The Stars My Destination

Read through Alfred Bester’s “The Stars My Destination” about a “common man”, Gully Foyle, on his quest for revenge.

As the intro by Neil Gaiman spoils, this is essentially a science fiction version of The Count of Monte Cristo. And for so long as the book holds to the plot of Count of Monte Cristo I found it lacking. I didn’t see why you should read this in place of the other.

However, as we reach the end, and I thought I could predict exactly what was to come, it takes a hard left at Albuquerque, completely stepping away from Monte Cristo and becoming something other. It left me stunned and impressed.

They set up the turn at the very beginning – if you’d asked me what would happen in the book after twenty pages I would have been much closer to guessing the outcome then after a hundred pages of misdirection.

The book has an alternate title, “Tiger, Tiger” after the Blake poem. I can only ever remember the snippet that the book here provides anyways:

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

And I remember of the comparison to the lamb, but not how that part goes. Regardless it’s an amazing piece, and to be so woven into the thread of this book was a major selling point for me.

How it’s used is in the thesis that Gully Foyle, after being ignited from common man by the spark of revenge into “a driven man”, he becomes a tiger, “remorseless, lecherous, treacherous, kindless villain.” After an early misadventure he gets his face forcibly tattooed by an asteroid based society into a horrible devil/tiger mask of stripes and whorls, with the name “NOMAD” printed across his forehead – the ‘O’ printed with a little arrow over top, as in the symbol for Mars or male. For the first half of the book, before he’s able to hide the tattoo through a combination of surgery and calmness, this is the visual reminder of the savagery of Foyle.

I have to mention the big science fiction detail of this universe, that people in this future have unlocked from their mind the ability to teleport, “jaunte” as it’s called, from place to place so long as they know the start and end co-ordinates, as well as having actually been to the place I guess. The thing about science fiction and fantasy is that it all hangs on the changes to the universe relative to ours. Okay, you changed this- and what does that change yield? And that change? The further down this chain of reasoning you go, the more thought out and “real” the narrative universe becomes.

There’s a constant stream of details in this book about how jaunting effects humanity, the industries it destroyed and created, the status afforded to those who can jaunte the furthest, and the wealth of those who can determine never to jaunte at all just for the sake of bragging rights. These details help give the reality its necessary veracity, but also, and I hope this is true of all science fiction and fantasy (though I’m sure it isn’t), the idea of jaunting and man’s potential to grow is integral to how the story completes itself.

I want to be careful not to give too much away, though like I said; if you think about it at all early in the book you’ll have a good idea of where this thing goes. Especially if you don’t read the intro by Neil Gaiman (if your copy has that), since that intro just throws you off track.

You know Alfred Bester worked in comics and radio? That is to say that, amongst other things, he’s credited with creating the Green Lantern oath? I’m guessing he created the Alan Scott original oath, which I think is this moody little number:

“And I shall shed my light over dark evil, for the dark things cannot stand the light, the light of the Green Lantern!”

I had to go tearing through my room to find the little card with that written on it. Glad I found it. But yeah, if that is the original oath then I have to give Bester props for writing something cool that I wouldn’t mind saying in public, not like the rhymey “In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight” one. That oath is overplayed.

Oh yeah, I said Bester worked in radio- as in he worked on the Shadow! That’s the height of cool right there.

The biggest problem I have with the book is that the quest for revenge never feels authentic. Foyle wants to destroy the ship “Vorga” for not saving him out in space, but as he gets more educated he learns that the ship is nothing, it’s all the crew, and even then, it’s only who gave the orders that counts. It’s hard to believe he’d keep his vendetta going after he gets his obscene fortune and takes on a new identity “Fourmyle of Ceres”.

Now in the Count of Monte Cristo I’d fully believe that guy of holding tight to his revenge. His family stolen, thrown in jail, all at the behest of one man that purposefully targeted the protagonist (Edmund Dantes? Is that the name?). The crew of Vorga were running a smuggling scam- it’d be like expecting bank robbers to pick up a hitchhiker mid heist. Nothing personal, but they’ve got things going on.

The other problem is the one character named Jiz McQueen. That name… hasn’t aged well.