# Gully Foyle is my name and Terra is my nation, deep space is my dwelling place...



## Explorer (Jul 10, 2014)

The Stars My Destination.

An amazing book by Alfred Bester, which I'll call a mini sci-fi version of Le Comte de Monte Cristo. 




> The spaceship Nomad drifted halfway between Mars and Jupiter. Whatever war catastrophe had wrecked it had taken a sleek steel rocket, one hundred yards long and one hundred feet broad, and mangled it into a skeleton on which was mounted the remains of cabins, holds, decks, and bulkheads. Great rents in the hull were blazes of light on the sunside and frosty blotches of stars on the darkside. The S.S. Nomad was a weightless emptiness of blinding sun and jet shadow, frozen and silent.
> 
> The wreck was filled with a floating conglomerate of frozen debris that hung within the destroyed vessel like an instantaneous photograph of an explosion. The minute gravitational attraction of the bits of rubble for each other was slowly drawing them into clusters which were periodically torn apart by the passage through them of the one survivor still alive on the wreck, Gulliver Foyle, AS- 128/127:006.
> 
> ...



​ I don't think they would ever be able to make a film of this book, but it has so many ideas and images which would be captivating for any production which managed to pull them off.

(In fact, I just remembered that series The Tomorrow People, which did take the idea and name of "jaunting" from this book.)

The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester. If you've never heard of it, I suggest you at least read one chapter in a bookstore. I posted just a small taste of the first chapter here, and it got me fired up to read it again. 

Any of you who have read it, I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do. 

(For the curious, I do recommend wholeheartedly the Robin Buss translation into English of The Count of Monte Cristo. The huge unabridged version was one of the two books which formed my childhood character, way back in elementary school, and the Buss translation manages to make it more readable than the copy I have from so many decades ago....)


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## Preacher (Jul 10, 2014)

I second this. It is an amazing book, and arguably is the birthplace of a lot of modern sci-fi concepts. It is also fascinating in that the main character is a horrible person whom the writer appears to want you to hate, but at the same time root for, which he pulls off. If they ever made it into a film, which could be done, it would need to be a Ridley Scott/Chris Nolan joint collaboration just so they can temper each other and keep focused on the story. Lord knows how you would get across the middle of the book though unless it was just voice over :s


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## SKoG (Jul 10, 2014)

Thanks for the suggestion. The Count of Monte Cristo is my favorite classic novel, I'll definitely give this a try.


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## Xaios (Jul 10, 2014)

Preacher said:


> It is also fascinating in that the main character is a horrible person whom the writer appears to want you to hate, but at the same time root for, which he pulls off.



The original Walter White, huh?

I haven't read this, nor have I read the Count of Monte Cristo, but I've been told by more than one person that I'd probably highly enjoy it (Count, I mean). Time to get off my rear and find a copy, and then maybe this too.


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## eaeolian (Jul 10, 2014)

This book is a classic for a reason.


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## eaeolian (Jul 10, 2014)

Preacher said:


> it would need to be a Ridley Scott/Chris Nolan joint collaboration just so they can temper each other and keep focused on the story. Lord knows how you would get across the middle of the book though unless it was just voice over :s



I have always felt like the prison scenes in "The Dark Knight Rises" owe something to this book. I'm certain Nolan has read it.

I think Cameron could have done this justice in the '80s. Not now, though.


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## fenderbender4 (Jul 18, 2014)

Childhood character? Remind me never to make you mad.

JK.


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## fenderbender4 (Jul 18, 2014)

eaeolian said:


> I have always felt like the prison scenes in "The Dark Knight Rises" owe something to this book. I'm certain Nolan has read it.
> 
> I think Cameron could have done this justice in the '80s. Not now, though.



Modern take on Cameron, pretty funny:

I Re-Watched Titanic So You Don't Have To. You're Welcome.


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