Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester was an influential American science fiction writer, born on December 18, 1913, in New York City. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1935, with a background in science and fine arts. Bester began his literary career in 1939, transitioning from pulp magazines to comic books, radio, and television, where he later felt constrained by the medium. His most notable works, "The Demolished Man" and "The Stars My Destination," emerged in the early 1950s, showcasing his innovative storytelling and unique takes on classic literature. "The Demolished Man" reinterprets Dostoevsky’s "Crime and Punishment" in a telepathic society, while "The Stars My Destination" draws inspiration from Dumas's "The Count of Monte Cristo," focusing on themes of teleportation and superhumanity. Despite his initial success, Bester's later works, including "The Computer Connection" and "Golem One Hundred," did not achieve the same acclaim. He also had a long tenure as a senior literary editor for Holiday magazine. Bester passed away in September 1987, leaving behind a legacy of groundbreaking science fiction that continues to resonate with readers today.
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Alfred Bester
Writer
- Born: December 18, 1913
- Birthplace: New York, New York
- Died: September 30, 1987
- Place of death: Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Biography
Alfred Bester was born on December 18, 1913, in New York City. He was educated at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, graduating in 1935 with a B.S. in science and fine arts. He married the actress and advertising executive Rolly Goulko in 1936; they had no children and were divorced in the mid-1970’s. He became an expert fencer, composed classical music, and flirted with careers in the law and microbiology but was unable to complete the training needed for either profession. Instead, he became a freelance writer, publishing his first science fiction story in 1939 and subsequently moving on from pulp magazines to comic books, radio, and eventually to television. He found the awkwardly restrictive demands of television frustrating, and he claimed he returned to science fiction writing as therapy—although he also described writing as “an act of insane violence committed against yourself and the rest of the world.”
Bester produced all of his best science fiction work, including two classic novels, The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination, in a brief burst of creativity in the early 1950’s. The Demolished Manis a transfiguration of Fyodor Dostoevski’s novel Crime and Punishment set in a society of telepaths in which crime has become exceedingly difficult to conceal and punishment has been transformed. The Stars My Destination is the best of several science fiction adaptations of Alexandre Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, similarly reset in a society in which superhumanity has become commonplace, the focus here being on teleportation rather than telepathy. Bester’s short fiction of the period included the intense psychological mystery story “Fondly Fahrenheit,” the ingenious time paradox tale “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed,” the uncompromising apocalyptic fantasy “Adam and No Eve,” and such wryly sardonic stories as “Time is the Traitor” and “The Pi Man,” which served to display his acute sense of the strangeness and complexity of the world.
Between his two famous science fiction novels, Bester published the satirical Who He? in 1953. He moved to Europe shortly after the book’s publication and played the bon viveur to even greater effect than he had in New York. His ambition to write mainstream fiction addressing contemporary social issues was largely frustrated, although Tender Loving Rage eventually appeared long after it was written. He put his literary ambitions aside while he worked for Holiday magazine for almost twenty years, eventually becoming its senior literary editor. After the magazine ceased publication, he returned to the science fiction genre with The Computer Connection, but the book’s vividness was undermined by structural incoherency. He returned to his former transfigurative method in Golem One Hundred, based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but he could not recover the energy and coherency of his earlier works. The Deceivers completed his descent into relative mediocrity. He died of heart failure in September, 1987.