"The Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester; 9/10

(Originally published as "Tiger, Tiger")

I don't remember this period of reading specifically at all, but what a good one it appears to have been, in hindsight. Those last three and then this, which was one of the most surprisingly good sci-fi reads I've ever encountered.

This book may have been one brilliant audio production away from a 10, it was certainly borderline, but the plot and concept were the only things that really registered with me, and you don't get to a 10 without a strong showing in one of 1)fascinating characters 2)interesting literary style or 3)transcendent thematic significance, and this book did not, at least on first read, hold any of those for me. 

The basic plot concept is a hybrid of two things.  Bester was inspired to begin the story when reading an account of a shipwrecked Japanese sailor adrift on a raft in the Pacific who was avoided by boats for months because everyone thought he was a lure, that if they tried to rescue him they would be torpedoed by a hidden submarine.  The novel's protagonist, Gully Foyle, is adrift in space for a similarly long period of time.  Foyle's story subsequently becomes a futuristic sci-fi adaptation of Andre Dumas's "The Count Of Monte Cristo."  The ways in which it mirrors this story, however, wind up being frequently original and delightful.

Reading this book was a real eye-opener for me.  It was published in '56, and yet presented sci-fi ideas that I myself had thought up and never seen in a book before (and hoped to present as original in the 2010's!). It was so far ahead of its time.  It has nearly every element of your standard cyberpunk novel, minus the actual cyber, but the environment and the characters and the plot are all there, and since William Gibson routinely cites this book as his favorite science fiction, you can bet that the influence is not accidental.  There are just so many great science fiction ideas in this book, and it is so short a book, that you wind up getting something awesome with every chapter. 

I loved this book, and became immediately curious about the author's other work.  I recommend his wikipedia page.  Essentially his classic sci-fi era is represented by exactly two novels, the other of which, "The Demolished Man" won the first Hugo for best novel and is on my to-read-soon list, and a bunch of short stories which have been collected into a single volume.  For decades after this book, Bester disappeared into other forms of writing, only returning to SF briefly in the '70's and before his death in the '80's. 

Nevertheless, he is accorded the rank of Grand Master, and his work, little of it though there is, is routinely cited by great minds in the field as being a primary influence on their writing.  Joe Haldeman has said that he rereads the book every other year.  It has been identified as a SF favorite by Neil Gaiman, Samuel Delany, Robert Silverberg, and Michael Moorcock, all someday to be reviewed in these pages.  The writers of the show "Babylon 5" created a character named "Alfred Bester," played by Star Trek's Walter Koenig, as an homage. This guy became a big deal with less output than anyone else, and this book is tops on that list.

I loved it.  You should read it.  Considering how many excellent ideas it has, it isn't even that long. Highly recommended, and an absolute must for the reader of speculative fiction.