Ahira's Hangar

When I first read Alfred Bester's The Stars My Desitnation at 15 I said, "Yeah, this cool stuff." Now, 35 years later I say, "Dang this book was so far ahead of it's time, and, yes, people who say that David Zindell was inspired by this book may definately have something there."

Gully Foyle is a combination of Mallory Ringess and Steven R. Donaldson's Angus Thermopyle. And you can see alot of similarities between Mallory and his story if you compare the two books. For god's sake both books even start with the same poem,

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

spoilers!!!!

Alone in space
Impossibly hard driven
Impossible to live with
Neandrathals
A Mascarade
on and on

I think I read in an interview that David said he owed alot to Bester.
Steven Donaldson told me last Summer that while he didn't get to meet Bester before he died he acknowledged the debt Sci-Fi owes him. Apparently Bester had quite a personal reputation as a "bastard". To think that this book came out in 1957!!! That's utterly amazing! Surely it inspired all the great masters, from Heinlien to Assimov, Herbert to Brin!!

heh. Sounds like a book I should read. Let's hope the local library has it.

Bester is also called the grandfather of cyberpunk, you'll see that style in Stars and, from what I hear, The Demolished Man his other major book, which won the first Hugo award. I'm looking to buy that book, Monday. These original two books were first published in Galaxy Magazine in 1956 and before.

According to Neil Gaiman's introduction: Alfred Bester had a varied career, he also wrote Superman and Green Lantern comics (He created the Green Lantern Oath), and then switched to radio, writing for Charlie Chan and The Shadow.

spoilers

They both try to break the barriers of the solar system, or galaxy
Mallory fenesters, Gully jauntes.