Yong (1.5/26): The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester

[pictured on Audrey's desk in Michigan]
[that's my Java book, not hers]
Rare is the science fiction story that doesn't feel somewhat childish to my snootified adult sensibilities. Rare is the SF story that ages well, as SF almost always paints the future, and the future is an ever-moving target. Yet this 1957 classic impressed and entertained and illuminated and moved me. Bester painted a future fifty years ago that (mostly) manages to still feel fresh. I say mostly because the dated bits are still appealing anachronisms. For instance, five hundred years from now will not find the Montgomery Wards a dynastic aristocracy, because they've already disappeared in today's world of corporations swallowing corporations as if there were no tomorrow. It's funny how my tastes have grown from simple to deep back to simple. Gully Foyle is a memorable protagonist that combines a nobody with Everyman with anti-hero with superhero. And the message is so very timely, that individuals need society more than they need individualism, and that the fate of the world belongs in the hands of the people that inhabit it and not with the few Movers and Shakers of the corporate and political elite. How pleasantly surprising to be so edified by a book who's protagonist spends almost the entire story driven only by a single motivation: murderous revenge.