I can give it no better praise than to say I think Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, and Mr. Its ending is ambitious and outrageous, exalting The Hero, Democracy and Freedom, and yet acknowledging the ignorance, darkness and oppression from which these gifts inevitably spring. This is a very entertaining novel, but also a thoughtful one. It is this passion which motivates him throughout a series of crimes-including (but not limited to) blackmail, rape, and murder-as he transforms himself into the elegant Geoffrey Fourmyle, still searching for the person who years ago decided to leave poor Gully Foyle for dead.įoyle's search takes place in a future world dense with marvels and horrors: wide use of individually initiated teleportation (“jaunting”), heartless mega-corporations, occasional telepathy, vast underground prisons, a cargo cult with cool tattoos, a cathedral housing a circus, a mysterious substance ('PyrE') which may either consume or transform our world, and the fragmentation of time. When the friendly ship Vorga knowingly passes him by, he becomes consumed by the desire for revenge. And all the things that are good about this novel are embodied in its hero-Caliban and Hamlet, Satan and Samson, Cain and Prometheus combined-the brute-genius Gully Foyle.ĭuring a war between the Inner and the Outer Planets, Gully Foyle-unlettered, unskilled, amoral-is adrift upon the wreck of the space ship The Nomad, the sole survivor of an attack.

Although it is a revenge tale based on The Count of Monte Cristo, its heart is perhaps closer to Frankenstein, but to a Frankenstein in which the monster is capable of self-redemption, of moving beyond isolation and bitterness toward an enlightened humanity.

It is rich in incident, ambitious in conception, terse and unemotional in style, and fiercely Romantic in theme. This is my favorite classic science fiction novel.

The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester