The Stars My Destination
In this pulse-quickening novel, Alfred Bester imagines a future in which people "jaunte" a thousand miles with a single thought, where the rich barricade themselves in labyrinths and protect themselves with radioactive hitmen—and where an inarticulate outcast is the most valuable and dangerous man alive. The Stars My Destination is a classic of technological prophecy and timeless narrative enchantment by an acknowledged master of science fiction.
Stats for nerds
34recommend
62mentions
48people
2008–2026years
73% recommend27% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- It's difficult to recommend things without knowing a reader's taste, but I blanket recommend The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester.
- For cult sci fi classics you can't get much better than "Stars My Destination" by Alfred Bester. Other goodies include Dune (of course), Gateway, and The Forever War.
I also recently read Speaker For The Dead (sequel to Enders Game) and was pleasantly surprised. Possibly better than the original.
A sibling comment mentions Tchaikovsky which I strongly concur with.
- I've only read the first Foundation novel by Asimov. But what you write applies equally well to many other Golden Age authors e.g. Heinlein and Bradbury, plus slightly later writers like Clarke. I doubt there was much in the way of autism awareness or diagnosis at the time, but it wouldn't be surprising if any of these landed somewhere on the spectrum.
Alfred Bester's "The stars my destination" stands out as a shining counterpoint in this era. You don't get much character development like that in other works until the sixties imo.
- For anyone into cyberpunk, I recommend checking out Alfred Bested, who seriously influenced the genre.
His two masterpieces, The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man, could both be called "proto-cyberpunk", but the one that I think comes closest is Extro (1975, also published as The Computer Connection). It's a crazy, fun, ballsy, flawed novel that was panned when it came out, but way ahead of its time.
- Karel Čapek: R.U.R.
His short stories are beyond fascinating and adorable, BTW. One, for example, equates accounting to hunting and detective work.
The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester.
Works of James Herriot.
- Marrow - A group of people find a Jupiter sized ship of unknown origin and start a galactic cruise with many different species in the far high tech future.
The Stars My Destination
Starship Troopers - very different from the movie, sci-fi classic. Even on the Marines reading list.
Forever War - partially on Earth most in far flung space battles.
The Martian - solid Jew hard sci-fi again very different from the movie
Plenty more but, sadly sci-fi falls under Sturgeon's law.
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