The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
This is first and foremost a detective story but with SciFi elements. Crime has all but dissapeared in 2301 what with telepaths everywhere. But corporate mogul Ben Reich decides to commit murder against his arch rival, something that hasn’t been done in 70 years. The murder is successful (no mystery here), but will he get away with it? An excellent story of intrigue and subterfuge.
I originally decided to read this after stumbling across a short story by Alfred Bester in some anthology book. Being a huge fan of Babylon 5, but not a fanatic of written science fiction (although I have read a bit), I wondered if there were any connection between the writer Alfred Bester and the Psi Cop Alfred Bester in B5. Well, there is. The B5 character is an homage to the writer, and mostly because of this book. Why I’ve never heard of it, I don’t know, but now that I’ve investigated it, this is an important book for introducing many mainstays of modern sci fi. This is in addition to its being well written and an exciting story.
I also think several minor plot points and stories in B5 were taken directly from this book. B5’s “mind wipe” is exactly what Demolition is; B5’s Sheridan spends an afternoon in a light and musical wonderland in down below and Reich spends some time in a similar situation in Chooka Frood’s glass room in 99 Bastian West;
B5’s Talia Winters must scan a seriel killer and the description of that is very similar to Powell’s description of being in the mentally unstable Barbara D’Courtney’s mind; and B5’s downbelow “teeps” combine to thwart B5’s Bester is very similar to this books’ description of Powell’s “Mass Cathexis”. And that’s only a few examples.
While this book is very good and certainly worth a read, I really think I liked the story of The Stars My Destination better. It’s a real shame he wrote only two novels.
