The Demolished Man (1953)

Not a bad story. The storytelling and style grate on me, as does most classic SF from mid-century. Oh well. ( )

there's a line in this book that stayed in my head for many moons after I finished. i won't reveal it here, but when you read the book, you'll know the line i's referring to. ( )

So, this is why I dislike scifi. When I think of scifi, I think of books that do a couple of things:

- They immediately introduce you to some silly madeup words for futury sounding things. "Oh no, that's a peeper! Which of course as you know is a guy who can read minds, because that's a thing people can do here in the future." "Right, that! Gosh." *random mention of Ganymede, because that's in space*

- And the writing is...just exposition, y'know? Just gettin' the sentences out. "He would have to act quickly, before the lights went back on. 'I'd better move fast,' he thought grimly as he raced down the corridor." *shooting self in brain*

They're often about exciting things, plenty of people getting murdered and aliens attacking and stuff, but there's nothing very important going on: it's just a description of exciting things happening, which it turns out is not the same as being exciting.

And the ending! Daddy issues! *fart noises* I knew the ending on like page 3, and omg seriously, with that Powell / Barbara love story? That was almost as bad as Heinlein.

Okay, so if I might wax largescale for a minute: Burroughs (19teens) came right after Verne and Wells (late 19th), and ushered in the pulp era. Ably followed by Lovecraft (1920s), who's only a little better at writing but has a unique style. But 45 years later when Bester is writing, we've had Zamyatin ('21), Huxley ('31) and Orwell ('49), the second generation of literary scifi writers; Bester ('53) is ossifying the worst of Burroughs' habits, and it seems to me like he's defining the era of lazy scifi that turns me off so much. What I'm saying here is that all that stuff I mentioned above, about why scifi sucks? Totally Bester's fault.

This book is lame. ( )

An enjoyable story that combines a murder mystery with SF. I liked it, but was a bit let down after the awesomeness that was _The Stars My Destination_. Once again Bester introduces an sfnal change to the world and logically posits some of the possible changes that would result in society: in this case it is psychic ability.

The most obvious impact that Bester examines is the way in which crime and policing will be affected by the fact that a fairly large segment of the population can at least sense, if not outright read, the thoughts of others. Thus in this world a premeditated murder has not happened for 70 years, primarily due to the existence of the Esper Guild, the mandatory society of all espers who live under a strict code of conduct...the angle on being able to stop murder before it happens reminded me of Philip K. Dick, though of course Bester did it here first.

Along comes Ben Reich, one of the richest men in the solar system, and someone with both the resources and the willpower to get what he wants when he wants it. Ben Reich is also a man with a problem in the form of his biggest business rival Craye D'Courtney. When overtures of a more peaceable nature are apparently denied he decides it's high time that he proves that he is the one man on the planet that can get away with murder.

Enter Lincoln Powell, class 1 telepath and police prefect. Lincoln is equally driven and just as resourceful as Reich. what ensues is a game of cat and mouse between the two, as each attempts to thwart the other using every resource at his disposal.

As I said the story is enjoyable, but it seemed a bit more dated to me than _The Stars My Destination_. While some of the changes Bester made to his society made sense and certainly changed elements from what we know today, other aspects of it felt a lot like nothing much had changed since the 1950's and 60's, the era when the book was written. For some reason I also started to lag a bit near the middle of the book, but, as thus far has always been the case with Bester, he manages to turn things around at the end and make me see the whole as much greater than I thought it might end up being. The climax and finale of the book were especially enjoyable and had elements that made me think of the best aspects of the classic Twilight Zone series...not exactly an unforeseen conclusion, but one that was constructed just right.

All in all an enjoyable read, if not one that totally blew me away.
( )

I love that the title of the book tells you so much about it. You know you're reading about a "Demolished" man walking before you even begin (what exactly that means you won't find out until nearly the last page), before Ben Reich tries to get away with murder in a world where telepaths can take the confession from your mind.

There are some outdated ideas in this book, but they don't interfere with the essence of the story.

Overall, it deserves its Hugo and is worth picking up. ( )