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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Collection of Bester's Popular Short SF Works,
By Antinomian (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Starlight (Paperback)
As you may have read, Alfred Bester's novels, The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination (TSMD) are highly recommended for those that enjoy reading science fiction. If you're wanting to read more by Bester after that, a collection of his short stories is the next good place to go. His short to-the-point prose, storyline twists, and some similarities to the main character in TSMD are in his stories and Starlight is a collection of his better shorter SF works. Although Starlight is presently out of print, it can be purchased used by sellers via Amazon, sometimes for as little as 1 cent excluding shipping fees!
Starlight is slightly better than Virtual Unrealities in that each story is accompanied by a short description on the story. Starlight excludes Will You Wait?, The Flowered Thundermug, 3½ to Go, Galatea Galante, The Devil Without Glasses, BUT includes Ms. Found in a Champagne Bottle, Comment on "Fondly Fahrenheit", Four-Hour Fugue, Hell Is Forever, Isaac Asimov, Something Up There Likes Me, and My Affair with Science Fiction. Hell Is Forever, which is included only in this collection out of the two, was written incredibly in 1942, but the characters are just as relevant and realistic today in their selfishness as then. In this incredible story, one of the characters asks a powerful entity the impossible unrealistic request of answering the secret of the universe and to yet keep it from being answered as to maintain its mystique and incredibly, and unbelievably, Bester does just that in the story. Note that there are different reviews between the Starlight hardcopy and the Starlight paperback Amazon reviews. Table of contents and info for Starlight: 1976, 452pp. Combination of two previously published collections from 1976. Collection of 16 stories and three articles. ss: short story, nv: novelette, na: novella, ar: article. * * from book: The Light Fantastic * ed. Alfred Bester * co Berkley/Putnam, 1976 * * 5,271,009 * nv F&SF Mar 1954 * * Ms. Found in a Champagne Bottle * ss Status, 1968 * * Fondly Fahrenheit * nv F&SF Aug 1954 * * Comment on "Fondly Fahrenheit" * ar * * The Four-Hour Fugue * ss Analog Jun 1974 (`75 Hugo ss finalist), used in Golem^100? * * The Men Who Murdered Mohammed * ss F&SF Oct 1958 (`59 Hugo ss finalist) * * Disappearing Act * ss Star Science Fiction Stories #2, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953 * * Hell Is Forever * na Unknown Aug 1942 * * from book: Star Light, Star Bright * ed. Alfred Bester * co Berkley/Putnam, 1976 * * Adam and No Eve * ss Astounding Sep 1941 * * Time Is the Traitor * nv F&SF Sep 1953 * * Oddy and Id ["The Devil's Invention"] * ss Astounding Aug 1950 * * Hobson's Choice * ss F&SF Aug '52 1952 * * Star Light, Star Bright * ss F&SF Jul 1953 * * They Don't Make Life Like They Used To * nv F&SF Oct 1963 * * Of Time and Third Avenue * ss F&SF Oct 1951 * * Isaac Asimov * iv Publishers Weekly Apr 17 '72 * * The Pi Man * ss Star Light, Star Bright, Berkley/Putnam, 1976; revised from F&SF Oct '59 (`60Hfinal) * * Something Up There Likes Me * nv Astounding, ed. Harry Harrison, Random, 1973 * * My Affair with Science Fiction * ar Nova 4, ed. Harry Harrison, Walker, 1974
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Too few good stories among too many forgettable ones,
By Dave Deubler (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Starlight (Paperback)
Two collections of Bester's short stories, "The Light Fantastic" and "Star Light, Star Bright" are published together in this single volume. Without meaning to denigrate Mr. Bester's skills as a writer (he has a number of excellent novels to his credit), this is an uneven collection at best. A fascination with (now largely discredited) Freudian psychology runs through many of these stories, often to their detriment, as exemplified by the rambling ravings of "5,271,009" and the almost silly "Oddy and Id". Bester tends to let his characters' eccentricities become the whole story, rather than just a part of it, so the tale's entire impact hangs on how believable readers find that character to be. The above-named stories (among too many others) fail completely on that basis, while the stronger yarns, such as "Fondly Fahrenheit" and "They Don't Make Life Like They Used To" are credible enough to capture the reader's attention and hold it. "Fahrenheit" is probably the strongest entry in this volume, a maddening tale about a defective android whose destructive behavior brings disaster to its unlucky owner. Up to the same high standard is "Adam and No Eve", an agonizing rendering of the last man on Earth, who must live with the knowledge that he has destroyed himself and his entire world with his own hubris. These two stories in themselves deserve the very highest rating. Unfortunately, the rest of this book is composed of Freudian nonsense ("The Four Hour Fugue"), pointless time travel stories ("Of Time and Third Avenue" is especially forgettable), silly mind-over-matter yarns (like the disappointing "Star Light, Star Bright", which starts out well enough, but goes nowhere), and trite deals with the devil (including the endless "Hell is Forever"). Some of this material might have been exciting or even revolutionary 50 years ago when it was first published, but the science of psychology has progressed enormously during the interval, leaving these stories badly out of date. Perhaps this is why Mr. Bester chose to leave science fiction for greener (and possibly less demanding) pastures.
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