Geek vs Life

“The Stars My Destination” is a brilliant novel. It is not a story of a brilliant man. The genre is science fiction. It was written in the Nineteen Fifties by a man named Alfred Bester. It may also be one of the influential science fiction novel you haven’t heard of. It is also the most prescient.

This is a revenger story.  A man named Gully Foyle has been left for dead in deep space on a decimated ship, during war time between the planets. A ship comes by and ignores his flares. A plot spoiler: Mr. Foyle survives the deep space. He swears murderous revenge on the cruiser.  Some things you should know about Gulliver Foyle is of that he is of a “lower class.” He doesn’t have any special skills. He doesn’t have any education, in fact he  speaks in a gutteral patois. He is also very primal, and passionate in his emotions.

The prose is economical. In fact because of the age, when this was written, some things happen off stage as it were. As a reader, you will have to work out certain events, like sex…or rape. So be prepared to do some mental lifting in reading this book. It is a thrilling book because of the main character.

These days in narratives we get many of anti-heroes. Most of the time they are not really anti-heroes. They just don’t fall into “conventional” society, be in real life or reel life in the case of narratives. They are cool, because they are sensitive, and so articulate. (They always talk about their feelings…in narratives don’t they?) Gulliver Foyle is not cool, nor is he sensitive, nor articulate. He does horrible acts of violence. He has only one thing in mind: hate. Hate has enabled him to survive. It helps him evolve into from a non thinking beast into a thinking monster. I can’t decide if her is immoral or amoral.  No matter, as a reader, you are drawn in by his savagery, his singular obsession of revenge.

There is a secret involved. Something on that ship makes Gully Foyle valuable to some of the richest men on the planet, Terra. (This would be Earth for you non Latin readers.)  This cast of antagonists have the most depth in the novel, and as antagonists in general, in most books. There character depth is a nice immediate contrast with the protagonist, Foyle. You may never cheer the protagonists” on, but you understand their plight…well eventually. Of course you may not cheer on the “hero.”  You will see him evolve. I will not say he will have  redemption, but perhaps…perhaps he may have apotheosized.

Towards the end of the novel, I couldn’t put it down. Just “one more chapter” spilled into chapter after chapter. It was nice to soak up another novel after Harry Potter. The ending kicks ass. When you shower, the next morning, wondering what the black and blue spots are; it would be the end and the damage done.

The book starts with an epigram, and those that know the poem will have an idea what the book is truly about, also some editions of the book have an introduction by Neil Gaiman.

The concepts in the book don’t seem dated. Part of it is the believability of the concepts. There are multinational corporations controlling vast amounts of society. This is even amazing, considering the date the book was written. The advent of “jaunteing (teleportation) and how it would affect society. Things would break down. The idea of countries would dissolve. Hiding from the government would be easier.

It is a brilliant novel. A mediation of what is to be human, and what is to be alive. It gives an answer to that question, about controlling one’s emotions, and the place of “negative” emotions, like hate, in spurring evolution. The next level of conscience in intelligence sparked by destruction of others or ourselves. It creates a fascinating debate on society, if the price is too high or not high enough.