“But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” (Hemingway, 1952) The human spirit cannot be defeated, but it can be destroyed, in this case, the complete eradication of what you once were, the complete destruction of the psyche, the birth of The Demolished Man.Awarded the first ever Hugo Awards in 1953,The Demolished Man is considered to have had an extensive impact to the genre that rippled through the ages especially in the cyberpunk generation. But 62 years after it first came out, reading it today felt worn-out and clichéd, I guess in the science fiction genre, it just got ‘old’. An idea similarly grounded to that of Philip K. Dick’s The Minority Report, The Demolished Man operates in a world where crime is but a concept thanks to Espers, individuals who are capable of ESP, which of course involves reception of information not gained through the recognized physical senses but is sensed with the mind. No murder, designated as a triple AAA felony, has been committed in over 70 years since the latent capacity for ESP emerged, until a fatal game of Sardine was played in the Beaumont Mansion. The prime suspect, Ben Reich, is the owner of the company, Monarch, second only to the D’Courtney Cartel to its lucrativeness. The victim, Craye D’Courtney, the namesake and owner of the most profitable cartel, had his head blown off by an unknown weapon. Enter Lincoln Power, a 1st class Esper and Prefect of the Police Psychotic Division who investigates the historic murder case which inevitably leads him to a collision course and hunting expedition for the world-shaker Ben Reich. Voila! You have The Demolished Man.I am arguably compelled to label this as a mystery, police, and investigative novel rather than a sci-fi book. Really, the plot is all about the investigation of the murder, the search for evidence, and the incarceration of the criminal. This is a mystery novel done the science fiction way. But that aspect was actually the fun enjoyable part of the book. The morally challenged banters, the deceptive maneuverings, and the cunning and shrewd exchanges between Reich and Powell were exhilarating. Of course, the concept of intent versus positive act in crimes was included in this book, albeit it was not played out as well or as extensively as was done in The Minority Report. What I failed to appreciate however was how Bester chose to lay down his world building and science fiction elements, his style. For example, the explanation of the varying levels of Esper classification was carried out in a rough unrealistic fashion. “First, the background, Mr. Reich: There are approximately one hundred thousand (100,000) 3rd Class Espers in the Esper Guild. An Esper 3 can peep the conscious level of a mind---can discover what a subject is thinking at the moment of thought. A 3rd is the lowest class of telepath. Most of Monarch's security positions are held by 3rds. We employ over five hundred...” (15)The instance above plays out when Reich turns to one of his employees, but the facts therein stated are not the things an owner/CEO does not know when he runs and owns a company that employ Espers. What happens here is that Bester directly laid down the ideas thread bare, without any effort at subtly building his world. This instance is repeated again when he tried to connive with one of his Esper employees to which in response he gets this; “You don't understand. We're born in the Guild. We live with the Guild. We die in the Guild. We have the right to elect Guild officers, and that's all. The Guild runs our professional lives. It trains us, grades us, sets ethical standards, and sees that we stick to them. It protects us by protecting the layman, the same as medical associations. We have the equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath. It's called the Esper Pledge. God help any of us if we break it... as I judge you're suggesting I should.”(19) The point is, these are things that are not introduced through a normal conversation, they made certain characters stupid and seemingly oblivious to the operative facts of the world they were supposed to be living in. Another aspect of Bester’s style that bothered me was how he transitioned between scenes in his story. They felt rough at times and I experienced this momentary feeling of displacement and surprise that I’m reading another unrelated scene.It was okay (2.5 Stars), but I will not recommend it to people when they ask me about sci-fi books. Instead, why not read the Hyperion Cantos and have a science fiction experience of a lifetime. And please do forgive me for using Hemingway as an attention step for this review. :)This has been cross-posted in i'mbookedindefinitelyThis book forms part of my HUGO AWARDS reading list.
This is a 2.5 for me and I'm hovering on which way to round it. What will I decide??See, this book has rubbed off on me! At many turns, this book sounds overwhelmingly cheesy. I can see why these roots of sci-fi are so interesting to people, because they're such a product of their period as well as reaching for something forward -- thus, it's weirdly bold and corny at the same time. This book is focused on its characters, which is a very good way to write. (This was a present from Evan, who pointed that out.) Yet, allow me to quote the inner monologue that closes the first chapter: "'All right, D'Courtney. If you won't let it be merger, then I'll make it murder.'" Er. Wow. There is a lot of this level of silliness in the text, and it's not really like what I usually read. It was a bit hard to adjust to.The most unique part of the book is of course the "Espers," the eminently well-structured class of telepathic humans. There is spoken dialogue and telepathic dialogue, and some neat layout of the text to try and show how they think. Powell's ventures deep into Barbara's unconscious as part of his police investigation are probably the coolest scenes. And I really liked when he and Mary bickered subconsciously.In general the book got much much better to me near the end, but also more confusing. I guess the peril of establishing a genre as an author is that your work won't benefit from the refined expectations of its later fans, so in a lot of ways I felt lost as a reader -- what's this world like, what's the explanation? There is a lot of pop psychology here, and that's the main basis for everything, so a lot of the characterization doesn't make enough sense to my ear. And Reich's position as a "Universe-shaker" is properly surprising but entirely undefined. (Is it a spoiler if I really don't know what it is?) But, the revelation of what the Demolition threat really means, and the final scene about "Maybe in those days they wanted sheep," that's pretty damn good.Like all old sci-fi, it's irresistible to compare the "future" to what's come to pass since it's written. This book is from 1951, which in pop culture terms is endearingly ancient, a decade or two off some of the most influential events of the century. (Of course, also rather nearby some others, but I don't feel the war's impact here so much.) It's fantastic to see what an author was able to conceptualize, and what just couldn't possibly happen for them yet.So on the one hand, in this book there is a wall-sized supercomputer that doesn't even have a screen. It outputs on a typewriter! Incredible, considering the fact that I am posting this review on Goodreads.com right now, you know what I mean? So far away. And "Do I have time to catch the 10:00 rocket? Call Idlewild," kind of slayed me. How could this rocketeer know the airport would rather soon have to be renamed JFK? The future, it's dated.But there's plenty of right ideas, the ubiquitous video-phone and audio-bookstore, plus the humorous "brooch-operas" ("She Shall Have Music Wherever She Goes") that I suppose are probably how iPods would have been designed in 1950, sure. And, distressingly: "Snim trudged downtown to Maiden Lane and cased the banks in that pleasant esplanade around Bomb Inlet." Too right. Actually.I can't, though, let this book go without saying that its misogyny makes it really hard to enjoy. For this reader. Indeed some won't mind but it did do its number on me. It isn't just that the only women in the book are just around to want the men, who are allowed to want other things besides the women. It's that it is mean, kinda borderline violent, and that's not good fun or inevitable social history to me.Like: The literal infantilization of Barbara the love interest -- she regresses into a drooling, baby-talking woman-baby, as a coping mechanism -- who then falls in love with her Da-Da. And there's Duffy, the "virgin seductress," who begs to be thrown around.A few moments:"You're delighted with yourself because you're a woman, aren't you? It's your substitute for living. ... 'It's enough to know that thousands of men could have me if I'd let them. That makes me real.'""'I'm beginning to hate her ... that goddamn girl.'""'Mr. Beck, I hate women too. For Christ's sake, why are they all trying to get me married?'""[laughter]""'Why waste all that dear violence? Punch me around a little.'" (Thanks, Duffy.)Some of this is intentionally disturbing, but some of it is probably not. Sometimes this atmosphere is just icky. I don't like reading around this, but I know some readers don't mind it, and some enjoy the sort of pulpiness about it.So they can rate this higher, whatever.
Do You like book The Demolished Man (1999)?
Fantastic.The Demolished Man goes well beyond it's genesis as pulp. Imagine a mystery told from the view of the criminal. Wrap that in a character study about a man going insane. Thoroughly mix with good old fashioned telepathy. You have the recipe for The Demolished Man. Alfred Bester published this story as a serial, in the magazine Galaxy, in 1952.Having read The Star My Destination first, I expected good things from Bester, but I was blown away. Both the narrative style and the humanity in which the story was told. That ain't easy when your story is about a sociopath. In that sense, The Demolished Man reminds me of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. All I am left with is questions.What makes this book and Ken Kesey's masterpiece seem so similar?Who do you root for when the hero is a villain, and the villain is a hero? And finally, was it I who was demolished?
—Ian Farragher
In a world dominated by telepaths known as Espers or Peepers crime is very difficult to get away with. When thoughts and memories are up for grabs a man like Ben Reich, who is premeditating a murder, must employ unorthodox methods to protect his inner most thoughts. He decides to go to a jingle songwriter for protection. He asks for the most mundane song to be played, a song that simple will not escape your brain, the type of jingles from commercials (usually beer) my brother and I used to sing
—Jeffrey Keeten
I decided that the book that won the first Hugo would be the perfect place to start the Worlds Without End Grandmaster Challenge, which invites participants to read twelve books this year by recipients of the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award. The Demolished Man is a strange combination: outwardly pulp, but with a thoughtful exploration at its core. It is science fiction, insofar as it takes place in a potential future, and is full of the standard trappings of pulp SF: flying cars and routine space flight and video phones. The plot is pure mystery, if you don't mind a mystery where you witness the crime and then jump perspectives between that of the killer and the detective who is chasing him. The book's Big Questions involve how to commit a murder in a society patrolled by citizens with ESP (espers), and how to catch said murderer. I found it to be a quick and interesting read, but my enjoyment was hampered by the fact that I didn't really like any of the characters. The women are horribly cliched bimbos and ninnies, treated like children and playthings, all destined to fall in love with the men who ignore them. The main characters are only slightly better fleshed out. In the context of its time I can understand some of the misogyny inherent in the portrayal of women, though I found it awfully difficult to wade through those passages. The reader is thrown into Ben Reich's head in time to see him make his shift toward murder, but too late to understand how he got there. A lot of tell, very little show. This turns out to be a necessary sleight of hand, but not one I appreciated. Other detractions involved some messy changes of perspective, and a whole lot of overwrought exclamation-mark-happy dream imagery.That's not to say there's nothing to like. There are some well-painted scenes, and one particularly unnerving dream sequence. Bester plays some neat tricks with typography as he describes the way that the espers interact. My favorite parts of the book involved the esper culture, its school and code of conduct. I'm also a sucker for past-colored futures. I love reading early SF for the ways in which their most cutting-edge technology influences the technology they envision. And so the computers of the future are still giant punch-card reading machines, albeit punch-card readers with innovative uses. Messages can pass between planets, but they use clunky pre-established codes. Proving that some things never change, the latest fashion fad is tights that are literally rather than figuratively sprayed on. I can't say I loved the book, but I think it's a worthy winner of the first Hugo. It's an idea book, like the best SF, and like the best SF it allows people to look at an aspect of humanity through the prism of otherness. Its world is well-imagined; too bad it's populated with such an irritating cast of characters.
—Sarah
