Alfred Bester (1913–1987)

Despite being written in 1953, this book has distinct "seventies vibes" for me.
It's not my favorite, but it has a lot of psychologial insight, a decent mystery puzzle, and an ingenious psy-ops setup.
The technological predictions for the future (2301 AD) hit about 50/50 (that is far too far in advance for anything rational -- see the difference between now and 1674), with the usual sf chronacronisms (tech and social aspects that are still stuck in the writer's era).
There was a lot of vulgarity and foul language, but not obscene.… (more)

This was a mixed bag for me.

First the good things. This is an action psychedelic story that I would (to be honest) expect from Philip K Dick. Story is set in far future where humans have evolved in a way they are capable of physically jaunting - jumping to remote location using mere thought. This transformed the entire world in a way that for example actual locations of buildings are no longer relevant so buildings just pop up wherever builders want it. With this you would think that society is also advanced, right? Well, it is not. World is pretty much the same. Corporations are de facto rulers of the world and those that do not fit are left wandering space in hippy-like communes, left alone until they find themselves on the path of corpo's. Rich and influential enjoy in the old technology (hipsters anyone?) because jaunting and entire moderna is soooo boring. Of course they use every means of protection available (personal armies and armed ships) but they like to enjoy in the sophisticated things of the past. This is also time where soldiers and mercenaries get sub-dermal enhancements, cybernetic implants and get hypno-therapy conditioning to act as sleeping agents. People are very deadly in this future and depending on the situation sleeping agents are all around just waiting for key words to get triggered (Treadstone anyone?). So as you can see this is very rich world, miles away from our own and yet so close and familiar. People still hunger for power and they are ready to do anything to rule over others.

Now the weird. Main character, Gully Foyle is a complete anachronism in his time. In all honesty he would be anachronism in any time outside the early Medieval times. He is so low in society that he is basically just barely alive. No initiative, no ambition, nothing but sheer physical strength but even this is powered down that for everyone else Gully is a person so bland and unremarkable that you would not give him any notice, shadow, grey man. Stuck doing a very arduous job he gets fired up by that ancient, ever present and potent force - thirst for revenge. This most base force will force him to change, to improve himself and bring his vengeance to people responsible. Foyle's very evolution from a drag of society to becoming "illuminated" human, maybe first of many to follow, trailblazer, is what the book is actually about. Foyle does some horrible things, leaves his friends behind, does not care what happens to others as long they are useful for him. But he evolves and becomes better, he transcends his limitations and finally manages to see the future, what in Dune would be called the Golden Path. Now some would find this offending (in this age of never forget and Foyle truly has a record) but last few pages of the novel are very interesting. Should majority be treated like kids and mindless mob by the selected few (kinds sounds contemporary, right?) or left to chose its own path, provided with enough knowledge and facts (now this sounds like utopia, right? imagine world without all the media houses serving the news :) toouuuggghh). Is the future of mankind actual merge of savage and knowledge, man that goes (in a similar way as his biological changes before and after birth) through entire cycle of his social development - from aggressive, barely speaking savage to illuminated human.

And now the not so good. I wont say bad because of the fact that this is 1950's book and majority of SF from that time is inspired by hallucinogenics and drugs and all works from that time in history have that trippy feeling. To say that story line is basically a collection of several story lines running in very weird relative directions is to say the least. Story holes become so obvious at time that characters are unrecognizable just going from one page to next. There is no transition, no interlude, nothing just wham, X is now completely different person. If you are persistent person this can be easily overcome but for others this will be a rather difficult book to read. Weirdly though story is rather fluid even with this structure. Author truly knows how to write.

All in all very interesting book, that raises some of the old (and eternal) questions on how should humanity move forward. Whether we like it or not we come across these even today (this year especially).

Recommended to all fans of SF and revenge stories.… (more)