The Bookian » Alfred Bester

The Stars My Destination

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:40:17 +0000

Out of control media empire expansion bulletin! Unbridled aggression designed by machines funneled through human flesh! Fight the Order! A classic of the struggle to Entropize freedom. A good re-read, also, now that there are about twenty years of cyberpunk lit behind us. Kind of reminiscent of Spinrads Agents of Chaos, if it had been written by Bester. Wait a minute.. it was! I think it was called The Stars My Destination. I have ten copies and they are multiplying like tribbles. For every one I give away, I receive two from somewhere else. Sounds like a pyramid scheme to me. – reviewed by a cent for entropy

Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:35:17 +0000

No one can Best the Bester. In some ways, Besters writing requires the heavy onslaught of his novelistic form to function, as his language is highly immersive. In short stories, it mostly highlights the weird prose poetics of his florid writing style. However, its unfortunate that we have so little from Bester.. He really should have writ more. There are some good little isotopes of wisdom in here though, and some of them are downright personable and cosy. Required addition to any science fiction reader. – reviewed by demo lish eddifier

The Demolished Man

Bookian — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 20:31:17 +0000

Alfred Bester… a hard-sf writer buried in the body of a florid linguistic dandy. The Demolished Man is one of Besters best known novels, and for anyone who appreciates the density of the Media environment in which humanity finds itself trapped in increasingly smaller concentricitys, a candy store of novelistic complication. Highly psychological, but overlaid with an artifice that seems to be the end result of putting technology into the interface between individual organic thalamaic response nodes. If you know what I mean. – reviewed by demolished