"... Deep Space Is My Dwelling Place ..."

[athelind]

For years, I've been calling Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination/Tiger! Tiger!* "a forgotten cyberpunk classic from the '50s" and "more cyberpunk than cyberpunk".

I was even more correct than I thought: William Gibson, one of the progenitors of the Cyberpunk Movement, has just cited it as one of his favorite novels, going so far as to say "I doubt I’d have written without having read it."

Hunt it down, people.

It's still high on my list for Books That Oughta Be Movies.

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*Tiger! Tiger! was the title of the first book publication, but it was originally serialized as the Stars My Destination, and, frankly, that's a far better title.

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Comments

[tugrik.livejournal.com]

Just curious: Ever read "The Long Run" by Daniel Keyes Moran?

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Not yet; I'll hunt it down.

[kymri.livejournal.com]

You know -- I've read all manner of SF (and there's so much of it that I, of course, haven't but scratched the surface), but that's one that's been on my list for ages. I've an entire shelf of need-to-be-read books. Perhaps it's time to hit up Amazon and buy a copy.

[toob.livejournal.com]

It seems like it would be awfully difficult to make into a movie...

[athelind.livejournal.com]

Not nearly as difficult The Foundation Trilogy, the quintessential talking-heads epic, and that's about to hit the screen thanks to Roland Fucking Emmerich, Master of the Mindless Sci-Fi Action Blockbuster.

Things actually happen in The Stars My Destination. Just the opening alone would make it an eternal cinema classic.

[leonard-arlotte.livejournal.com]

I read the book a few months ago. I liked it, but didn't really see what made it one of the most uber-awesome pieces of science fiction of all time.

I am curious, what do you think makes this book cyberpunk? I am getting a suspicion that you and I have a different definition of what constitutes that genre.

[athelind.livejournal.com]

• Megacorporations that pretty much run everything.
  
• An anti-hero as a protagonist ...
  
• ... who uses cybernetics to amp up his body.
  
• A harshly-stratified society: the haves really have, and the have-nots really don't.
  
• Techno-tribalism! That usually reads as "street gangs" in more generic cyberpunk, but in Neil Stephenson's (undeniably C-Punk) stuff, it takes on even weirder forms that the Scientific People. QUANT SUFF!
  
• A convoluted corporate conspiracy, centered around one of the purest McGuffins this side of Tarantino.
  
• A general Tech Noir flavor.

[tombfyre.livejournal.com]

I'll have to see if I can order it somewhere. :3 Can't go wrong with more science fiction novels.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

It's already been made into a movie, repeatedly, under the ORIGINAL original title, "The Count Of Monte Cristo".