Thursday, March 25, 2010

The Stars My Destination

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester was my first science fiction novel. I never really read them in the past because I imagined them all being about Star Wars and robots. Don't get me wrong, I love Star Wars, but I don't think I would enjoy reading about it. I really like Sci-Fi movies. I have always been more of a fantasy reader. I was nervous going into this book, because I assumed I would not understand and it would just be a bunch of science space babel. I also though that it would be really outdated since it was written in the 1950's about the future. So, not a lot of positive thoughts going into this novel. But I gave it a shoot...

...and I loved it! It was one of those novels that just threw you into it without giving you a lot of backstory but I like that because it makes you think about the story on a deeper level. It took a while for me to understand what was going on, but that just made me want to read it more. I was VERY surprised that this novel is not dated at all. What Bester wrote about then about the future is still what we currently think of the future. It is timeless, and I am assuming that timeless is a hard quality to find in science fiction novels, especially ones written in the 50s and 60s.

I have a love/hate relationship with the main character, Gully Foyle. In the beginning he is very cave man like and his speech it straight forward, sometimes rude, and very raw. I picture him being this huge brute of a man. He scares me a bit in the beginning. As the story goes on, Foyle gets more and more civilized. He realized he wont be able to get his revenge if he cant blend in with the crowd who possesses the knowledge he needs for revenge. He is also a wanted man, so getting rid of his tattoos (kinda), changing his name (kinda) and refining himself really helped him get to where he needed to be. It was just odd to me that he would not try to blend it though. His new persona is very charismatic and out there. Everyone knows who he is and what he does. He's famous. I guess that helps him even more, because nobody would suspect this new Foyle to be a ugly brute who is violent and vulgar. In a lot of ways, he reminds me of Bruce Wayne in Batman. Bruce Wayne is Gully Foyle's new refined, suave, high class persona and Batman is the real Gully Foyle; the Gully Foyle who is angry and seeks revenge. He is a vigilante I suppose. Towards the end though, when he gets closer and closer to seeking his revenge he realizes that there is no good in hiding who you are. You need to face your problems and your past head on or they will never go away. But face them with sense and smarts. Otherwise, you really wont solve anything.

All in all, very good read. I highly recommend everyone read it, even if you dont like sci-fi. I thought I wouldn't like it but it turns out I loved it. I would really like to read more by Alfred Bester and more sci-fi, now that I know its not all space ships and robots.

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