Transcendent revenge

Author's Rating:

Pros: None, if you like science fiction or any form of speculative fiction.

Cons: If you dislike science fiction, don't read this -- unless you're ready to reconsider.

The Bottom Line: 
This is science fiction at its best.

Author's Review
Setting: Hundreds of years in the future, Mankind has spread out to colonize the Moon, Mars, Venus (thus creating the Inner Planets), as well as the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune (the Outer Satellites). Man has also learned to "jaunte" or teleport himself over distances up 1,000 miles. The advent of jaunting radically changed the economies of all human-inhabited worlds, with the eventual reorganization of the Solar System into two camps (the Inner Planets and the Outer Satellites) of corporate fiefdoms or clans. A trade-war between the two major factions gradually grows, and eventually becomes outright war.

Story: Gully Foyle is a thoroughly unsophisticated, uneducated, and unmotivated lump of a man, working as manual labor aboard a ship called the Nomad, which is owned by a large Inner Planet corporate clan. But, as the story begins, the Nomad is a derelict, full of holes, torn apart, and with only one airtight and air-filled room, where Gully Foyle has managed to survive for months, scavenging air, water, and food from the rest of the tattered hulk. Then, one day, another ship, the Vorga, comes within hailing distance, and Gully Foyle sets off every flare he can find. He has hope! The Vorga stops . . . and then moves on.

"Rage" and "a thirst for revenge" are pale terms for the obsession that haunts Foyle from that day forward. Against all odds, he manages to escape, make his way back to Earth, make one failed attempt to destroy the Vorga, gets an education (the hard way), falls in love, completely remakes himself, and becomes a force to be reckoned with. Does he ever satisfy his thirst for revenge? Does he find happiness and peace? I'll leave that to you to discover, but those questions do get answered in the story.

The Stars My Destination is a bullet-train of adventure, mishap, triumph, setbacks, and metamorphosis. The characters are fascinating, the writing is flawless, symbolism and lessons abound, the pace is rocket-speed, the plot is complex but cohesive, and it's just a good, old-fashioned, great read. The society portrayed in the story is complex and well-described, and does seem to be one possible and feasible future, given today’s society. I had heard that this book was viewed by some as the greatest science fiction novel ever, and was skeptical. After reading it, I believe it is definitely a contender. It grabbed me quickly, and never let go. There are surprises, but they are credible, within the context of the story and setting. The ending is almost as startling and as enigmatic as that of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, but somewhat more comprehensible. The title has several meanings, the most important of which emerges only very near the end.

Character development is probably the book’s greatest strength, amongst a plethora of strengths. The Gully Foyle you meet in the beginning of the book is not the same man who finishes the book. If a reader made the mistake of peeking at the end, after the first twenty-five pages, he or she might not recognize Gully, and might even think the transformation so dramatic to be untenable, and that reader might give up on the book. That would be a mistake, as the transformation is completely credible, within the context of the story. The suggestion is that Gully Foyle, at the end of the story, represents what humans could become, eventually. And that future-human-potential is amazing, fascinating, and a bit frightening.