THE STARS MY DESTINATION by ALFRED BESTER
I’m trying to include in my science fiction reading some of the classic works by some past authors in the genre. Science fiction has been with us long enough that it has a history we can follow and chart the progress of the genre incorporating prediction of the future and science fact, observing when fact becomes fact.
The book I presently wish to discuss is The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester copyrighted in 1956.
In this work we find the main character, Gully Foyle, marooned on a derelict spaceship, its sole survivor. He thinks he is about to be saved when he spies an approaching spacecraft. He signals, but they just pass him by. Able to read the name of the craft, Vorga – T – 1339, his mind is consumed with the desire to revenge this abandonment. This becomes the overwhelming theme of the book.
Through the remainder of the book he survives by the twists and turns of fate and ultimately discovers why the spacecraft passed him by. The ship was about to dump 600 refuges into the blackness of space on the orders of the woman he falls in love with once he returns to earth, not knowing that she was the cause of his abandonment.
An interesting process introduced in this work is ‘jaunting’. This is the ability to think yourself to another location discovered by an individual caught in a precarious situation. He thinks of the safety of another location and suddenly finds himself there much to his surprise. However, this ability is limited by the fact that you must know the coordinates of the location you want to go to. You cannot go to the unknown, but Foyle somehow can.
WHILE GETTING IT FAST AND GETTING IT FIRST PLEASE GET IT RIGHT
I’m sure I’m not the only news junkie that has become aware of a growing trend, especially in the local news broadcasts. The rush to report breaking news well before all the relevant facts are known. The source does not matter nor are the facts checked. This may be a major assumption on my part, but I have seen a story reported and 12 to24 hours later, when the story is reported again, the first set of facts are at odds with the well-developed story. The news is becoming a victim of the growing rapidity of technology.
In the past, and I mean maybe thirty years ago, news events were reported in the most recent edition of newspapers or the latest scheduled broadcast. If there was a break in programming, what was reported was what was verifiable.
Today, with the vast majority of us plugged into the electronic grid of information, hardly anything goes by without someone recording it. Images are captured by the ever-present cell phone. But pictures do not necessarily reveal facts. The need to get it fast has replaced the need to get it right.
THE GREEN BRAIN by FRANK HERBERT
The Green Brain another science fiction novel by one of the giants of the genre.
This novel deals with a subject overly used today, many times in the guise of making a profit. Right or wrong, that is my opinion. The subject Herbert deals with long before it was in vogue is the environment.
My paperback copy was published in 1966, with part of the story appearing in 1965 in Amazing Stories as a novelette, Greenslaves.
The story begins with the world wanting to protect the production of food from destruction by insects. Countries begin to eliminate all insects in farm areas and then populate the land with genetically altered bees. China is at the forefront of this effort and one of its scientists, Chen Lhu, travels to Brazil to assist in insect elimination. What he doesn’t reveal until far into the story is that the process does not work. This revelation only comes to light after he and other scientists are trapped in the jungle by strange insect populations. These insects, along with other bizarre occurrences are put into play by the green brain. This intelligence has the ability to manipulate insects and much more.
Herbert’s novel predates real world efforts to manipulate the environment with nonnative plant and animal species in order to control some condition in the habitat that man finds troublesome. More times than not the cure is worse than the problem.
One interesting sideline not pursued to a great extent but mentioned is the existence of a group of environmentalists called Carsonites.
Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962.
INFO ABOUT ELMO’S SOJOURN
Here is a link for an interview I did for Melange Books.
You might learn a little more about me (lucky you) and about Elmo’s Sojourn.
Enjoy.
MY MIND AT WORK
As my readers know by now, I’m a news junkie. But that is not the only type of junkie I’m guilty of being, no there are no track marks involved. I’m also a weather junkie.
Long before the weather channel morphed into broadcasting weather related series and documentaries, it was all weather 24/7. I would watch the weather channel for hours, back then. Now, I rarely tune in.
I’ve lived in and visited a great deal of this county. I enjoy knowing the weather in those locations so I can picture what the area looks like under the current weather conditions. Also, there are places I have yet to visit but I’m drawn to their weather. On a winter’s day, look up the weather in Fairbanks, Alaska. I see their weather and imagine how life is and endurance test compared to the weather conditions I experience. My imagination grows muscles in pursuits such as this and that can only help a writer.
So what brings me to this piece?
As I sit here the sky is blue and the sun is out. Tomorrow it will start to rain and then snow. By Monday night we may have twelve inches of the white stuff. This will be about our thirteenth storm of varying size this winter. (Read my poem, Snow https://walttriznastories.wordpress.com/2013/12/16/snow/, at this point and then please return.)
Currently California, after a prolonged drought, is being deluged causing mud slides, and also causing growth which will provide fuel for fires which will set up mud slides etc… As Kurt V. would muse: And so it goes.
I know a great deal of this moisture will eventually find its way back to the ocean from where it came, but there’s a hell of a lot of water that stays behind, water absorbed by the parched earth and coursing into rivers.
I should mention at this point that one of my novels I am currently editing and hope to publish, The Beast Awaits, has a significant weather component.
Now back to this piece.
Global warming, or the term becoming more popular, climate change, is responsible for melting vast amounts of ice, at both poles along with a host of other historically ice-bound areas. Due to this melting, we’re told that the level of the oceans will rise so many inches in so many years.
At the same time, storms seem to becoming larger and more numerous, think Hurricane Sandy and Katrina.
I wonder if anyone has done the math correlating the increasing storm activity and the vast amount of moisture involved against the rise in sea level due to melting ice. As a side note, I see all kinds of plots here perhaps worthy of a story.
That leads me to genetics. See how my mind works.
I read an article some time ago where a question was posed: Is the evolution of man still taking place? The answer was: Yes, and at an increasing rate. How is that possible? Advances in our knowledge make it possible.
Think of the advances in medicine and our genetics. To an increasing extent our abilities are cancelling out the natural law of Survival of the Fittest.
Consider the progress made by medicine and genetics where flaws in man can be cured or deleted. But who determines what a ‘flaw’ is? That is the rub and as we gain more and more knowledge in the control of these aspects will determine the course of our future.
For those who have read this far, I’m about to tie this all together.
Look in the mirror. That’s what ties it all together. We tie it all together. We have a profound influence on the weather. A growing body of knowledge examines human activity and how it relates to climate change along with an awareness of how to alter our activities to slow that influence. But here’s a reality check: How can billions of us exist of this beloved rock and not cause a change? Sure, we can perhaps slow it, first we have to believe it, but change is inevitable. This planet has undergone fantastic change in its history without our help, now those changes are increasing with our input.
Same thing with evolution. We evolved along the bumpy road of time, but now with our hand in the mix and with our increasing control, who knows what lies ahead.
IN THE HEART OF THE SEA THE VOYAGE OF THE WHALESHIP ESSEX And THE LAST STAND by NATHANIEL PHILBRICK
The subjects of this piece are a recently read book and a book I read in the past by the same author.
The Last Stand deals with an historical event etched in the American psyche, Custer’s Last Stand. This is an extremely informative and well-written book tracing, with remarkable detail, the events leading up to the battle and the confrontation between the cavalry under Custer’s command and the Indians led by Sitting Bull.
The root causes of this disaster are many. Custer’s overconfidence in his abilities as a military tactician along with the incompetence of some of the officers in his command played a major part in the outcome, along with the underestimation of the number of Indians he faced on that fateful day, June 25, 1875. This was a tragedy that did not have to happen.
As the soldiers approached, Sitting Bull was expecting to discuss peace when his village was attacked by some of Custer’s forces who had no idea of the size of the Indian village.
Custer had 650 men under his command. The population of the village was 8000.
It is my lack of historical knowledge that makes this book so interesting to me. I thought Custer’s entire command was destroyed. Custer divided his command into three parts, one commanded by Major Marcus Reno, one commanded by Captain Fredrick Benteen and one commanded by him. Reno’s group made the initial attack on the village before Custer engaged in battle. When Custer was attacked, he sent a message to the rest of his command to come to his aid, but the made no effort to help and only learned of Custer’s demise when told by and Indian scout.
Philbrick handles this remarkable piece of history with skill and thoroughness that brings the characters and events to life.
I want to mention the other book by this author that I read some time ago dealing with an event in maritime history that gave birth to a classic novel.
In the Heart of the Sea, The Voyage of the Whaleship Essex is a fascinating read. The Essex set sail from Nantucket in 1819 in search of whales. I thought all whaling was done in the Atlantic, and initially it was, but by 1819 the whale population was greatly depleted and whaling was done in the Pacific. This made for a long and hazardous voyage around the tip of South America.
Fifteen months after the Essex set sail it was rammed by a sperm whale and eventually sunk. Twenty men sought survival in three boats. Of the 20, only six survived resorting to cannibalism by the end of their ordeal.
Guess which famous author worked this tale into a classic of fiction.
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