The Stars My Destination (original 1956; udgave 1996)

What a real pleasure it is to read a book with a beginning, a middle and an ending, as apposed to an endless stream of whacking great tomes that go nowhere fast. I liked this a lot. I've been in just the right kind of mood lately for a nice bit of raging, seething vengeance, and I wasn't disappointed. That is, not until our raging, seething protagonist turned into the Buddha of a sudden. It's not all bad though since it really worked and it's always good to see a character grow so much over the course of say, oh... a few hundred pages, rather than grow NOT AT ALL over the course of a FEW HUNDRED BOOKS(I might be exagerating slightly, but not much). Anyway, this is the story of Gully Foyle who is passed over by another ship when he lets loose with the distress signals like there's no tomorrow. He escapes his fate and decides to turn his entire life into one long FUCK-YOU-FEST when he goes after the ship and henceforth it's crew to exact his raging and seething revenge. I don't want to ruin it for you so I'll just say it's not all FUCK-YOU and seething and raging in the end.

An absolutey fantastic story with characters that actually grow over the course of it all, and on top of that our forever-friend Mr Bester manages all of this without having to resort to a single extra volume, no dinky little maps at the front of the book and no endless appendices of the characters family trees along with their entire ancestors backstories.

Oh, and one last thing. 'Jisbella', henceforth and eternally etched into my very being, and now known affectionately as 'Jiz' has to be the single most fantastically, beautifully named character in the entire history of anything... ever! If I had ever had a daughter her name would have been 'Jisbella'.

Jiz... (just because I can)
( )

Really solid for a novel this old, but kind of feels like every other science fiction novel of this area by the end. There is some WILD stuff in here though. ( )

4 stars

“Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation.
Deep space is my dwelling place,
The stars my destination.”
A “rags to riches” book, set in the far future with an interesting mechanic – jaunting, basically thought teleportation. While criminally underused, it was something somewhat fresh in sci-fi, besides other novel concepts in the book, related to it. Also, it could be mentioned that it’s a sort of truncated retelling of The Count of Monte Crist by Alexandre Dumas, in my opinion.
You should read it if you’re a fan of sci-fi since it is a classic for obvious reasons. ( )

Despite, in spite or because of its dated quality, this is still a breathtaking adventure story of a future; a future where “jaunting” allows teleportation between known locations. Our story is about an everyman, Gully Foyle, a mechanic’s mate 3rd class on a 25th century spaceship within the solar system; an everyman who becomes a “tiger” (or driven protagonist), consumed by vengeance, along the lines of The Count of Monte Cristo. Bester maintains an adrenaline rush of relentless pacing, jumping from one scenario to the next, piling up characters, technologies and world building historical background to create a cracking story.

If you have not read much science fiction, I would imagine that this is an excellent introduction. I read a lot of science fiction, many years ago, and so for me it’s an enjoyable adventure story, fantastic in the old fashioned sense of the word, but for me, it doesn’t stand out from other equally memorable SF books. ( )

The non-stop adventure classic that you won't want to end -- and you won't ever forget!

Well, certainly I recognised The Stars My Destination as a classic title, even in the 1980s when I read the most in the genre, but it seemed the gravitational attraction never was enough to pull me out of whatever trajectory I was already on. That changed when a paperback copy literally landed in my lap. And then, reading the prologue, I immediately recognised Bester's concept of Jaunting, somehow an idea vaguely recollected as stemming from a Golden Age short story I'd once read. The rest of the book, I suppose I must have read -- but I didn't recall any of it. So while it's true an important aspect of the book did stay with me all these decades, contra the cover blurb this isn't a story I didn't ever forget.

Yet in the end I found the novel much better than all this might suggest. The achievement isn't centered in the conflict or character, though, it's the world-building. Bester tends to throw in enough ideas to launch three or four novels, but not center the plot around any of them. Each is strong enough to carry the story, but he's not as creative with his plotting or characters. The combination makes for a distinct reading experience, reminiscent of PK Dick, the space left unexplored as impressive as the words spent on them.

Like Sturgeon's More Than Human, Bester relies on an impressive economy of prose. Essentially he sketches a series of separate scenes, which somehow together build a world that is much more realised and provocative than the "boy's adventure" plot itself conveys. I noted at various points potential influences on Banks, or Gibson, whose work I find more memorable and seek out deliberately. The connection may well be more about my reading experience, though, than about any similarities between them.

I have Bester's Demolished Man on my recon list. After this re-read of The Stars My Destination, I'm more likely to pick it up. ( )