The Demolished Man

I am pretty ambivalent about this book. I read it because it was an S&L pick and the very first Hugo winner. As such, I new it reflected the tastes and thought patterns of the time it was written (1951). I was immediately drawn in by how well the dialogue stood up to the test of time. In a lot of older fiction that I read, the dialogue is notoriously dated or (in SF's case) trying too hard to be futuristic. It makes it very hard to read from a modern perspective. Bester has a real handle on language, though, and that makes it easy to get to know his cast.

From the first page I was sucked into Reich's thought patterns. I love that this book starts not with our hero, but with our antagonist, and from the first we are right there in Reich's head. In so many mysteries, we are only seeing the cops' side and watching them be bested time and again by the villain. Here, we get to watch both sides of the drama as neither one really gets a handle on anything until the end.

The idea of an ESP run society is an intriguing one, and I disagree with criticism that this prevents it from being a science fiction book since ESP isn't a real science. For me, there's room in the genre for what ifs when they are addressed with a scientific attitude. The subject matter is how this development would affect society, and Bester does a great job of expressing that. I wonder if this book was at all an influence on Dick's “The Minority Report” as a world without pre-meditated crime.

So the plot starts out well and the language is still fresh, but as soon as Barbara D'Courtney enters Powell's life, the book falls apart for me. I am willing to look past the Freudian overtones of the book to a point, and even to look past the lack of power in most of the female characters. This is 1951 so I think Duffy Wyg& counts as progressive by having a job. What I just can't get past is Powell and Barbara happily entering into this Freudian romance with her literally possessng the mentality of a 5-year old. If Bester hadn't gone the romance angle here, I could have dealt with this book, but he did and by modern standards it is weird, creepy, and ludicrously unprofessional PREFECT Powell. The rest of the ending (They were siblings!) was something of a let down too. I know at the time it was probably innovative and exploring the latest in psychological theory, but as so much of that theory has been disproved, it denies the book of most of its uniqueness and philosophy.

The Demolished Man is a great concept with a few very captivating characters that falls flat for me due to .... is squicky a techincal term? It's the best word I've got. Due to squicky psychology. I would give it 2.5 because it wasn't all bad, but I couldn't even process Reich's ending when I was so distracted by Powell's.