4 ms·

There are some great books on the list, however it should be a criminal offense to not include Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination (first published as Tige

by _femp 12y ago

There are some great books on the list, however it should be a criminal offense to not include Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination (first published as Tiger! Tiger!). It's best summed up as The Count of Monte Cristo, in space. Bester's novel is in many ways the forerunner of the cyberpunk genre.

Donch 12y ago
I was just about to make the very same suggestion. Ignore the list and just read this book! The threading of the 'jaunting' concept was way ahead of its time in 1956 and the inspiration can be seen in many modern films.
colomon 12y ago
But (for those of you who haven't read it) that summary really doesn't even hint at the novel's greatness. It just spills out cool ideas, hardly ever pausing to take a breath. Bester's The Demolished Man is also well worth mentioning. Won the very first Hugo award, still stands up well today.
- _femp 12y ago
  > still stands up well today Something that amazes me about Bester's writing is that neither book feels dated. Then, you think about how visionary he was in the time they were written, and it blows you away. Of course, the other thing about Bester that amazes me is that he's so obscure, despite as you point out winning the first Hugo and for writing notable early sci-fi. Someone's knowledge of Bester has become an informal litmus test for me to get a feel for how well read someone is in sci-fi. Neat tidbit about Bester: he's also credited with writing the Green Lantern Oath. edit: to be specific, Silver Age Green Lantern.
  - waterlesscloud 12y ago
    William Gibson wrote a little appreciation of The Stars My Destination: http://www.loa.org/sciencefiction/appreciation/gibson.jsp http://www.loa.org/sciencefiction/appreciation/gibson.jsp 'It is, as Bruce Sterling remarked to me on our first meeting, “a seamless pop artifact.” Few and far between, such artifacts; each one a complete anomaly.'
  - colomon 12y ago
    I don't think of him as particularly early; he doesn't really show up on the scene until a decade after Asimov and Heinlein, if I recall correctly. Really worth mentioning Bester's short stories, too. "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed", "Fondly Fahrenheit", "5,271,009"...
tjradcliffe 12y ago
I can't see the list, but agree Bester should be there. Another perennially under-rated author of the same era is Algis Budrys, whose "Rogue Moon" is one of the most perfectly integrated works of fiction I've ever read. James Blish descried it as something like "a fully complete work of art". It is one of the best depictions of science as a human enterprise you will find, and makes the point that the universe makes sense to us only because we have actively gone out and made sense of it. What we take for granted (falling kills you, say) was discovered, and when we encounter something completely new we have to discover all the new ways it can kill us (or do other things), thereby recapitulating the process the first humans must have engaged in as they came to not just inhabit but be aware of the world and the rules that govern it. One character's description of the mysterious structure on the Moon at the centre of the story could just as well apply to our own world: "It's like Alice in Wonderland, with teeth. There are rules..."
- mcmancini 12y ago
  Sounds awesome, thanks for the tip. The comments on the HN thread have been far more fruitful than the original article, in my opinion.

by _femp 12y ago

Donch 12y ago

I was just about to make the very same suggestion. Ignore the list and just read this book! The threading of the 'jaunting' concept was way ahead of its time in 1956 and the inspiration can be seen in many modern films.

colomon 12y ago

But (for those of you who haven't read it) that summary really doesn't even hint at the novel's greatness. It just spills out cool ideas, hardly ever pausing to take a breath. Bester's The Demolished Man is also well worth mentioning. Won the very first Hugo award, still stands up well today.

_femp 12y ago
> still stands up well today Something that amazes me about Bester's writing is that neither book feels dated. Then, you think about how visionary he was in the time they were written, and it blows you away. Of course, the other thing about Bester that amazes me is that he's so obscure, despite as you point out winning the first Hugo and for writing notable early sci-fi. Someone's knowledge of Bester has become an informal litmus test for me to get a feel for how well read someone is in sci-fi. Neat tidbit about Bester: he's also credited with writing the Green Lantern Oath. edit: to be specific, Silver Age Green Lantern.
- waterlesscloud 12y ago
  William Gibson wrote a little appreciation of The Stars My Destination: http://www.loa.org/sciencefiction/appreciation/gibson.jsp http://www.loa.org/sciencefiction/appreciation/gibson.jsp 'It is, as Bruce Sterling remarked to me on our first meeting, “a seamless pop artifact.” Few and far between, such artifacts; each one a complete anomaly.'
- colomon 12y ago
  I don't think of him as particularly early; he doesn't really show up on the scene until a decade after Asimov and Heinlein, if I recall correctly. Really worth mentioning Bester's short stories, too. "The Men Who Murdered Mohammed", "Fondly Fahrenheit", "5,271,009"...

tjradcliffe 12y ago

I can't see the list, but agree Bester should be there. Another perennially under-rated author of the same era is Algis Budrys, whose "Rogue Moon" is one of the most perfectly integrated works of fiction I've ever read. James Blish descried it as something like "a fully complete work of art". It is one of the best depictions of science as a human enterprise you will find, and makes the point that the universe makes sense to us only because we have actively gone out and made sense of it. What we take for granted (falling kills you, say) was discovered, and when we encounter something completely new we have to discover all the new ways it can kill us (or do other things), thereby recapitulating the process the first humans must have engaged in as they came to not just inhabit but be aware of the world and the rules that govern it. One character's description of the mysterious structure on the Moon at the centre of the story could just as well apply to our own world: "It's like Alice in Wonderland, with teeth. There are rules..."

mcmancini 12y ago
Sounds awesome, thanks for the tip. The comments on the HN thread have been far more fruitful than the original article, in my opinion.