The Stars My Destination in Sci-fi and Heroic Fantasy

Aug 03, 2012 Lamora rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi

“Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The Stars my destination”

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester is one of those books that will be included in pretty much every science fiction top ten list. Fifty-eight years have passed since it was first published, and it has maintained its reputation, which is a pretty impressive record. In fact, it’s hard to believe that it was written in the mid-1950s; its style, mood and surroundings are as compelling as in ...more

10 likes · Like · see review

Nov 11, 2019 James rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: sf-top-100, cyberpunk

How the hell did I take do long to get to this!? Tiger! Tiger! Or as it is more commonly known, “The Stars My Destination” has everything that I like in SF/Cyberpunk, and it did it first! Body modifications, Insane corporations ruling the world, War across the Solar System, and crazy ideas like teleporting, and the slow death of religion.

This is obviously the precursor to much of what I love in SF, and there have been many moments when I was incredulous at the number of ideas and the pace of the ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Sep 08, 2011 Fungus Gnat rated it liked it

This story never really quite gets above the level of an interesting tale. The opening pages are great, and it looks as if the yarn itself might at least reach heroic proportions, but the writing and ambition never regain that level. There are flashes of it--in the passage about the Scientific People and the Four Mile Circus--but it is nothing like sustained. The story seems at times invented as written(view spoiler) ...more

Like · see review

May 08, 2013 Mary rated it really liked it

Shelves: have-ebook

This 1956 book is often mentioned as one of the books that inspired Gibson and other cyberpunk writers. Also called Tiger! Tiger! in England, it has many of the characteristics of cyberpunk novels…takes place centuries in the future, the rise of megacorporations, use of cyber-enhanced bodies, telepathy, dystopian outlook. And then there is the most important new concept in the book, what Bester called jaunting.

Jaunting is named after a fictional research scientist who, in the novel, accidentall This 1956 book is often mentioned as one of the books that inspired Gibson and other cyberpunk writers. Also called Tiger! Tiger! in England, it has many of the characteristics of cyberpunk novels…takes place centuries in the future, the rise of megacorporations, use of cyber-enhanced bodies, telepathy, dystopian outlook. And then there is the most important new concept in the book, what Bester called jaunting.

Jaunting is named after a fictional research scientist who, in the novel, accidentally discovers teleportation when he suddenly, in a moment of panic, “jaunts” over to the fire extinguisher after a lab accident. Eventually everybody learns to jaunt. If you don’t like the weather, jaunt to somewhere warmer…don’t like your job, leave it and jaunt away to a job somewhere on another continent…don’t like your family, leave and jaunt somewhere else. Jaunting has its limitations. You can only jaunt around different points on the planet/satellite you are currently on. No one has been able to jaunt from planet to planet (space jaunting). To jaunt you have to have actually seen, actually be able to picture in your mind, your landing point. Some people can only jaunt a few miles, others farther. There are ways and schemes used to block jaunting and, in one of the weirdest parts of the book, in kind of a futuristic, chastity-belt-kind-of-way, the rich and powerful lock their women up in rooms so that they can’t jaunt or be jaunted to. Even with these limitations, jaunting changes everything. Social order, politics, economics. It eventually brings about unrest and war between the inner planets which includes Earth (Terra) and the outer planets/satellites of the solar system (the O.S.)

Before writing this novel, Bester worked for a few years as a comic book writer, of Superman, etc. Which makes sense because The Stars also reads like a very stripped-down space opera with its political intrigue and drama and far-flung travel across different worlds. You can almost see the BAM!, BANG!, POW! in the way that Bester writes his climatic scenes. The action throughout the novel is fast-paced and mostly non-stop. There are no wasted words or long explanations.

(view spoiler)[ The Stars tells the story of Gulliver “Gully” Foyle, a lowly space man, the Common Man, not particularly intelligent or ambitious. He is motivated enough though to stay alive stranded for months, in space, barely existing, after his space ship and all the crew except him, are destroyed by what he later learns is O.S. After months of this existence, he has reverted to just a thinking animal, only being able to do enough, think enough, to stay alive.

"Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
And death's my destination."

With his hope of rescue dwindling, Gully finally is able to signal a passing ship, the Vorga, owned by the megacorp Presteign. But inexplicably, the Vorga, although noticing the Nomad, deliberately decides not to rescue him and continues on. This pisses Gully off. And this anger awakens him, gives him purpose (and he later learns, allows him to space jaunt). Gully finds his way to finally repair the Nomad enough to limp to an unknown lost cult-like settlement somewhere on an asteroid where they forcibly tattoo his whole face with fierce tiger strips and the name of his ship NOMAD across his forehead. From there, Gully sets off to exact revenge on Presteign but he is largely ineffectual, especially because of his appearance, and he is captured. He eventually escapes and from there Gully remakes himself, educates himself, surgically hides his tattoos and cyber-enhances his body and from there he sets off on a year-long campaign to find out who on the Vorga gave the order to not rescue him, no matter who he has to kill, abandon or step on, so that he can exact his revenge. But Gully is also pursued by the powers that be of both the inner planets and the O.S. because of the shipment of pyrE (a super explosive secret compound that could turn the tide of the war) on the Nomad and now in Gully’s possession and also because of his ability to space jaunt. Gully does sort of win at the end, although by then, Gully is a changed man and his decisions at the end are no longer that of a thinking animal but of a driven, purposeful man. He takes the pyrE and this new found wisdom to the masses.

"Take a war to make you spend. Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great. Rest of the time you sit around lazy, you. Pigs, you! All right, God damn you! I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great. Blow yourselves to Christ gone or come to me and I make you great. Die, damn you, or come and find me, Gully Foyle, and I make you great. I give you the stars. I make you men!' (hide spoiler)]

I very much liked this book. It had a very confusing but interesting chapter on what it would be like to have synesthesia (a real life condition I hadn’t heard of before I read this book). I see why The Stars is often mentioned by other lover’s of science fiction as one of their favorites. It was fast-paced, mostly action driven, a commentary on the driven/the tiger men/the compulsive men/the captains of industry vs. the common man, and ultimately the story of one man’s redemption and of hope for the human race.

"Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination."
...more

Like · see review

Dec 16, 2016 Rob Thompson rated it it was ok

Shelves: audio, reviewed, sci-fi, kindle, sf-masterworks, 2016-challenge

Feeble 2D characters, paper-thin plot, ropy dialogue.

(view spoiler) Feeble 2D characters, paper-thin plot, ropy dialogue.

(view spoiler)[In the 25th century, "jaunting" — personal teleportation — has so upset the social and economic balance that the Inner Planets are at war with the Outer Satellites. Gully Foyle of the Presteign-owned merchant spaceship Nomad — an uneducated, unskilled, unambitious man whose life is at a dead end — is marooned in space when the ship is attacked and he alone survives. After six months of his waiting for rescue, a passing spaceship, the Vorga, also owned by the powerful Presteign industrial clan, ignores his signal and abandons him. Foyle is enraged and is transformed into a man consumed by revenge, the first of many transformations.

Foyle repairs the ship, but is captured by a cargo cult in the Asteroid Belt which tattoos a hideous mask of a tiger on his face. He manages to escape and is returned to Terra. His attempt to blow up the Vorga fails, and he is captured by Presteign. Unknown to him, the Nomad was carrying "PyrE", a new material which could make the difference between victory and defeat in the war. Presteign hires Saul Dagenham to interrogate Foyle and find the ship and PyrE.

Protected by his own revenge fixation, Foyle cannot be broken, and he is put into a jaunte-proof prison. There he meets Jisbella McQueen, who teaches him to think clearly, and tells him he should find out who gave the order not to rescue him. Together they escape and get his tattoos removed — but not with total success: the subcutaneous scars become visible when Foyle becomes too emotional. They travel to the Nomad, where they recover not only PyrE, but also a fortune in platinum. Jisbella is captured by Dagenham, but Foyle escapes.

Some time later, Foyle re-emerges as "Geoffrey Fourmyle," a nouveau riche dandy. Foyle has rigorously educated himself and had his body altered to become a killing machine. Through yoga he has achieved the emotional self-control necessary to prevent his stigmata from showing. He seeks out Robin Wednesbury, a one-way telepath, whom he had raped earlier in the novel, and persuades her to help him charm his way through high society.

Foyle tracks down the crew of the Vorga to learn the identity of the ship's captain, but each is implanted with a death-reflex and dies when questioned. Each time, Foyle is tormented by the appearance of "The Burning Man", an image of himself on fire.

At a society party, Foyle is smitten with Presteign's daughter Olivia. He also meets Jisabella again — now Dagenham's lover — who chooses not to reveal Foyle's identity, although Dagenham has realized it anyway (Foyle's alias was implanted in his subconscious mind during Dagenham's interrogation). During a nuclear attack by the Outer Satellites, Foyle goes to Olivia to save her. She tells him that to have her, he must be as cruel and ruthless as she is.

Robin, traumatized by the attacks, tries to buy her way out of her arrangement with Foyle with the name of another Vorga crew member. Foyle agrees, but immediately reneges. In response, Robin goes to Central Intelligence to betray him.

Foyle learns that the captain of the Vorga joined a cult on Mars and has had all her sensory nerves disabled, making her immune to conventional torture. Foyle kidnaps a telepath to interrogate the captain, and learns that the ship did not rescue him because it was picking up refugees, taking their belongings, and scuttling them into space. He also learns that Olivia Presteign was the person in charge. Olivia rescues him from Martian commandos, as she sees in Foyle someone who can match her hatred and need to destroy.

Driven by a guilty conscience, Foyle tries to give himself up, but is captured by Presteign's lawyer Regis Sheffield, who turns out to be a spy for the Outer Satellites. Sheffield tells Foyle that when the Nomad was attacked, Foyle was taken off the ship, transported 600,000 miles away, and set adrift in a spacesuit to be a decoy to attract ships to be ambushed. Instead, Foyle space-jaunted — a previously unknown possibility — back to the Nomad. Now, the Outer Satellites not only want PyrE, they want Foyle as well, to learn the secret of space-jaunting.

Meanwhile, Presteign reveals that PyrE is activated by telepathy, and Robin is enlisted to trigger it to flush out Foyle. Bits of PyrE left exposed by Foyle's tests into its purpose cause destruction worldwide, but primarily at Foyle's abandoned encampment in St. Patrick's Cathedral, where Sheffield has brought him. The church partially collapses, killing Sheffield and trapping Foyle, unconscious but alive, over a pit of flame. Suffering from synesthesia brought on by the explosion affecting his neurological implants, Foyle jauntes through space and time as The Burning Man. Finally he lands in the future, where Robin telepathically tells him how to escape from the collapsing cathedral.

Back in the present, Foyle is pressured to surrender the rest of the PyrE, which was protected from exploding by its Inert Lead Isotope container, and to teach mankind how to space-jaunte. He leads them to where the rest of the PyrE is hidden, but makes off with it and jauntes across the globe, throwing slugs of PyrE into the crowd at each stop. He asks humanity to choose: either destroy itself or follow him into space.

Foyle now realizes the key to space-jaunting is faith: not the certainty of an answer, but the conviction that somewhere an answer exists. He jauntes from one nearby star to another, finding new worlds suitable for colonization, but reachable only if he shares the secret of space-jaunting. He comes to rest back with the cargo cult, where the people see him as a holy man and await his revelation. (hide spoiler)]

No idea how this is a 'Masterwork'. Answers on a postcard please! ...more

Like · see review