Customer Reviews

Virtual Unrealities: The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester

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The nice thing about this book is that it's pretty much the only way to get a good chunk of Bester's short fiction collected in one place. That said, the book itself suffers from serious problems. It seems that some time after the last copy editor looked it over, someone in the production process changed the book's type font. Since several of Bester's stories involve playful typesetting and/or characters that are outside the (current) normal set of symbols, a great deal of flavor was lost. One-quarter or one-half fractions replaced by square boxes, that type of thing. Too bad, because the publishers were obviously aiming for a product that you'd call nicer than the usual mass-market paperback. The screwy typeface errors mar that considerably.

Alfred Bester's science fiction spans 40 years, and is always a treat. In this collection, we are treated to some of his early work "Adam and No Eve" (1941), to some of his last "Galatea Galante" (1979), as well as a previously unpublished complete story and an incomplete fragment (with the note :Its much easier to begin a thing than to finish it) found in his papers after his death.

The common thread in these stories is Bester's flabbergasting imagination. His stories are often ironic, taking a wry observation about current society, and projecting it to its logical conclusion into an absurd future, from the quest for poets in an efficient future of "Disappearing act", to the drop of acid that makes a test tube woman intriguing in "Galatea Galante".

As one of the inventors of science fiction, Bester not only lays the ground work for the popular themes of science fiction such as the last couple on earth, time travel, androids and their programming, but adds his own twists: a man needing an agent to sell his soul to the Devil (of the company Beelzebub, Belial, Devil, and Orgy), collectors in the future recreating a 1950's style room, and a chaos compensator.

Bester is one of those science fiction mainstays whom everyone of a certain age read back in the '50s and '60s, and who is almost totally unknown to younger readers who were raised on the Cyberpunks. But I have to admit that the settings and language and cultural furniture of most of these stories haven't worn very well, unlike the work of Heinlein or Clarke -- or even Bester's own classic novels, _The Demolished Man_ and _The Stars My Destination._ The "messages" in most of these pieces are also pretty trite, but that was never the point of reading Bester anyway. The man was a master of oddball style, eerie description, and droll dialogue, and you can have a really good time chuckling your way through "Will You Wait?" or appreciating the chill of "Fondly Fahrenheit," or picking out all the references in "The Flowered Thundermug."

I've read a lot of short stories...from Vonnegut to Kafka, H.G. Wells to Neil Gaiman. But none of those remotely compare to what you'll find in Bester's short stories. His stories are all fast-paced, and he gets his meaning across. He doesn't have to put in a lot of nonsense just to take up space. If his story is three pages long, so be it! He doesn't add another 15 pages just for the sake of having a long story. If he gets his message across, he ends his story. I think a lot of authors nowadays should take note!

But just in terms of science-fiction, it's easy to see why Bester has had so much influence on the sci-fi community. His ideas are so awesome. He was like so many other science-fiction authors: ahead of his time! What I like most about his short stories is how we get a glimpse of characters that appear in Bester's larger works. For instance, some of the characters from "The Stars My Destination" appear in some of these short stories. I just think it adds to the fun.

I can't even say a coherent statement about this book, and I apologize. I'm just still in shock. I think that if you like science-fiction, Alfred Bester in particular, or just like to read, you NEED to read at least one of Bester's short stories. After that, you'll be hooked.

This is a collection of some of the most unorthodox short stories even by the standards of science fiction. One can never tell where these will take us, and even then we are surprised at the results. Reading this will change everything, because afterwards very few things will seem weird. Many of these are tour de force of writting to show of the fact that the author could get away with something, that would be considered bad in writting of lesser carliber, but Bester's power-writting simply cuts through the rules, and gives us some truly out-of-this-world stories, which overpower the reader. In some it is the idea that is the main thing, and elsewhere it is the presentation, which is allpowerful, but each and every time we are left surprised, amazed by the end result. Some of these could be called parodies of classical sciece fiction cliches. (Besides Bester invented some things, that has become cliches since, and yet in his prose they are still powerful, and not cliched at all.) Some are funny, and some are sad, and most are weird, but they are all memorable.

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 Virtual Unrealities is a collection of his better shorter SF works. Not meaning to take food off the table of Amazon.com, but Bester's almost similar out-of-print short story collection Starlight is slightly better if you're interested in short 1-2 page backgrounds on each of the stories, plus two relatively brief articles on his writing career and one on Isaac Asimov. Starlight can be purchased used from sellers via Amazon (sometimes for as little as 1 cent excluding shipping!), and I'm sure Amazon gets some profit via the shipping and handling fees.

Table of contents and info for Virtual Unrealities:
Nov '97, 366pp. Collection of 16 stories and one fragment, one story and the fragment previously unpublished. Introduction by Robert Silverberg. ss: short story, nv: novelette.
* ix * Introduction * Robert Silverberg * in
* 3 * Disappearing Act * ss Star Science Fiction Stories #2, ed. Frederik Pohl, Ballantine, 1953
* 22 * Oddy and Id ["The Devil's Invention"] * ss Astounding Aug '50
* 38 * Star Light, Star Bright * ss F&SF Jul '53
* 56 * 5,271,009 * nv F&SF Mar '54
* 91 * Fondly Fahrenheit * nv F&SF Aug '54
* 112 * Hobson's Choice * ss F&SF Aug '52
* 127 * Of Time and Third Avenue * ss F&SF Oct '51
* 136 * Time Is the Traitor * nv F&SF Sep '53
* 159 * The Men Who Murdered Mohammed * ss F&SF Oct '58
* 173 * The Pi Man * ss Star Light, Star Bright, Berkley/Putnam, 1976; revised from F&SF Oct '59.
* 191 * They Don't Make Life Like They Used To * nv F&SF Oct '63
* 225 * Will You Wait? * ss F&SF Mar '59
* 233 * The Flowered Thundermug * nv The Dark Side of the Earth, Signet, 1964
* 273 * Adam and No Eve * ss Astounding Sep '41
* 287 * 3½ to Go * uw * [Unfinished Work?]
* 292 * Galatea Galante * nv Omni Apr '79
* 334 * The Devil Without Glasses * nv * [unpublished]

First, a word of advice. If you've never ever read anything by Bester (maybe you actually did but don't know about it yet), go to the search box and type 'The Stars My Destination'. End of story. It'll save you some online time.

BUT in this wonderful compilation you'll find one of the most surprising and enjoyable short fiction, ever. Ironically, the unfinished story ('And 3 1/2 to go') included in this volume is the best of them all.

Alfred Bester used to write comic book scripts (he created the Green Lantern Oath), and boy does it show! You can always know a Bester story when you 'see' one... because he's likely the most *visual* author of science fiction. Plus, he was fascinated with words, and so he bent, twisted and broke all the rules of typecasting, word rendering, and text laying.

A final word, albeit a very personal one. Forget Asimov, forget Heinlein, forget Gibson --Bester is THE science fiction writer of the 50s. Come to think of it, the 60s, 70s and 80s too. As the very Neil Gaiman says, the books by Alfred Bester do not date, and that's pretty amazing for a genre so often mistaken as prophecy.

This is one of very few books i can ead again and again, and every time is like the first time. Absolutely stunning! Just buy it!

Skewed, yet cliched, best describes the visions Bester unveils in these collected short stories. His characters inhabit worlds that are subtly perverse variants of the "Father Knows Best" 1950s mythology, and his tales typically end with a final sentence straight out of the "Twilight Zone." In fact, as I read the stories I was constantly reminded of Twilight Zone writer Charles Beaumont and his (better) collected short stories, The Howling Man. Bester's prose, laced with irony and sardonic humor, is often very fresh and almost contemporary, yet many of his themes are of the time in which they were written. Most unfortunately, the stories simply are not memorable. They make a light impression on the mind, engender a few chuckles or a furrowed brow, and then fade away.

My advice--read The Demolished Man, twice, and then read The Stars My Destination, twice. That's all the Bester you need.

Alfred Bester's work is truly timeless. If not for some of the references to atomic power and space travel the reader would never know that these stories were written more than 30 years ago. Of course everyone will compare this to his masterpieces, The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man, and it will fall short. But on its own this is a very good short story collection. Today's Science Fiction writers could learn a lot from Alfred Bester, a true classic science fiction author.