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A review by silvia_shmilvia
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
5.0
5 out of fucking 5. I fell in love with this book from its first paragraph. This became one of my all time favorites. Sooooo good. I convinced my boyfriend to read it too, I'm curious what he will think.
A story with an antihero, "almost illiterate, stupid, single-minded, amoral (not in the hip sense of being too cool for morality, but simply, utterly, blindly selfish), he is a murderer -perhaps a multiple murderer- a rapist, a monster. A tiger."
We follow this charming individual in his journey of revenge and incidentally finding morality. Not by choice :))))
For the actual review, I'm not sure where to start.
The book has around 247 pages, and it has enough action in these pages to make a 3 seasons tv show. Some of the concepts, if not all, deserve a separate book of their own.
Imma list some of my favorite parts/moments/ideas/ paragraphs below:
- First, the way the main character is introduced, chef's fucking kiss:
"He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead." Beautiful.
- Also this quote is sooo good: "So, in five seconds, he was born, he lived, and he died."
- Among the things that I liked is definitely Saul Dagenham. The genius, ruthless son of bitch, a computer for a brain and his radation sickness, never being able to be in the same room as someone for more than 5 minutes
- Prestein's robots witch somehow kinda got sentient at the end because of Saul's radiation and they also gave Gully (soon to be God) his answers.
- Gully becoming a God :)))) I did NOT expect that.
- The gutter slang was so cool too:
"You pass me by. You leave me rot like a dog
You leave me die, Vorga... Vorga-T:1339. No. I get out of here, me. I follow you, Vorga. I pay you back, me. I rot you. I kill you, Vorga. I kill you filthy."
- I loved the way Bester played with the format of the book, when it got to the synesthesia part
- The concept of the telesend, which Robin had, was so cool, neverbefore seen (by me at least)
- Olivia and the pure animalistic cruelty and desire of revenge and complete destruction.
- One of the coolest concepts, if not even nr 1, were the Skoptsy, with Lindsey Joyce. The living corpse.
"The modern Skoptsky believing that sensation was the roof of all evil....the new members submited joyously to an operation that severed the sensory system and lived out their days without sight sounds, speech, smell, taste or touch."
"The initiates were shown elegant ivory cells.....but in actuality, the senseless creatures were packed in catacombs where they sat on rough stone slabs....for 23/24 hours they sat alone in the dark, unattended, unguarded, unloved."
....what do you even say about this.
- Another moment that I loved was this convo between Foyle and Sheffield, when Foyle wanted to surrender:
" 'A criminal never surrenders while he's ahead. You're obviously ahead. What's the reason?'
'The most damnable thing that ever happened to a man. I picked up a rare disease called conscience.'
Sheffield snorted. 'That can often turn fatal.' "
Bruh.....wth? Why does Bester have to hit this hard? He keeps pilling on banger after banger. Dude is crazy.
The book was published in 1956, so expect a bit of misogyny and weird love connections. Twas the best of times, twas the worst of times. Twas what it twas.
The ending also got me in a chockehold. I did not expect things to turn to philosophy and discussion about human morality, also the new age of humans into space jaunting and giving humans the gun and telling them what they now have in their hands. Just because it's fair?? Ignorance is bliss who? The blind masses are easier to control who?
Amazing! Loved it!
A story with an antihero, "almost illiterate, stupid, single-minded, amoral (not in the hip sense of being too cool for morality, but simply, utterly, blindly selfish), he is a murderer -perhaps a multiple murderer- a rapist, a monster. A tiger."
We follow this charming individual in his journey of revenge and incidentally finding morality. Not by choice :))))
For the actual review, I'm not sure where to start.
The book has around 247 pages, and it has enough action in these pages to make a 3 seasons tv show. Some of the concepts, if not all, deserve a separate book of their own.
Imma list some of my favorite parts/moments/ideas/ paragraphs below:
- First, the way the main character is introduced, chef's fucking kiss:
"He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead." Beautiful.
- Also this quote is sooo good: "So, in five seconds, he was born, he lived, and he died."
- Among the things that I liked is definitely Saul Dagenham. The genius, ruthless son of bitch, a computer for a brain and his radation sickness, never being able to be in the same room as someone for more than 5 minutes
- Prestein's robots witch somehow kinda got sentient at the end because of Saul's radiation and they also gave Gully (soon to be God) his answers.
- Gully becoming a God :)))) I did NOT expect that.
- The gutter slang was so cool too:
"You pass me by. You leave me rot like a dog
You leave me die, Vorga... Vorga-T:1339. No. I get out of here, me. I follow you, Vorga. I pay you back, me. I rot you. I kill you, Vorga. I kill you filthy."
- I loved the way Bester played with the format of the book, when it got to the synesthesia part
- The concept of the telesend, which Robin had, was so cool, neverbefore seen (by me at least)
- Olivia and the pure animalistic cruelty and desire of revenge and complete destruction.
- One of the coolest concepts, if not even nr 1, were the Skoptsy, with Lindsey Joyce. The living corpse.
"The modern Skoptsky believing that sensation was the roof of all evil....the new members submited joyously to an operation that severed the sensory system and lived out their days without sight sounds, speech, smell, taste or touch."
"The initiates were shown elegant ivory cells.....but in actuality, the senseless creatures were packed in catacombs where they sat on rough stone slabs....for 23/24 hours they sat alone in the dark, unattended, unguarded, unloved."
....what do you even say about this.
- Another moment that I loved was this convo between Foyle and Sheffield, when Foyle wanted to surrender:
" 'A criminal never surrenders while he's ahead. You're obviously ahead. What's the reason?'
'The most damnable thing that ever happened to a man. I picked up a rare disease called conscience.'
Sheffield snorted. 'That can often turn fatal.' "
Bruh.....wth? Why does Bester have to hit this hard? He keeps pilling on banger after banger. Dude is crazy.
The book was published in 1956, so expect a bit of misogyny and weird love connections. Twas the best of times, twas the worst of times. Twas what it twas.
The ending also got me in a chockehold. I did not expect things to turn to philosophy and discussion about human morality, also the new age of humans into space jaunting and giving humans the gun and telling them what they now have in their hands. Just because it's fair?? Ignorance is bliss who? The blind masses are easier to control who?
Amazing! Loved it!