The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester **5/8

This novel won the first Hugo back in 1953, and I can understand why. It includes some interesting sci-fi concepts, a couple of mind-fuck type moments that require a little head-wrapping to grasp completely, and a plot that races along. I could easily recommend this to a lot of people, because of the pace of the story and the overall competence Bester displays in his handling of the material. I had a good time reading the book.

At its core, the book is a crime novel, and it would be pretty good without any of the sci-fi stuff. Of course, the nature of the crime and the concepts involved in the pursuit of the criminal are tied completely to the principal sci-fi concept, so it couldn't exist otherwise. And although this could be seen as one of the book's strengths, in contribution to its uniqueness, I wasn't particularly fascinated in the principal sci-fi concept. The characters in the book are fine but not fascinating. I never became too involved in caring about any of them, which is a problem I've had with several other classic sci-fi novels for some reason I can't understand (Niven's Ringworld, Dick's Man in the High Castle, Aldiss' Primal Urge). I don't know if it's because these writers are simply more interested in the concepts than the characters, if the concepts themselves tend to distance me from the characters, or if there's some other principle at work. I really haven't read a large enough sample of this literature to come to any sort of conclusive theory about this anyway, though even in some of the classic sci-fi novels that I've liked a lot (Clarke's Childhood's End, Bear's Blood Music), my appreciation has come from the concepts and the story more than the characters.

In any event, it's a solid book and a worthwhile read.
(Spring 2006)

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