stars my destination

                                                Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

Definitely a fun to read story with a lot of elements that have made a resurgence in movies as of late. I have to say that I enjoyed the prologue just as much as the story with its tale of how humanity began to plague itself then the universe by spreading the reach of mankind an then by taking away all of life's great mysteries through science. I love how the Bester is aware of mankind's boredom of itself and reminds me kind of the attitudes during the great depression when several people went over niagara falls to the betterment of nothing when compared to how countless people gave their lives to further understand teleportation and the mechanics of it on a fluke disaster in the tale. Upon improving and unlocking the secrets of teleportation we of course have to go to war because boundaries are only limited to where a person has been, therefore we must lock up our wives and grand tour the universe to disaster.

The hero (anti -hero) of this story is an interesting character because he is driven purely by principle and will stop at nothing to get closure as to why his life was not worth a corporate vessel stopping to pick him up after he adapted to survival in the vacuum of space aboard the vessel he worked on which was now stranded due to its destruction in combat.  A very simple man who's inner and outer dialogue reflect a class structure put in place to provide limitations very similar to Aldus Huxley's "brave new world."  Gully Foyle is a man who survives insurmountable odds and is just not satisfied with that. His limited speech unwillingness to die for the sole purpose of revenge on the captain of the ship that left him behind takes hime on a journey that leaves a path of destruction and mayhem wherever he goes. I read to some disbelief the first time he rocketed out of a tattooed science/religious sect that had almost all but deified him and he left them to die at the mercy of his ship blasting off from the asteroid they had colonized completely disregarding the fact that they had rescued him. I regret that I did not finish reading the story all the way through but i nonetheless enjoyed it and will finish the tale in the future.

Alfred bester is definitely an author I will look toward in the future when I want something fun to read in the space opera genre that is out of the mainstream.