Rating: 
Summary: Well ahead of its time
Review: A riotous re-telling of Dumas' "The Count of Monte Cristo", this is pure fast-paced adventure. Don't dismiss it as meaningless space-opera though. Bester subtly interwines themes of absolution, freedom, responsibility, and individuality, as we follow Gully Foyle's metamorphosis from anti-hero to hero. Originally written in the early 50's, it became an instant classic
Rating:
Summary: A powerful and exciting book
Review: An man's journey from outright blind revenge to
the next development in human evolution. Written
so long ago and yet, it'll be fresh in a hundred years hence. Bester wrote a tale that will grip you by the neck and won't let you go till the end.
Rating:
Summary: An absolute SF classic, one of the top 5 SF books written
Review: If you have never read any SF but want to read one book in the genre, then this should be it. It's an amazing roller-coaster ride from start to finish, packed with amazing ideas. Worth every cent of the entry fee. If only more SF was like this, if only. The reviews on this page say it all.
Rating:
Summary: It doesn't get any better than this!
Review: If you haven't read this book, you don't know as much as you think you do about Science Fiction, or about writing, either. Get it. Read it. Twice
Rating:
Summary: Pyrotechnic! A Classic of any genre; Bester was aptly named!
Review: Alfred Bester was this amazing Renaissance man of the 50's -- an ad man and editor of Travel and Leisure who wrote SF for fun -- and wrote very little but wrote some of the Best Ever!
Stars My Destination is actually a revenge story similar to the Count of Monte Cristo, but is much more gripping. Bester's title was 'Tiger, Tiger', and referred to a physical trait of hero Gulliver Foyle's. The plots are gripping enough, but the real spice of Bester's books is his prose.
His first novel, Demolished Man, won the first Hugo and was a very inventive tale of two psychics (a detective and a killer) battling it out mentally. The unheard conversations are printed in italics, and sometimes run vertically or diagonally down the page!
Bester's short stories (Starburst; Dark Side of the Earth) are the best collections by any single author of science fiction. Each story is a polished gem, with a style strictly Bester's: colorful, imaginative, rhythmical, and humorous.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic that isn't 'classical'
Review: The best revenge thriller ever written. The incongrously humorous infodump at the start just doesn't prepare you for a story that goes from nought to sixty in three seconds, and just keeps accelerating. This book throws ideas at the reader like grenades. It never sacrifices action for thought or thought for action, it just pounds you relentlessly with both!
Still contemporary. Still relevant. Still unique. Read it!
Rating:
Summary: NOMADs lost in space are cool
Review: Few recognize the tremendous power of mind and soul acting in focus with great emotion to do truly marvelous things that are far beyond us mortal couch potatoes striving for mediocrity and an emotionally stable existance. Gully's act of exceeding the bounds of normal limitation is a kind of psychic (albeit somewhat psychotic) textcase of what we ourselves might be able to do if we just have our right buttons pushed (the ones we hope noone will ever push.) For me a plane ride will do fine. Don't care to get stranded on an asteroid - but identify with gully as an earlier unibomber type who wants to strike out violently at the establishment which left him to rot and die (with me here being nature). Read this book a long, long time ago. Thought you other reviewers did a good job - my kudos to you
Rating:
Summary: Tiger, Tiger
Review: I read this book a few weeks ago upon the suggestion to do so from a good friend of mine. Not knowing quite what to expect, I began to read. Almost immediately I was captivated. In all honesty, I haven't been able to get the story out of my mind since reading it. It is true science fiction, raw and bare. No new-fangled zapper devices or aliens from Planet X with eight arms, just one man's struggle against all odds in an impossible story of passion and revenge.Shannon Cole (YUJP96C@prodigy.com
Rating:
Summary: READ IT!
Review: Very difficult to put down from beginning to end. One of the best books I have read in a long time
Rating:
Summary: Like Sci-Fi at all? READ THIS BOOK!!!!
Review: It seems like pure ego to write this because I will add nothing worthwhile to existing reviews. I enjoyed this book so much I feel compelled to say that it is one of the five best science fiction novels I have ever read. Many years ago I went through a manic sci-fi period that lasted about three years. During that time I read most of the classics that had been published until then and Bester's just blew me away. It's one of the few sci-fi paperbacks I have kept because I want to read it again. Read it
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