I stayed up All Night

Author's Rating:

Pros: One of the Two best Sci-Fi Books I have ever read.

Cons: The ending sequences would work better on Film.

The Bottom Line: 
If you love Science Fiction, this is a MUST READ.

Author's Review
This book was given to me by a friend when I was about twelve. Up until that time I thought that Andre Norton’s “The stars are ours” and “Star Born” were the best books I was ever going to read. I was wrong.

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry ?

Gull Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space is my dwelling space
The stars my destination.

These two matched poems grabbed me immediately and I knew I would be up all night if necessary to read this book because I knew I wouldn’t be able to put it down. I was right.

This is the story of one man’s evolution from inert drone to the most important man in the known universe.

Gully Foyle no ambition, no interests drifting through life is suddenly the only survivor of a deep space accident. Each day he must leave the closet compartment he is living in and play a game of life roulette by obtaining another cylinder of oxygen and hoping it isn’t empty. If he cracks the valve and it’s empty he’s dead.

One day he sees another ship, the Vorga and realizes they see him. They leave. This proves to be the one incident in his life that lifts him out of his inertia. Enraged at the Vorga and determined to survive, he repairs the ship and crashes into the space jetsam colony of the scientific people.

The scientific people hideously tattoo his face like a tiger and place the name “Nomad” on his forehead. The colony is a patchwork of derelict ships welded together. Finding one in working order Gully escapes.

If this isn’t enough to catch your interest I suggest you pick up a good copy of the “Bobsie Twins Visit Knottsburry Farm”.

This book has it all, action, teleportation, a mystery and a look a mankind’s potential future as well as the human story of one man’s evolution to ... I’ll leave you to find out.

Postscript

Why hasn’t Hollywood made a movie out of this ? With all the mediocre stuff our there I feel this has the potential to be a cult classic like Blade Runner. Just finding a beautiful albino to play Prestigen's daughter would be a challenge. I’ve often felt Hollywood bogarted the idea for the six million dollar man from this story.