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Title	:	The Demolished Man
Author	:	Alfred Bester
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	SF Masterworks #14
Pages	:	Pages: 250 pages
Published	:	July 8th 1999 by Millennium (first published March 1953)
Categories	:	Science Fiction. Fiction. Classics. Mystery. Hugo Awards. Science Fiction Fantasy. Crime

The Demolished Man

Alfred Bester

Paperback | Pages: 250 pages

Rating: 3.99 | 26890 Users | 1254 Reviews

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I have a bee in my bonnet that I would like to deal with first. I tend to feel annoyed (even though I shouldn’t) when people ask for sci-fi recommendations with the caveat that the book being recommended must not be more than 10 years old. The reason given for this clause is usually because the science is “wrong”, there is no internet or history did not turn out the way the author depicted in the book. WUT? I would like to reiterate that it is not a sci-fi author’s job to predict the future, the whole point is to speculate. Anybody who want to get into reading sci-fi but steadfastly refuse to read the classics from the 50s, 60s etc. is really doing themselves a disfavor and missing out on some of the greatest sf stories and ideas ever written in the history of mankind.

Which brings us to Alfred’s Bester’s The Demolished Man, first published in 1953. Read this or his other classic The Stars My Destination and you will understand why I insist sci-fi readers should never neglect older science fiction. These are two terrific stories that stand the test of time.

1953 cover

In The Stars My Destination Bester posits a strange future society where everybody can teleport using the power of their mind. In The Demolished Man not everybody is a telepath but they are quite commonplace and can be found in all kinds of profession. Boy, did he get the future “wrong”! In lesser hands, this conceit would never work but Alfred’s Bester was able to spin a great yarn from this fairly simple premise.

The Demolished Man is an “inverted detective story” in that the reader is immediately told who the murderer is, but the difficulty for our hero is how to catch the devious bastard. The murderer Ben Reich is a “normal”, non-telepathic person, but he is extremely smart and is able to foil even mind reading policemen. For example to avoid his mind being read by telepathic police he goes to a commercial jingle writer to play him a jingle that lodges in his brain after just one listening and bounces around it in an incessant looping playback. The hero policeman Lincoln Powell can barely keep up with him even with all the telepathic power (and manpower) at his disposal. The climax of the book is wonderfully surreal and reminds me of Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven and PKD’s Flow My Tears the Policeman Said. A friend recently told me that I sometimes inadvertently put spoilers in my reviews so I’d better not elaborate any more on this point.

The awesome edition I had (lost it now!)

Bester’s writing style reminds me of noir detective fiction by the likes of Raymond Chandler, with the clipped dialogue and witty banter. The book is quite short so there is not a lot of room for character development, but the protagonist and antagonist are quite complex and believable characters.

All in all a gripping, entertaining and very readable sci-fi classic that should please all sci-fi fans.

Point Books In Pursuance Of The Demolished Man

Original Title:	The Demolished Man
ISBN:	1857988221 (ISBN13: 9781857988222)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Ben Reich, Lincoln Powell
Literary Awards:	Hugo Award for Best Novel (1953), International Fantasy Award Nominee for Fiction (1954)

Rating Out Of Books The Demolished Man

Ratings: 3.99 From 26890 Users | 1254 Reviews

Evaluation Out Of Books The Demolished Man

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

So, I finished this book yesterday. The first lady that you meet in this book spends two pages begging the hero character to marry and have children with her, even though she knows he doesn't love her. The second lady that you meet in this novel is a shop girl that spends her whole scene trying to get the protagonist to "kiss her like he means it" "pout" The third lady that you meet in this novel is a ditsy esper 3, only invited to the party because of her looks. She makes a fool of herself and

The Demolished Man is sometimes called the first cyberpunk novel, and it took me ages to figure out why. There's one computer in this story and it doesn't even have a screen. The characters feed data in using punchcards.But that's not where the cyberpunk comes from. The Demolished Man features a society of telepaths, known as Espers, and Bester has clearly given a lot of thought to how telepathic communication might work and pretty much predicted how conversation works on the internet! People



The Demolished Man: A SF classic about murder in a telepathic society(Posted at Fantasy Literature)If I had read this book back in 1952 when it was first published, I would have given it 5 stars, no question. But in 2014, with 60 years of refinements in the genre, it suffers from some very dated dialogue and characterization, and some really condescending portrayals of women, so I'm afraid the present value of the book is 4 stars. Having said that, The Demolished Man remains an

Bester's debut novel is informed by not only his prior career in public relations, writing scenes with profit-hungry executives, but also his work in the pulp magazines and comic books where he learned to write big loud characters and action and drama that jumps off the pages like BAM! ZAP! POW!!! Bester mashes up a pulp murder-for-profit plot with ESP-laden detectives and Sci-Fi tropes like flying cars and interplanetary settlements with an ending that's a bit too pat but ends up landing the

3.5 StarsThis book manages to both impress and fail to impress, on account of its strong plot and weak narration.The conception is realistic, exciting, and has enough elements of SF - that of a world teeming with graded Espers or mind-readers who police the world that has now expanded to settle on various planets, and catch the criminal before he can even properly lay on the plan.In 2301, Ben Reich, owner of Monarch corporation, decides, in murderous passion, to murder (of, course) his rival -