Expectations…

I finally got around to getting properly underway with my self-imposed Hugo Challenge, starting with the very first winner in 1953.

Review: The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester (1953)

Ben Reich is the head of the system spanning mega-corporation, Monarch Enterprises and a powerfully driven man accustomed to getting whatever he wants. When Monarch faces dire financial troubles at the hands of the rival D’Courtney Cartel, extreme measures are needed. Reich first proposes merger and when rebuffed, turns instead to murder. But when the police are telepathic and no-one has been successfully murdered for seventy years, how on earth can he hope to get away with it, avoiding detection, capture and the seemingly unavoidable penalty of Demolition?

The Demolished Man is very much a psychological thriller and a fascinating character piece, played out mostly between Reich and Police Prefect Lincoln Powell, a first class ‘esper’, one of the increasingly abundant new generations of telepathically capable human beings.

Not so much a who-dunnit as a how-dunnit, the initial premise – premeditated crime in a precognitive world – is quite a hook and the cleverness and determination with which Reich tackles the problem makes for compelling reading, and unusually, a likeable villain. Reich comes across as a confident and resourceful magnificent bastard, and from very early on I wanted him to succeed and win.

The crime is committed and Powell is introduced, bringing with him a B-story focussing on the espers themselves, their ways, societies and the hopes, dreams and domination of the Esper Guild. Telepathy is extremely well mapped and detailed in this work and far from the vague magic it is in many stories, is very much a psychiatric science and heavily integrated into the day to day workings of the world. This in turn raises all sorts of questions of race, bigotry, privacy and suspicion which Bester is not afraid to tackle.

Powell’s investigation and subsequent sparring with Reich becomes the main event intertwining the two parts of the tale, and shifting focus back to a more equal footing and by the end, it really is hard to say who the hero is and who the villain. The unravelling of the mysteries really does lead to a mind blowing conclusion and a surprising end, making the whole journey a tight one, well-paced and yet allowing for sufficient side-trips to briefly explore the world Bester has built.

Its worth noting that The Minority Report, the Phillip K Dick short story about precognition and crime which inspired the 2002 Spielberg/Cruise film of the same name, wasn’t written until 1956.

I’ve also seen the term ‘cyber-punk’ used and not without merit. Thirty years before Gibson’s Neuromancer (Also a Hugo Winner – 1985), Bester describes a world in which megacorps do battle across the solar system, a class of technical elite immerse themselves in a powerful alternate world of information, technology dominates a kind of commerce tainted by grime and greed and ruthless men stop at nothing to gain wealth and power. The pacing is quite similar too – Reich and Powell’s jousting across the solar system echoed in Case and Molly’s own odyssey for resolution. Mind you, the styling and feel of the thingdoes still date it a bit; imagine Neuromancer meets Mad Men!

It is a good book; punchy, clever, intricate and engaging, and yet it isn’t a great book. I wonder if a lot of that wasn’t my own pre-emptive sense of over anticipation, a slight sense of awe in fact; in a list of The Best, this is The First. I think I was probably expecting something life-changing, an epiphany of sorts, which is plainly unfair. Something to remember for my further Hugo explorations – at the end of the day, it’s just panel voting for the best sci-fi book of that year, not some new universal physical law or anything.

Having read quite a few of the more recent Hugo winners in my time, I’m actually finding this a useful cautionary tale about self-imposed hype, but also a very encouraging thing. The very first winner, in 1953, isn’t the best sci-fi book I’ve ever read, which suggests the field as a whole is improving as time passes, which can only be a good thing!

Expectations aside, it is still worth a buy, being a very engaging detective drama set in a fascinating future and a good page-turner in its own right regardless of any awards it may or may not have won.

TLDR; A commendable start to the list, setting a suitably high standard for many even better works to come.

Interestingly, 1953-52 also saw publication of part two of Asimov’s epic Foundation opus ‘Foundation and Empire’. Hard to say which is better, and definitely a matter of taste rather than skill. Asimov wouldn’t get a Foundation novel into the list until 1983 with ‘Foundation’s Edge’.