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Snail Tales

A Journey Through Classic Literature at a Leisurely Pace

The Demolished Man

Winner of the First Hugo Award. #14 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written. "Bester's two superb books have stood the test of time. For nearly sixty years they've held their place on everybody's list of the ten greatest sf novels" -Robert Silverberg "One of the all-time classics of science fiction."-Isaac Asimov "Alfred Bester wrote with the pedal to the floor and the headlights on full beam. His work combined erudition with an unparalleled imaginative inventiveness. Bester was writing cyberpunk while William Gibson was still running around zapping the other kids at school with a toy raygun."-James Lovegrove In a world policed by telepaths, Ben Reich plans to commit a crime that hasn't been heard of in 70 years: murder. That's the only option left for Reich, whose company is losing a 10-year death struggle with rival D'Courtney Enterprises. Terrorized in his dreams by The Man With No Face and driven to the edge after D'Courtney refuses a merger offer, Reich murders his rival and bribes a high-ranking telepath to help him cover his tracks. But while police prefect Lincoln Powell knows Reich is guilty, his telepath's knowledge is a far cry from admissible evidence.

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Published Mar 17, 2014

Average rating: 7

8 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

Nick Brown
Nov 03, 2023
4/10 stars
I lemmed it, I'll admit it. I hate that I didn't like this book more than I did. I really tried, I did, but I just couldn't though. I can't say that it's because classic SF doesn't appeal to me because I enjoyed 2001: A Space Odyssey and even Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, but I just couldn't get into this book. That being said, I can appreciate it for what it is and I can appreciate what it did for SF as a whole, but overall, the story felt quite dull and it didn't attract me. I didn't really find myself caring at all for the characters or for their motives throughout the book. Well, I take that back, up to the point that I stopped reading, I did enjoy Lincoln Powell and the whole peeper aspect of the book. It's a very intriguing idea, telepathic police officers, but I was definitely left wishing I cared more for what happened.

Sadly, the book left me feeling kind of like I do at the end of this review... where the heck am I going with it? Well, you know, now that I think about it, I don't really care where I'm going with it, so I'm just going to stop here.

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