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A review by jplayjames
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
2.0
Some good ideas, and I can get behind a picaresque, I can allow for something being a product of its times, all that - but at the end of the day that's a lot of rape just for the purposes of making you understand that this is a depraved future/the main character is evil.
My version had a preamble written by Gaiman in the 1990s, about his first reading in the 1970s, about how well a book from the 1950s had held up. I am aware that it is now longer since the introduction was written than any other gap in that timeline. But I have to keep reminding myself consciously of that because yeah, I feel like the female characters are even more flimsy than most of the pretty one-dimensional male ones, a lot more there tobe abused and have a bunch of their motivations based on whichever man they most recently fell in love with.
Like, the conceit was really good. Some of the ideas and setting were good. But I just don't think this has held up.
My version had a preamble written by Gaiman in the 1990s, about his first reading in the 1970s, about how well a book from the 1950s had held up. I am aware that it is now longer since the introduction was written than any other gap in that timeline. But I have to keep reminding myself consciously of that because yeah, I feel like the female characters are even more flimsy than most of the pretty one-dimensional male ones, a lot more there to
Like, the conceit was really good. Some of the ideas and setting were good. But I just don't think this has held up.