Conference noted::sf

    You're looking for"The Stars My Destination," by the late, great
    Alfred Bester. The means of teleportion was called "jaunting" as in 
    "to jaunte." The main character's name was Gully Foyle.
    
    Fred 

    The book, by the way, was deliberately modeled after "The Count of
    Monte Cristo," as Alfie took pleasure in pointing out. If you haven't
    read that one, you should sometime. You'll enjoy it.
    
Fred

*"By the power of truth, I, while living, 
  have conquered the Universe." - Faust

    Also, enjoyable as that story was, it wasn't science fiction.  It
    was a lovely science fantasy.  As one example, when Gully Foyle
    was in his derelict, he'd go between areas of his wreck in a space
    suit, in space, "... trailing debris ..." as if there were currents
    in a vacuum.
    
    Lots of fun.
    
    What isn't well known is that the story, and one by Theodore Sturgeon,
    were suggested by H. L. Gold, then editor of _Galaxy_.  He wanted
    a story built around the idea of easy and instantaneous transportation.
    Bester's was the novel _The Stars My Destination_; Sturgeon's was
    a novella called "Granny Won't Knit."
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.

    reply to .1
    
    Thank You.  I just couldn't remember it.  It was what got me reading
    more than a book a year. Now I'm like a steam train with no brakes...
    
    reply to .3
    
    It is usually a thin line between science fiction and fantasy. 
    In college, I wrote brief essay on SF authors and mentioned Bradbury
    as a scince fiction writer.  The teacher loved the essay, but was
    quick to point out that Bradbury was NOT SF. Hmm Made me think that
    did...
   
    BTW, I'm still unclear about Bradbury...
     

    	Ray Bradbury, one of my favorite authors, *is* a science fiction
    author in general - he just tends to focus more on the human element
    than the technology, like more "hard SF" authors do.  I personally
    prefer a story where the two factors can be successfully mixed,
    just like in real life.
    
    	Larry
    

    RE: .4
    
    >It is usually a thin line between science fiction and fantasy. 
    >In college, I wrote brief essay on SF authors and mentioned Bradbury
    >as a scince fiction writer.  The teacher loved the essay, but was
    >quick to point out that Bradbury was NOT SF. Hmm Made me think that
    >did...
   
    >BTW, I'm still unclear about Bradbury...
    
    I'm going to get off the subject here, but since your question was
    answered, what the heck. :-) I've been having a discussion in my
    writers' group about something similar. I started tossing around
    the phrase "Contemporary Fantasy," and somebody asked me to define
    it.
    
    I first used "contemporary" solely to differentiate what I was talking
    about from "High Fantasy," that is, fantasy with elves, dragons,
    unicorns, magic, et al;. But when I started getting pressed for
    a clearer meaning of what I thought Contemporary Fantasy (CF) was, I 
    came up with the following:
    
    The best definition of science fiction I've ever heard is that if
    you remove the scientific or speculative element from the story -- and 
    find you no longer have a story -- it's science fiction. But you can
    do some more hair-splitting and break science fiction into at least three
    more categories; hard science fiction, science fantasy, and
    contemporary fantasy.
    
    I'll interrupt myself at this point that I'm *sure* someone reading
    this can come up with even more sub-categories. For the sake of
    my argument, I'm using only three. For instance, I'm deliberately
    excluding High Fantasy.
    
    Anyway, the way I ultimately defined these three was by the different
    ways the scientific or speculative element was handled by the author.
    
    Hard Science: The scientific/speculative element is firmly grounded on known
    science, theory, or extrapolation.
    
    Science Fantasy: The scientific element is more speculative. That
    is, while the author tries to present a rationale, it's not necessarily
    based on reality or on a scientific premise.
    
    Contemporary Fantasy: The author makes no attempt to explain the
    fantastic element in his story. It "just is." 
    
    So, to use examples, most of say, Forward or Benford, is Hard SF.
    Early Niven is Hard SF. As Steve points out, "The Stars My Destination,"
    is SFantasy, as are most works that present rationales for FTL travel, 
    time travel, teleportion, telepathy, and many other science fiction staples.
    Contemporary Fantasy doesn't necessarily *have* to use magic, but,
    to misquote the Clarke adage, its technology might as well *be*
    magic for all the explanation that the author gives the reader.
    
    And as .4s instructor pointed out, most of Bradbury falls into
    Contemporary Fantasy.
    
    People who were fans in the 60s-70s have probably realized that
    what I actually did was put in an enormous effort to re-invent the
    term, "speculative fiction" and call it "Contemporary 
    Fantasy." :-)
    
    Fred

    
    "The Stars My Destination is indeed a classic; it stands up to
    rererereading.  I would like to caution the first-time reader, though,
    that some of .0's recollections are a bit off (more than the term
    "jaunting").

    I mention this because I find that I enjoy a book less when I'm waiting
    for some development that I've been told about (and yes, I try to avoid
    reading book jackets.  I let my husband recommend things, since he
    reads much faster than I do!).  That's especially true when the preview
    is wrong in some way.  So, I won't tell you what's off - just read and
    enjoy!

    Beverly
    

    Does anyone know where I could find (beg, borrow, or buy?) a copy
    of _The Stars My Destination_?  It's a shame it's out of print...
    
    >M

    Re .8:
    
    I think I have a copy.  Can you come to ZKO (Nashua, New Hampshire) to
    pick it up?  Or I could mail it.
    
    
    				-- edp 

    
    
    BEV,
    
    	I never said my memory was great...
    
    	This was the first paperback I truly enjoyed reading, but that
    was 11 years ago.  The reason I'm looking for it is because I have
    forgotten most of the story and only remember little wisps.  I figured
    it was out of print, but I just found a used-paperback bookstore
    and want to search his inventory.  It is worth reading again if
    it can be found.
    
    pete

    Re .10:
    
    No criticism intended.  I have a memory like a sieve, which means I can
    reread books after a couple of years and be surprised by the ending. 
    As a matter of fact, I recently reread TSMD (why I remember it!), and
    while it was familiar, I probably recalled less of it than you did.

    Are you sure it's out of print?  It's considered by many to be a
    classic.  I'd also check the library.

    Beverly

    re:.11
    
    Actually, I do believe it's currently out of print in paperback.
    There was a recent (i.e. within the last couple of years) new
    hardcover edition of it, but that's about all recently.
    
    --- jerry

	It's alive and well at McKenzey-White bookstores in Colorado.
	I just saw it a few weeks ago. liesl

    This is only a month late -
    
    I purchased a new copy at either Paperback Booksmith or Walden's
    in MetroWest (Boston area) within the past 3 - 6 months.  It's
    obviously in re-release in paperback...
    
    Dwight

    	Could one of the Moderators please fiz this Topic title to reflect
    the book being discussed here?  It will make life a bit easier on
    those in the future searching for it with DIR/TITLE=topicname.
    
    	In fact, there are a number of other Topics in this Conference
    which need to have their titles changed from such non-descript titles
    as "What is this book?" and "Title and author please!"  I get the
    feeling you'll also find a number of duplicate and redundant Topics
    in the process.
    
    	Larry
    

    re: .6;
    
    This is a bit late in coming, but I think it needs saying. I am
    constantly running into people who  feel the need to assert "XYZ is
    (not) SF." Three or 20, you can divide a continuum into as many
    categories as you want and still have a totally false picture of
    reality. The basic characteristic of a continuous function is that
    it is continuous!
    
    -dave

    Sure, but we also say that people have blonde hair
    and that's a useful distinction.  Blonde may cover everything
    from white to light brown, but the term still helps when you need 
    to recognize someone.  
    High fantasy may shade into SF fantasy, but
    they have different characteristics and different audiences.
    /jlr

Bester was, at the time he wrote it, experimenting with "visual" text; he did
this in _The Demolished Man_ with some control, then loosened the reins almost
completely in _The Stars My Destination_.

The book was originally released in the U.K. (and Europe) as _Tiger, Tiger_; 
this in a semifinished form (e.g., in TT, Yang-Yeovil was told of a "camera
jaunte," which, had it been possible, would have negated several things in
the story, so in TSMD, camera jaunted couldn't work, so instead, Yang-Yeovil
was told about a "lech jaunte," where "two kids hired a class-C tart to ...."
What they hired her to do was forever lost in the ellipsis, but the reader
can always fill in details if the imagination is up to it).  TSMD was the 
polished version, and, whatever else, it has a neat vigor and lots of loose
ends neatly tied up, or at least tucked in.

Steve Kallis, Jr.