drinking, Shakespeare spouting superman in the blink of an eye. Bester also mistakes mad for bad, and has his character do unnecessarily vile things like rape Robin Wednesbury, use her throughout the book, and then later you're supposed be in sympathy with this guy's remorse and rehablilitation. It all feels more than a little mechanical, and not very convincing as character fiction, and certainly nowhere as convincing as The Count of Monte Christo,this novels supposed model, which is a wonderful, at times painful, tale of injustice and revenge that everyone should read. Edmond Dantes, now that's a great character.TSMD does not benefit from a comparison to this novel.
Then there's this:
"...I've handed life and death back to the people who do the living and dying. the common man's been whipped and led enough by driven men like us...Compulsive men...Tiger men who can't help lashing the world before them....Let the world make it's own choice between life and death...let them learn or die.We're all in this together. Let's live together or die together."
If you read the book,you know he's talking about scattering the PyrE, a universe destroying substance to everyone around the world. I don't know if it's that Bester is an NRA minded guy,and it's firearms (hence prye?)he has in mind with this,but that's not how it's presented.The force he's referring to is a tad more destructive than guns.
SO:
do you think everyone should have bombs,like maybe...A bombs?
To me that sounds something like addledheaded, unadulturated horsedoodle. I don't see why this ridulous aspect of the novel, is overlooked in all the criticism I've read.
2 1/2 stars for this one. Definitely a must read,but very seriously flawed: it draws very dubious conclusions like the above, and is, to me at least, a major disappointment as character driven fiction.
I don't buy Gully Foyle at all.
And I really hate that name: really hate Gully as the "nick" for Gulliver , but let's assume that it's as wince provoking and grating as it is, on purpose.
Last edited by ArthurFrayn; January 22nd, 2006 at 06:21 PM.
Raging discussion this month.
I find it hard to really dislike a book I can read in one lazy afternoon. As such, I didn't have any big problems with TSMD, and there were a few things I found quite interesting about it (probably nothing Bster intended).
I always like to look at what authors get right and what they get wrong when it comes to older SF. One of my favorite things about this one was that in the prison, when trying to break him, they were playing records. Bester even mentions the hiss and crackle/pop of records. We can go to the stars, we can jaunt around the universe, and we still have records that pop and hiss.
I guess I'm with ArthurFrayn on this one in that I didn't really buy Gully Foyle and his "I can do anything if I get good and pissed about it" attitude. Bester seems to be endorsing that "male rocket fuel" can get it done. I've found that rage doesn't really solve anything.
That's one possible reading of it. The other possibility I can come up with is that maybe he thinks that things of that magnitude (weapons that can destory the earth) shouldn't be left in the hands of just a few powerful people. The decisions to use those sorts of things should belong to everyone, together. Would you want one or two people deciding to use things that destructive, maybe because it would further their own ends, rather than those of the race? I can see the scattering of the PyrE as more of a symbolic distribution of that power and responsibility rather than a literal message that everyone should have weapons or something like that.
If you read the book,you know he's talking about scattering the PyrE, a universe destroying substance to everyone around the world. I don't know if it's that Bester is an NRA minded guy,and it's firearms (hence prye?)he has in mind with this,but that's not how it's presented.The force he's referring to is a tad more destructive than guns.
SO:
do you think everyone should have bombs,like maybe...A bombs?
To me that sounds something like addledheaded, unadulturated horsedoodle. I don't see why this ridulous aspect of the novel, is overlooked in all the criticism I've read.
This could very well be what he means, but it is very awkwardly done.Things have to function both symbolically AND within the context of the story.Bombs do not exactly translate to power and responsiblity for the world's collective destiny, and the symbol does not occur anywhere else in the book.On the other hand if he is talking exclusively about destructive force,the prevailing wisdom of today is, to lessen the amount of bombs not to increase it. I do not agree that everyone should have the capability of destroying their neighbors.If I had my druthers no one would be entrusted with that responsiblity.To me, it's a staggeringly naive vision that does not take into consideration the perversity of human nature.And this after a novel depicting the adventures of a walking timebomb.I can see the scattering of the PyrE as more of a symbolic distribution of that power and responsibility rather than a literal message that everyone should have weapons or something like that.
Last edited by ArthurFrayn; January 7th, 2006 at 03:14 PM.
One of the things we in the UK and Ireland have to thank the Gollancz / Millenium SF Masterworks series for is that it has introduced some of the classics of the past to a whole new generation of readers. I include myself among them, as before books like 'The stars my destination' (or 'Tiger! Tiger!' as it was first published as in 1956) became widely available in this reprint, it was a matter of either hunting them down on-line or playing a waiting game and keeping an eye on second hand bookshops (along with everyone else...).
The Millenium series and the yellow-jacket Gollancz series offer a fantastic way to build up a select library of SF in a very short time. In the early days, I bought each new edition almost purely on the basis of the last one having been very satisfactory.
This is, of course, how I put Bester on my shelf after having seen him referenced and mentioned in a number of places (as diverse sources as Babylon 5 and The Simpsons, in fact). Previously I have to confess that I'd never actually owned anything by him. I absorbed 'The Stars my Destination', henceforce to be called TSMD and 'The Demolished Man' in quick succession.
Leaving discussion of the latter for another time, I will open by saying that I think TSMD was a near perfect book at the time it was released, and several decades on it remains outstanding.It was a pivotal work which influenced not just the 1960s new wave but also the cyberpunk authors of the 80s. Even by todays standards this is an absolutely incendiary novel: Extremely fast moving, and all the more impressive considering it is only Bester's second novel.
TSMD has been much drawn upon in styllistic and thematic terms. One of Bester's underpinning tendencies is to warn against the agendas of big business and centralised power structures, and in this respect he was an early prophet of a whole SF movement (mirrored in popular culture). If elements of TSMD have lost their punch slightly since they were written, it is not entirely Bester's fault as a result: TSMD has been much-imitated.
Enough with the praise, though. Even if the history of the SF genre is immaterial to you, then TSMD remains a fine soap opera of betrayal and revenge. Bester deserves to be rediscovered by new generations, and not just TMSD, but also 'The Demolished Man': Which, if I'm not mistaken, won the first ever Hugo award.
While I'm on the subject of trivia, I might add that wikipedia informs me that BB4 did a 60 to 90 minute adaption of TSMD in 1991. Anyone who can point me towards a copy of it shall get a shiny new dollar!
Last edited by Ouroboros; January 7th, 2006 at 04:15 PM.
I also gave it an 8/10. I admired the storytelling, the imagination and witty use of language. I couldn't find if in myself to really have much empathy for any of the characters (which was not true for me with The Demolished Man). The science wasn't plausible but not because it's dated . . . it's not supposed to be plausible; it's more an opportunity to explore character and ethics and society. I can certainly see how and why this book has been influential.
On balance, I'd have to say that I prefered The Demolished Man.
Same here. It's a simpler, more concise story, and Bester's satiric strengths are not overshadowed by a pretentious overreaching for "the big message".On balance, I'd have to say that I prefered The Demolished Man
I give him credit for going for it in TSMD...but he missed it.
Still, it is important "history of SF" reading as pointed out above.
However,his influence on cyberpunk is overstated, IMO.
Bester as an influence on the new wave of the late 60s and 70s? Sure, but I see nothing cyberpunk about this book other than it's satiric depiction of corporate ridden government, and it's antiauthoritarianism.There are no angry supermen in the cyberpunk I've read.
Besides, for cyberpunk, you don't really need Bester when you've got Phil Dick.
Last edited by ArthurFrayn; January 8th, 2006 at 10:26 PM.
TSMD is the book that got me hooked onto scifi when I read it around 1960, so when you come to criticise this piece of science fiction bear in mind that it's now 50 years old and therefore must be judged in its own right, not compared to what is available to discerning scifi fans now...things have moved on.
But back in the 60s this was an exciting, action-filled story wrapped around a heart of social commentary. Great characters, fantastic plot and still capable of getting mentioned in a lot of people's top ten of scifi stories.
Assessed on its own merits I have to say 10/10 for this story.
Bob
I could never remember any poetry in school but this stuck in my mind like a bright shard of light-
Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place,
The stars my destination.
nice one Bester
I finished reading this last week, and I have to come in on the side of those who aren't that terribly impressed. And, as with others, I liked "The Demolished Man" better.
I wish the original title, "Tiger, Tiger" had been kept. It was much more apropos of the plot and the main character, especially as it is much more threatening and much less optimistic than "The Stars My Destination." Also if tied into the whole leitmotif of the tiger-striped tattooing and the bottled-up rage.
While I can see the similarity to "Count of Monte Cristo," which I loved when I read it, there are several really important differences between Gully Foyle and Edmond Dantes. For one, Dantes carries out his revenge with flair and elan. Foyle bulls through everything, although the Fourmyle circus amused me quite a bit. Dantes does bad things to bad people, the people upon whom he wishes to carry out his revenge. He does nice things for nice people. Foyle does bad things to good people, especially the woman Robin, and this makes him an entirely different person. Essentially Dantes is a cool revenge-motivated hero, while Foyle is really a complete a**hole.
And the ending really did kind of fall apart to me.
Personal verdict: 6/10. Some interesting stuff and definetely give it some points for writing and symbology and such, but a lot of flaws.
I don't know if this will drive you guys as crazy as it drove me, but I was thinking about this poem snippet a few days ago, and it turns out that it can be sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle." It got stuck in my head for too long. Try it -- if you dare!
Only thing I have read by Bester. Has some interesting ideas. As others have said however empathizing with the main character isn't that easy. Moreover, I thought the writing style seemed very thin in the same way most older SFF I've read is. The writing is quick paced but terse, something like an extended short story or comic book. I had no sense of being enveloped in a different world. Maybe because of that a comparison to The Count of Monte Cristo, a novel that is able to evoke sumptuous decadence and thoroughly absorb its reader in its drama at will, seems way off. As a sci-fi work The Stars My Destination is very good but as a tale of revenge or an example of elegant writing it's forgettable.
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