I flipped back, at one point or another in my reading, to see when the book was written. Most science fiction ages quickly and when you live in a modern technological world some of the “novel” concepts conjured by writers of the past seem almost laughable. I was surprised to discover that “The Stars My Destination” was from 1956! The prose was clear and crisp and the dialogue seemed fresh with a twinge of slang that would be inevitable in the natural evolution of language. And in a stroke of genius Bester predicted what I believe is happening now; as we evolve and as technology become the property of the masses we instead start to fetischize the analogue: as is the delightful case with the rich in the case of “jaunting”. Jaunting is basically teleportation; the ability to move oneself (and whatever you can carry) certain distances with your mind. But the rich abhorr jaunting and find it primitive resorting instead to planes, trains, horsedrawn carriages, and, if you’re really rich, walking.
But that’s not even the point of the novel. Sorry. I may have gotten ahead of myself; it’s just my favorite part of science fiction when it hits the general truths of humans, such as, there will always be a way for the rich to distinguish themselves from the common.
So back to the story: We meet Gully Foyle while he is surviving in a closet on a spaceship called Nomad. For six months he scavenges the ship for food and air only able to leave the closet for minutes at a time. On such a scavenge hunt the ship Vorga passes and Gully in an insane effort manages to send signal for help again and again, but as Vorga gets closer it passes him by. This sparks the human in Foyle and he is no longer merely interested in survival. He wants revenge. (See there’s that basic truth about humans again: we always crave justice for perceived slights.) He modifies the spaceship and flies out to get his revenge.
The first planet he encounters is a long forgotten planet that worships science; they are a people gone wrong worshipping snippets of science that have long ago turned from science and back into myth. (I mean do you SEE the scathing criticism!? This is what makes this book stand the test of time, the issues that are debated in this book are still relevant today as we continue to worship science, sometimes at the cost of the critical scientific thinking itself).
Right, so they tattoo his face, Foyle is furious and immediately escapes back to planet Terra still consumed by his revenge for Vorga. But people on Terra have other plans…The struggle between the politics between the rich of Terra and the pure vengeance burning in Foyle is a dance unfolding on pages in a way that I did not know that relationships could dance. It is a brilliant portrait of what makes people burn. Of what separates the people from the masses. It is everything that is wrong with society today and it is everything we can do to fix is.
This was a golden age, a time of high adventure, rich living and hard dying … but nobody thought so. This was a future of fortune and theft, pillage and rapine, culture and vice … but nobody admitted it. This was an age of extremes, a fascinating century of freaks … but nobody loved it.
Just read it. Seriously.
Interesting review, and the book does sound fascinating but my library doesn’t carry it. Too old I guess. More’s the pity.