The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester is really different from stories I'm used to. Our main character Foyle isn’t the best until he wants revenge and to destroy all people on Vorga for not helping him. It’s funny how much trouble the teleportation or "jaunting" caused to the everyone on all the planets. Really quick on a side note, people in this novel can only teleport on each planet or to places they have already been to, unlike in most science fiction stories were its a free range of teleportation. Basically it causes wars and dangers to the common people because of the amount of problems that arise from them. This in turn is the downfall, funny how advancement in technology that was supposed to be for the better, ends up being the downfall. This was a very interesting take, I have seen it done before where the teleportation is used to get to some important destination for the heroes, but I never thought of what a teleportar could do if they weren’t a hero like stealing items, unless I think of the cartoon Futurama were Bender the robot would steal riches from all over the galaxy in all different time periods. Otherwise teleportation is usually just a means of escape, with some instances of quick travel.
*Another side note, there was another instance of teleportation in Dragon Ball Z ( yes the cartoon ) were Goku teleported himself and Cell ( the antagonist ) to save planet Earth, only for Cell to survive and return to Earth. I bring this up because the teleportation was used to not only as a means of travel, but also to save a planet. Thought that would be an interesting little piece of info.*
It’s also interesting how it spread sickness but now that I think about it, its literally the fastest way for it to spread. And I like how it has the science atmosphere with people getting sick when they first starting trying out teleportation, but it also has the fantasy aspect of the story. Mixing things we understand like spreading diseases with components that we know aren't fictional yet like teleporting. Our brain puts two and two together and it makes sense somehow. The story continues on with the end being Foyle making a last ditch effort to escape from his past and have a fresh start. Very interesting stories overall and I would recommend it to someone who's interested in this genre.
No comments:
Post a Comment