the stars my destination by alfred bester

Alfred worked in television, and it may therefore not be a surprise that there are visual elements in both of these SF novels. There’s a lot here that modern readers can engage with. I was rather expecting it to have dated, which it has in places admittedly, but actually not as much as it could have. This book, despite being nearly 70 years old, still has a lot to enjoy. It was Bester who wrote “The Lantern Oath.” Previous to these, since the 1940’s Bester had worked on writing stories for comics, including Superman, The Phantom and The Green Lantern. His first story published was “The Broken Axiom”, published in Thrilling Wonder Stories in April 1939. Bester had been writing science fiction since the 1930’s. The Stars My Destination was seen as his return to SF. (As I type this, we have just held the 80 th Worldcon …how time flies!) His second novel, published in 1953, was a contemporary novel, with no science fictional content. His first, The Demolished Man, was published in 1952 and was the recipient of the first Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1953. I decided to remind myself why on a reread.Ĭontext first: The Stars My Destination was Alfred Bester’s second science fiction novel. The Stars My Destination (also known as Tiger! Tiger! In the UK, where it was first published as a novel in June 1956) is one of the most celebrated science fiction novels of the 20 th century. Thought I’d go back to basics with this one.

The stars my destination by alfred bester