Comic-book Characterisation

[mtvessel]

Jul 2021
The Demolished Man - Alfred Bester – Byron Preiss Visual Publications, 2013
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I got this one because it was the highest-ranked novel in the GoodReads best 100 SF list that I hadn't already read (other than A Clockwork Orange, which is a) depressing and b) by a mainstream author that I don't much like). It was also the first winner of the Hugo award in 1953.

Bester spent several years as a short story and comic book writer which must have been an influence on his style when he later turned to novels. Certainly it would explain the energy and elegant brevity of the prose in this book, but unfortunately also its terrible, terrible flaws.

In a Gernsbachian future where humanity has colonised the solar system, Ben Reich, CEO of the multi-system conglomerate Monarch Utilities & Resources Inc, is planning to murder his arch-rival, the head of the D'Courtney Cartel. This is more difficult than it seems because of the existence of Espers, people with a greater or lesser degree of telepathy. A skilled Esper can read your thoughts and intentions, making even the contemplation of a crime extraordinarily difficult to do without detection. Nonetheless, using a variety of clever and underhand tactics, Reich develops his wicked plans. Will the Esper policeman Lincoln Powell be able to stop him? Or will Reich get away with it?

The following quote, describing Powell's experience of peeping into the mind of Barbara, D'Courtney's daughter who becomes caught up in Reich's machinations, neatly illustrates Bester's strengths and weaknesses:

Here were the somatic messages that fed the cauldron; cell reactions by the incredible billion, organic cries, the muted drone of muscletone, sensory sub-currents, blood-flow, the wavering superheterodyne of blood pH… all whirling and churning in the balancing pattern that formed the girl's pysche.

This is terrific descriptive writing, vividly evoking the wild tumult that is brain activity, until bam! You are brought up short by that word. Girl. Barbara is a grown woman. Not that you would know it from the way she is described and the plot arc she goes through ("arc" is perhaps too strong a word), which are frankly nauseating. Indeed, all the women in this novel are sex kittens who seem to find the two main protagonists extremely attractive, regardless of disparities in age. The men in return are condescending and dismissive.

Now of course such paternalism was the norm in writers of Bester's generation - Asimov, Clarke and Gene Wolfe are all guilty of it - but the psychological underpinnings of the plot make it particularly heinous here. This story has all the sleaziness of a playboy centerfold or a 60s Bond movie. Or - and I think this is cogent - the covers of the pulp magazines to which Bester contributed (links somewhat NSFW).

So how to read this interesting but terrifically dated story? Some things can't be fixed, I think. You are supposed to see Powell as the hero because he uses his powers for good, but he comes across as so smug and condescending that you want Reich to win just to put his nose out of joint. Reich himself is too vile in the way he uses people to be sympathetic and none of the other characters are sufficiently well-developed to root for. I think you just have to accept that the characterisation is comic-book hero/villain stuff and try to enjoy the ideas and the writing. Which I was able to do, though it was a struggle.