Alfred Bester Lot 4 Demolished Man Stars My Destination Deceivers Psychoshop

Description: 4 Novelsby Alfred BesterThis lot consists of two classics 1950s novels by Mr. Bester and another novel completed by Roger Zelazny after Mr. Bester's death. Included are:The Demolished ManThe Stars My DestinationThe Deceivers Psychoshop (with Roger Zelazny)The books are used trade paperback books (approx 5 1/2 by 8 inches) in good condition with exceptions as noted. The Deceivers is a 1999 ibooks printing. It is in good condition except its bottom corner is mildly warped through most of the book.The others are all from the late 1990s Vintage Books edition. Spines are uncreased. Cover are mostly uncreased with a little wear at the edges. There are no marks and few page corner folds. Pages have tanned lightly in The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination.About the books:============================================================================================================This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "The Demolished Man". The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester, is an American novel, equally parts science fiction and inverted detective story, that was the first Hugo Award winner in 1953. The Demolished Man is a science fiction police procedural set in a future where telepathy is common, although much of its effectiveness is derived from one individual having greater telepathic skill than another. Written 30 years before the 1980s cyberpunk boom, the novel anticipates that sub-genre with its mix of plot elements such as powerful corporations, high-tech weaponry and the interplay between varying classes of society.In the 24th Century, telepaths—"Espers" (short for Extrasensory perception), colloquially known as "peepers"—are completely integrated into all levels of society.ReceptionReviewer Groff Conklin characterized The Demolished Man as "a magnificent novel. . . as fascinating a study of character as I have ever read." Boucher and McComas praised the novel as "a taut, surrealistic melodrama [and] a masterful compounding of science and detective fiction," singling out Bester's depiction of a "ruthless and money-mad [society] that is dominated and being subtly reshaped by telepaths" as particularly accomplished. Imagination reviewer Mark Reinsberg received the novel favorably, citing its "brilliant depictions of future civilization and 24th century social life." For a 1996 reprint, author Harry Harrison wrote an introduction in which he called it "a first novel that was, and still is, one of the classics."Richard Beard describes the book as "full of vigorous action", saying, "the ripping pace of the book becomes part of what it's about."In his "Books" column for F&SF, Damon Knight selected Bester's novel as one of the 10 best sf books of the 1950s.The Demolished Man won the 1953 Hugo Award for Best Novel and placed second for the year's International Fantasy Award for fiction.This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "The Stars My Destination". The Stars My Destination anticipated many of the staples of the later cyberpunk movement, for instance the megacorporations as powerful as governments, a dark overall vision of the future and the cybernetic enhancement of the body. Bester's unique addition to this mix is the concept that human beings could learn to teleport, or "jaunte" from point to point, provided they know the exact locations of their departure and arrival and have physically seen the destination. There is one overall absolute limit: no one can jaunte through outer space. On the surface of a planet, the jaunte rules supreme; otherwise, mankind is still restricted to machinery. In this world, telepathy is extremely rare, but does exist. One important character is able to send thoughts but not receive them. There are fewer than half a dozen full telepaths in all the worlds of the solar system.The novel can be seen as a science-fiction adaption of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. It is the study of a man completely lacking in imagination or ambition, Gulliver Foyle, who is introduced with "He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead...". Foyle is a cipher, a man with potential but no motivation, who is suddenly marooned in space. Even this is not enough to galvanize him beyond trying to find air and food on the wreck. But all changes when an apparent rescue ship deliberately passes him by, stirring him irrevocably out of his passivity. Foyle becomes a monomaniacal and sophisticated monster bent upon revenge. Wearing many masks, learning many skills, this "worthless" man pursues his goals relentlessly; no price is too high to pay.Reception and influenceInitially, reviews of the novel were mixed. The well-regarded science fiction writer and critic Damon Knight, in In Search of Wonder (1956), wrote of the novel's "bad taste, inconsistency, irrationality, and downright factual errors", but called the ending of the book "grotesquely moving". In a profile of Bester for Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature (2005), critic Steven H. Gale cited the novel as a reflection of the author's maturation, addressing as it does "the continued evolution of humankind as a species", a grander theme than those treated with in his earlier work. Gale furthermore declared the novel to be Bester's most stylistically ambitious work, citing the use of disparate fonts to evoke synaesthesia, the progressively intelligent language accorded to the maturing protagonist, and the framing of the narrative between the variations on Blake's quatrain.More recently, the book has received high praise from several science fiction writers. By 1987, when the author died, "It was apparent that the 1980s genre [cyberpunk] owed an enormous debt to Bester – and to this book in particular," Neil Gaiman wrote in the introduction to a 1999 edition of the book. "The Stars My Destination is, after all, the perfect cyberpunk novel: it contains such cheerfully protocyber elements as multinational corporate intrigue; a dangerous, mysterious, hyperscientific McGuffin (PyrE); an amoral hero; a supercool thief-woman ..." James Lovegrove called the it "the very best of Bester", and Thomas M. Disch identified it as "one of the great sf novels of the 1950s". "Our field has produced only a few works of actual genius, and this is one of them," wrote Joe Haldeman who added that he reads the novel "every two or three years and it still evokes a sense of wonder." According to Samuel R. Delany, the book is "considered by many to be the greatest single SF novel" while Robert Silverberg wrote that it is "on everybody's list of the ten greatest SF novels". Fantasy writer Michael Moorcock praised it as "a wonderful adventure story" that embodies truly libertarian principles. In a 2011 survey asking leading science fiction writers to name their favourite work of the genre, The Stars My Destination was the choice of William Gibson and Moorcock.============================================================================================================ Shipping to U.S. addresses will by Media Mail (upgrade to Priority Mail available upon request and payment of extra cost). I'm mailing from the East Coast and Media Mail usually takes from 5 to 10 days to the West Coast but can occasionally take longer. Alaska and Hawaii longer still. Please take that into consideration. I no longer ship internationally - rates are too high to make it practical. You must have a U.S. address I can mail to.Combined Shipping OfferI am happy to offer a combined shipping discount reflecting my actual shipping savings when you buy multiple items from me and make one combined payment. If you want to know the amount of the discount before buying, please contact me. 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Price: 15.99 USD

Location: Cockeysville, Maryland

End Time: 2024-12-02T00:23:36.000Z

Shipping Cost: 7.43 USD