Comments | athelind: "... Deep Space Is My Dwelling Place ..."

athelind

"... Deep Space Is My Dwelling Place ..."

Jun 01, 2010 15:20

For years, I've been calling Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination/Tiger! Tiger!* "a forgotten cyberpunk classic from the '50s" and "more cyberpunk than cyberpunk".

I was even more correct than I thought: William Gibson, one of the progenitors of the Cyberpunk Movement, has just cited it as one of his favorite novels, going so far as to say "I ( Read more... )

sci fi, science fiction, sf, literature, the revolution will be digitized, book

Comments 9

tugrik June 1 2010, 22:22:50 UTC

Just curious: Ever read "The Long Run" by Daniel Keyes Moran?

athelind June 2 2010, 06:41:32 UTC

Not yet; I'll hunt it down.

kymri June 1 2010, 22:26:00 UTC

You know -- I've read all manner of SF (and there's so much of it that I, of course, haven't but scratched the surface), but that's one that's been on my list for ages. I've an entire shelf of need-to-be-read books. Perhaps it's time to hit up Amazon and buy a copy.

toob June 1 2010, 22:29:10 UTC

It seems like it would be awfully difficult to make into a movie...

athelind June 2 2010, 06:26:01 UTC

Not nearly as difficult The Foundation Trilogy, the quintessential talking-heads epic, and that's about to hit the screen thanks to Roland Fucking Emmerich, Master of the Mindless Sci-Fi Action Blockbuster.

Things actually happen in The Stars My Destination. Just the opening alone would make it an eternal cinema classic.

leonard_arlotte June 1 2010, 23:12:20 UTC

I read the book a few months ago. I liked it, but didn't really see what made it one of the most uber-awesome pieces of science fiction of all time.

I am curious, what do you think makes this book cyberpunk? I am getting a suspicion that you and I have a different definition of what constitutes that genre.

athelind June 2 2010, 06:15:32 UTC

Megacorporations that pretty much run everything.
An anti-hero as a protagonist ...
... who uses cybernetics to amp up his body.
A harshly-stratified society: the haves really have, and the have-nots really don't.
Techno-tribalism! That usually reads as "street gangs" in more generic cyberpunk, but in Neil Stephenson's (undeniably C-Punk) stuff, it takes on even weirder forms that the Scientific People. QUANT SUFF!
A convoluted corporate conspiracy, centered around one of the purest McGuffins this side of Tarantino.
A general Tech Noir flavor.

tombfyre June 2 2010, 00:11:33 UTC

I'll have to see if I can order it somewhere. :3 Can't go wrong with more science fiction novels.