The Stars My Destination
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 Galaxy magazine cover from October 1956 |
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| Author | Alfred Bester |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Sidgwick & Jackson |
| Released | 1956 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 232 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
The Stars My Destination (originally called Tiger! Tiger!, from William Blake's poem "The Tyger") is a science fiction novel by Alfred Bester, first published in Galaxy magazine as a 4-part serial, beginning in the October 1956 issue.
Contents |
[edit] The book
The Stars My Destination is, in one sense, a science-fiction adaption of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. It is the study of a man completely lacking in imagination or ambition, Gulliver Foyle. Fate transforms "Gully" Foyle in an instant; shipwrecked in space, then abandoned by a passing luxury liner, Foyle becomes a monomaniacal and sophisticated monster bent upon revenge. Wearing many masks, learning many skills, this "worthless" man pursues his goals relentlessly; no price is too high to pay.
The Stars My Destination anticipated many of the staples of the later cyberpunk movement—the megacorporations as powerful as the governments, a dark overall vision of the future, the cybernetic enhancement of the body. To this it added the standard "one weird idea" of science fiction—that human beings could learn to teleport, or "jaunte" from point to point, with various personal limitations but one overall absolute limit: no one can jaunte through outer space. On the surface of a planet, the jaunte rules supreme; off it, mankind is still restricted to machinery.
The protagonist, Gully Foyle, is introduced as "He was one hundred and seventy days dying and not yet dead..." Foyle is a cipher, a man with potential but no motivation, who is suddenly marooned in space. Even this is not enough to galvanize him beyond trying to find air and food on the wreck. But all changes when an apparent rescue ship deliberately passes him by, stirring him irrevocably out of his passivity.
The scenario of the shipwrecked man ignored by passing ships came from a National Geographic story that Bester had read from World War II: a shipwrecked sailor had survived four months on a raft in the Pacific, and ships had passed him without picking him up, due to their captains' fears that the raft was a decoy to lure them into torpedo range of Japanese submarines. (Source: An account by Bester in My Affair with Science Fiction, in Hell's Cartographers ed. by Harry Harrison and Brian Aldiss, 1975)
[edit] Title
The title "The Stars My Destination" is derived from a quatrain that Gully Foyle states twice during the book. The first time, while he is trapped in outer space, he states,
- Gully Foyle is my name
- And Terra is my nation
- Deep space is my dwelling place
- And death's my destination.
Toward the end of the book, after he has returned to human life and become something of a hero, he states:
- Gully Foyle is my name
- And Terra is my nation
- Deep space is my dwelling place
- The stars my destination
Both quatrains are based on a poetic form that was popular in England and the United States during the 18th-to-mid-20th centuries, in which a person stated their name, country, city or town, and a religious homily (often, "Christ is my salvation") within the rhyming four-line structure [1] (see book rhyme).
[edit] Technology of the book
There are two major technologies in the book. The first is "jaunting", a phenomenon named after the scientist (Jaunte) who discovered it. Jaunting is the instantaneous teleportation of one's body (and anything one is wearing or carrying). One is able to move up to a thousand miles by just thinking. This suddenly-revealed and near-universal ability totally disrupts the economic balance between the Inner Planets (Venus, Earth, Mars, and the Moon) and the Outer Satellites (various moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune), eventually leading to a war between the two. Jaunting has other effects on the social fabric of the novel's world, and these are examined in true science-fictional fashion. Women of the upper classes are locked away in jaunte-proof rooms "for their protection", the treatment of criminals of necessity goes back to the Victorian "Separate System", and freaks and monsters abound.
The second technology is based upon the rare substance known as "PyrE", a weapon powerful enough to win an interplanetary war.
[edit] The story
[edit] Marooned in outer space
Gully Foyle is the last remaining survivor of the Nomad, a merchant spaceship attacked in the war with the Outer Satellites and left drifting in space. Foyle is a living zombie, a man who has not bothered to explore more than the minimum potential of his abilities. Trapped on Nomad, he blindly waits for a rescuer. Seeing a spacecraft named Vorga, he rejoices thinking he will be saved. The Vorga however passes him by, leaving him to die. This callousness triggers a consuming rage in Foyle that transforms him. Vengeance becomes his mission. Jury-rigging a repair to Nomad's engine, Foyle crashes onto an asteroid covered with the wreckage of other crashed ships and inhabited by the offspring of the wrecks' marooned crews. These odd descendants, dubbed the Scientific People, tattoo a Maori-style mask onto Foyle's face; horrendous and fierce, it includes the word "N♂MAD" across his forehead. Foyle then escapes from the tribe with his new face.
[edit] Attempted attack on the Vorga
Disguised as a student of jaunting, Foyle plans an attack on the Vorga. Before he can do this, he is discovered by his instructor, a telesend (a kind of telepath who can send thoughts to others, but not read them), whom he forces to help him. The attack against the Vorga fails miserably and he is captured. The authorities question Foyle about the location of Nomad, which he stubbornly refuses to reveal. Incarcerated underground, he discovers that an acoustic quirk in the prison caves allows him to communicate with a fellow prisoner, a woman. During further questioning by the authorities, Foyle discovers that a vast treasure exists on board the Nomad. He sees this as an opportunity to complete his vengeance, which is now directed towards the Captain of the Vorga, rather than the ship itself. Escaping with his fellow prisoner, he returns to the Nomad seeking the treasure, a fortune in platinum. He is followed by the authorities, however, and he abandons his fellow thieves in order to escape with the treasure and continue his hunt for the Captain of the Vorga.
[edit] Return to society
Using an alias, "Geoffrey Fourmyle of Ceres", Foyle publicly re-emerges as a rich dandy who charms high society with his antics. Foyle, however, is not the same person: he has extensively altered himself physically, and rigorously educated himself. After meeting Presteign, the owner of the Vorga, he falls in love with Presteign's daughter, Olivia. Despite this, he is unable to relinquish his hunt. Blackmailing the telepathic jaunte instructor, he finds several ex-crewmembers of the Vorga, who perish at the mention of the Vorga. Keeping one crew member alive, Foyle tortures him to reveal the Captain's name. He reveals that the Captain has become a Skoptsy (a person with all sensory nerves disabled) living on Mars. Foyle travels to Mars where he kidnaps its only telepath, a seventy year old child, to torture the captain of the Vorga. To Foyle's horror the captain reveals the true culprit on board the Vorga was actually Olivia Presteign. Driven by rage, remorse and self pity he tries to give himself up to the authorities who are frantically hunting him. He approaches a lawyer who turns out to be a double agent working for the Outer Satellites. Foyle is told that, while the authorities are most interested in the sample of isotope "PyrE" (that was in the Nomad's safe), the Outer Satellites are more interested in Foyle himself. When the O.S. attacked Foyle's ship, Nomad, he was observed jaunting himself across space. This is something no one had ever done before and something Foyle himself did not know he could do. Foyle holds the holy grail of jaunting: space travel. The lawyer disables Foyle, but at the same moment a small amount of the nearby PyrE is detonated remotely.
[edit] A key discovery
In the wreckage and confusion of the detonation, suffering from synesthesia brought on by the effects of the explosion on his neurological implants, Foyle once again jauntes through space and time, revisiting key moments of his journey to this point (finally explaining the mysterious Burning Man who had been appearing and disappearing throughout the novel). Finally he jauntes to some unknown location in the future, where he is given instructions (relayed from himself) for the exact route he needs—allowing for his confused senses—to escape the cathedral that he was in (in the actual present time). Later, with his mind back to normal, in a conference with interested parties he decides not to hold the power of PyrE and space/time jaunting to himself, but to give a chance to the masses. Traveling throughout the world, he jettisons his PyrE urging the world's people to follow him into the future. He promises to teach them time jaunting if they can find him. He demands that they, as he has, find their full potential. That they, too, become the driven tiger. With that, he jauntes to the Scientific People to await the awakened human race.
[edit] Trivia
- Many of the book's characters are named after UK towns or other features: Gully Foyle, Robin Wednesbury, the Presteign clan, Regis Sheffield, Y'ang-Yeovil, Saul Dagenham, Sam Quatt, Rodger Kempsey, the Bo'ness and Uig shipyard.
- Stephen King references The Stars My Destination in several works. In Lisey's Story (2006), the title character recalls it as her deceased husband's favorite novel. The Jaunt (1981) takes its title from the book, and explicitly names and references it at several points.
[edit] References
- Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent, 43. ISBN 0-911682-20-1.
[edit] External link
- The Stars My Destination publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
