The Stars My Destination

This idea of jaunting is what drives the story of author Alfred Bester's 1956 novel The Stars My Destination, rightly considered one of the finest of the science fiction genre.  Jaunting is the mental ability to teleport oneself through space, sometimes for thousands of miles.  In Bester's twenty-fifth century world, those with this ability are designated by class: "C" class would be the ability to jaunt one hundred miles, "V" five miles, and so forth.  Jaunters have to be able to entirely visualize their destination for it to work.  They must also have faith. "The slightest doubt would block the mind-thrust necessary for teleportation."

The idea of revenge also drives The Stars My Destination.  A cretin of a man named Gully Foyle spends its pages on a single minded mission to ferret out the one responsible for leaving him to die in deep space.  Aboard a merchant spaceship that is ambushed, Gully is the sole survivor who waits months before another ship happens by, and then disregards his S.O.S.  Who would give such a heinous order? So inhuman! This experience creates a deep seated rage that will act as a shield for Gully as he escapes cults and prisons, corporate cutthroats and attorneys, and various women who may wield their own vengeance.  Along the way, the unskilled, uneducated man will transform into an awesomely powerful figure, with endless wit and riches at his disposal.  In one of several amusing passages in this novel, "Geoffrey Fourmyle" arrives at a party in a train carriage on tracks that are laid on the ground right up to the host's front door only minutes before.

Gully/Geoffery is far from a hero.  He's quite despicable. He connives and even rapes in his efforts to achieve his goal.  Yet in the great tradition of protagonists you-hate-but-want-to-see-win-anyway, Bester creates an Everyman who is grandly manipulated by the System and becomes a monster who may well undo the future as its characters know it.  And in the great tradition of satiric sci-fi, Bester comments on his present day - the mid twentieth century - in this impossible tomorrow by name dropping several corporations and referencing moments in history that still echo through the United States and the world.  His characters are Central Intelligence heads and old money family patriarchs who own department stores and refuse to jaunt, sparring with dialogue any writer will envy.  Women are strong and subvert the wiles and aggression of Gully/Geoffery at nearly every turn.  One is a telepath who can only send but not receive telepathic messages, and whose victimization will become an asset.

The Stars My Destination is highly recommended for those who like their speculative science served with plenty of snark but always within an engrossing narrative. Chapter fifteen contains some of the most progressive, delirious, and mind blowing fiction I've read, with words almost literally jumping off the page.  Gully hurtles through geodesical space while suffering synesthesia - essentially where one sense is perceived as another - "smell was touch......touch was taste..." Chapter sixteen caps the tale with a finale that travels full circle, following unexpected wisdom dispensed by a pre-programmed bartender robot.  Gully's tale essentially is compelling and familiar - there's even a McGuffin - while expanding on the ideas of many scientists whose experiments fired the imaginations of twentieth century contemporaries.