The Complete Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination

'The Complete Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination' by Howard Chaykin and Byron Preiss

Bester's 'The Stars My Destination' is one of the few 'Old School' SF classics that really lives up to its 'classic' status. 

First published in 1956, the novel borrows its plot from 'The Count of Monte Cristo' :

In the aftermath of an unprovoked attack on the spaceship Nomad, crewman Gully Foyle survives among the floating ruins of his vessel by outfitting a storage locker as an emergency survival compartment. Foyle, clad in his spacesuit, desperately scavenges oxygen canisters and tins of food and water from the wreckage, hoping to survive long enough to be rescued. 

Foyle is in his 171st day aboard the Nomad, when he espies an approaching vessel. Rescue is within his reach...or so it seems....

'Stars' has a very 'modern' approach to its prose style, plotting, and characterization, which made it stand out from the wooden material being churned out in the late 50s by Arthur Clarke, James Blish, and Isaac Asimov (among others).

Throughout the 70s, editor and author Byron Preiss (1953 - 2005) was active in publishing illustrated editions of sf mass-market and trade paperbacks. One of his ventures involved a small New York City publisher named Baronet, who in the late 70s released 'The Illustrated Harlan Ellison' and 'The Illustrated Roger Zelazny', as well as the illustrated 'The Stars My Destination'.

The publication history of 'Stars' is complicated. In July 1979 Baronet released 'The Stars My Destination, Volume One: The Graphic Story Adaptation' as a trade paperback and as a deluxe-edition hardcover in a slipcase, with an empty slot preserved as a space for the planned volume 2. 

Excerpts of Volume One and Volume Two were published in Heavy Metal magazine; the November 1979 issue featured the first chapter of Volume Two, which I've posted below.

Unfortunately, Baronet went out of business soon after releasing Volume One, and the draft of Volume Two sat in a warehouse in Queens, New York, for 12 years until Carl Potts, editor of Marvel's 'Epic Illustrated' magazine, expressed an interest in publishing a complete edition of the book.

After further labors by Preiss, the Complete Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination'  was released in 1992 by Epic.

 

Readers interested in picking up a copy can find it at amazon.com and eBay  for affordable prices, but take care that you purchase the 'Complete' version, as opposed to Volume One (which shares the same cover).

If you've never read Bester's novel, the Chaykin / Preiss edition is probably the best way to take it in. While the graphic story is abridged, the quantity of excised text is very minor, and the full flavor of the novel is well retained. 

Chaykin's illustrations are an able interpretation of the visual images described in the text. Their variety and quantity are impressive, particularly in light of the fact that they were done in the era prior to the advent of computer - assisted graphics.

3-D eyeglasses and 'The Illustrated Harlan Ellison'

3-D Eyeglasses and The Illustrated Harlan Ellison

The 3-D experiment with Steranko and “Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman”, whatever you may think of it, there are people I know, I swear, with very, very highly developed artistic sense, I mean, they are people who have hanging in their homes Mark Rothkos, Picassos, I mean, they know art, they are not dilettantes, and they look at the Steranko stuff and they say, “This is fine.” Other people say [in a weaselly voice]: “What the hell is this? I don’t understand it.” I have a beef on the plates in the special limited edition portfolio [of “Repent, Harle­quin, Said the Ticktockman”]: The Thoreau quote was cut. I mean, you can cut my words if you want to on those damn plates, but for Chrissake, you don’t cut Thoreau. You don’t edit Thoreau because the lines don’t fit. And we can’t really figure out whether it was Steranko who did because he didn’t like the art layout or if Byron allowed it… But it doesn’t matter. It happened. So, I have my minor beefs, my minor cavils.

But I really like that book. I am pleased and proud of it. And Byron Preiss did it. He was the one who did it, dammit. He ramrodded it, he put it together, he babysat the goddamn crazy artists, he sat with me through my crazinesses where I insisted on things. It’s a book that I’m pleased to add to my oeuvre. And I read these incredibly pompous, sententious, powder-pigeon martinet analyses by schmucks I never heard of. God knows what the fuck they do for a living. They pack ice cream at Baskin-Robbins or something and in their spare time they write you a review. And they sit there and judge those who are their betters. Because Byron Preiss is one of the best, man. You know why I think he’s one of the best? Because he takes the chances. Byron did the Weird Heroes series, Byron did Empire, Byron did The Stars My Destination, Byron did The Illustrated Ellison. Byron did all these things. Some of them may be failures, but goddammit, he did them! He didn’t just sit down and do fuzzy-footed little creatures for “Weirdworld”. And I think he is deserving of respect and deserving of respectful attention for the intent and for the execution. If he fails, it’s possible to say, “This was an attempt, it was an interesting attempt, it failed. It failed for these reasons.” That’s okay.

-interview of Harlan Ellison, conducted in 1979 by Gary Groth

Copies of The Illustrated Harlan Ellison (the Baronet Books 1978 trade paperback, not the Ace Books mass-market, abridged, paperback edition from 1980) still can be had for under $30, but are fast increasing in price.

One of the more imaginative chapters of the book is Jim Steranko's 3-D illustrations for the short story "'Repent, Harlequin !' Said the TickTockMan".

If you are going to invest in the book, I recommend you also get a pair of cheap, plastic 3-D eyeglasses from amazon for $10 a pair (the book provides its own pair of cardboard 3-D glasses, but they don't work nearly as well as the plastic pair). 

Once wearing the 3-D glasses of any kind, you have to gaze at the page for a bit before your eyes adapt to the meshing of the images (Sternako cleverly provided a tiny '3-D' cube in each of his illustrations to serve as a visual cue for the '3-D' effect). But soon the magic of 3-D will be revealed to you !

Of course, the 3-D glasses from amazon work just as well for those other eccentric books that feature 3-D artwork, such as Alan Moore's The Black Dossier (2007).

The Shadow: Blood and Judgment

The Shadow: Blood and Judgment
by Howard Chaykin (story and art)
Dynamite, 2012

This trade paperback from Dynamite compiles the four-issue miniseries first published by DC comics from May to August, 1986.

The 1986 Chaykin / DC reboot of the Shadow garnered controversy when first it appeared, with many fans disapproving of the comic's seeming glorification of violence, and the depiction of the Shadow as an individual whose 30's - era attitudes and sensibilities were in decided contrast with the more progressive, liberal nature of society in the USA in the 80s.

[The trade paperback features a reprint of a 1987 interview between Howard Chaykin and DC editor Joe Orlando, in which Chaykin discusses what motivated him to do a Shadow miniseries. Chief among Chaykin's motivations was a desire to see if he could convincingly place the character in the modern era.]

I won't reveal any spoilers, save to say that the plot, which is set in the mid-80s, focuses on a campaign of harm aimed at the elderly survivors of the Shadow's network of friends and associates. While some of these survivors are able to fight back, the mastermind behind the campaign eludes detection, leaving the Shadow's associates at a disadvantage.

But all is not lost. Although he has not been seen in 35 years, the Shadow is aware of the mayhem unfolding among his associates.........and he will be out to revenge their deaths.....

While I am a fan of some of Chaykin's work - his contribution to the 1970s graphic novel The Stars My Destination is one of his most significant achievements - The Shadow: Blood and Judgment is a dud.

TA major problem is the plot: it is incoherent. Chaykin tries to keep too many story threads running at the same time, and the result is utter confusion, a situation aided and abetted by the failure to include any sort of omniscient narration.

The artwork is subpar; too many panels have a sketchy, hasty quality that makes them difficult to decipher. The color scheme, which was handled by Alex Wald, doesn't help much, either, as it suffers from the flat, dull coloration that characterized the majority of comic books published during the 80s.

But probably the biggest fault with The Shadow: Blood and Judgment is that it assumes the reader to be entirely familiar the whole Shadow mythology. If you are not a fan of the Shadow, than this series will be unintelligible to you, for Chaykin makes no effort to give the reader even the most basic introduction to the myriad characters appearing in this series. I had a vague idea of who Margot Lane was, but.... Clyde Burke ? Harry Vincent ? Without knowing who they are, it is difficult to get all that invested in the drama surrounding their struggle to survive.

The Shadow: Blood and Judgment also gives the impression that when he wrote and illustrated it, Chaykin was consciously (or perhaps unconsciously) trying to emulate Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, which, by early 1986, was the template for rebooting a franchise and making it relevant to the modern era. As I made my way through Blood and Judgment, I found it filled with not-so-subtle evocations of the visual style and design used by Frank Miller in Dark Knight.

The verdict ? The Shadow: Blood and Judgment never really comes together as a rewarding re-envisioning of the classic pulp hero. This one is for Chaykin completists only.

Book Review: The Third Omni Book of Science Fiction

Book Review: 'The Third Omni Book of Science Fiction', edited by Ellen Datlow

 

3 / 5  Stars

‘The Third Omni Book of Science Fiction’ (479 pp.) was edited by Ellen Datlow and released in April 1985 by Zebra Books. The cover artist is Tim White (as per David in the Comments).

This anthology contains short stories published during the interval 1978 – 1985; some originally appeared in Omni magazine, or in earlier anthologies (‘The Best of Omni Science Fiction’, 1980) associated with the magazine.

The first story, Alfed Bester’s ‘Galatea Galante’, is the worst in the collection. In the early 80s Bester began to get increased praise as the cyberpunk movement recognized the before-its-time quality of 'The Stars, My Destination'. Much is made in the back cover blurb of his inclusion in this collection

Unfortunately, 'Galatea' is a lame re-telling of the Pygmalion theme, a theme already heavily overworked in the sci-fi literature. Bester attempts to add satiric humor and New Wave-style mannerisms (including the insertion of musical notations into the text) but they fall miserably flat.

‘Number 13’, by Stephen Robinett, deals with a lone crewman’s angst. ‘Men Like Us’, by David Drake, is an entertaining look at post-Armageddon Earth and the suspicion of the Outsider. ‘I Am the Burning Bush’, by Gregg Keizer, is a downbeat, original tale of a mutant and his unique abilities.

‘Farmer on the Dole’, by Frederik Pohl, is another of the weaker entries. Pohl recasts the struggle of the Lumpen Proletariat for liberation, but with robots as the protagonists. The story goes on too long, and runs well out of steam, before it struggles to an ending.

Jack Dann’s ‘Blind Shemmy’ is one of the best stories in the anthology. It is set in a near-future Paris, where an amoral reporter decides to engage in a high-stakes, ‘virtual reality’ game of chemin de fer (the ‘Blind Shemmy’ of the title). Featuring some disturbing imagery and a suspenseful duel between desperate antagonists, this is a gem of an early cyberpunk tale.

Roger Zelazny contributes ‘The Last of the Wild Ones’, set in his universe of intelligent, self-aware automobiles. ‘Prairie Sun’, by Edward Bryant, deals with time travelers and the fateful decisions regulating interaction with the Past.

Robert Silverberg’s ‘Amanda and the Alien’ is a humorous tale of a California Valley Girl and an escaped ET.

Gregory Benford and Marc Laidlaw provide ‘A Hiss of Dragon’, a well-written tale of an adventurer who makes a hazardous living on a low-grav planet. ‘Executive Clemency’, by Gardner Dozois and Jack C. Haldeman II, is another of the better entries in the collection; in a near-future, post- World War Three USA, an elderly man struggles to come to terms with the changes to his world.

Philip K. Dick’s ‘Ruatavaara’s Case’ is a satiric look at the collision of human and alien theologies. ‘Adventurer of the Metal Murderer’, by Fred Saberhagen, mixes his Berserker theme with proto-Steampunk.

‘Borovsky’s Hollow Woman’, by Jeff Duntemann and Nancy Kress, features a spacesuit governed by an empathic AI, a troubled steelworker, and murderous rivalries on a massive space station construction project. It’s a labored tale that could have benefited from being shortened in length. Gene Wolfe’s ‘The War Beneath the Tree’ is a blackly humorous take on Christmas toys; perhaps because of its shorter length, it is one of his more accessible stories.

‘Webrider’, by Jayge Carr, is a middling tale of a mutant gifted with the ability to travel the galaxy through teleportation. This involves great risk; there is predictable angst on the part of the ‘webrider’. ‘Ringtime’, by Thomas Disch, deals with virtual reality, risky behavior, and a paying audience; it suffers from an oblique prose style that shows too many signs of hanging on to New Wave affectations.

William Gibson and Bruce Sterling provide ‘Red Star, Winter Orbit’, a passable, if not particularly exciting tale of a seedy Soviet space station and its rebellious crew.

The anthology closes with a novelette by Dan Simmons, ‘Carrion Comfort’, which the author later expanded into a novel.

‘Comfort’ deals with a group of mutants who are able to bend others to their will. This novelette starts off very slowly, and the powers wielded by the mutants are more than a little contrived. While the ending eventually takes on some momentum, it was too long in coming to make me interested in possibly trying the novel. 

All in all, the Third Omni Book of Science Fiction is a reasonably good snapshot of SF writing in the early 80s, at a time when the cyberpunk movement was in ascendancy, bringing with it greater attention to composition, plotting, and narrative as compared to the defunct New Wave movement it was replacing.

Byron Preiss appreciation

Byron Preiss Appreciation

Byron Preiss (1953 - 2005) was a major influence in the effort to persuade publishers to pair science fiction and fantasy content with graphic art, back in the 1970s and 1980s.

photo by Travis T. Shuler, from https://www.facebook.com/groups/byronpreiss/

Here's an article by Edo Bosnar about the impact Preiss's books had on genre publishing, back in the days when the sci-fi enterprise just was starting to become the commercial juggernaut it is today. 

Not all of Preiss's efforts were overly memorable; much of the 'Weird Heroes' franchise turned out to be too cheesy to appeal to me neither back in the 1970s, nor when read nowadays. 

But there were more than a few Preiss productions, such as 'The Complete Alfred Bester's The Stars My Destination', 'The Illustrated Harlan Ellison' and 'Empire', that were real assets to the field of fantastic literature. They ensure Preiss's place as an innovator in genre publishing.

Journeyman: The Art of Chris Moore

'Journeyman: The Art of Chris Moore'

Chris Moore (b. 1947) is an English illustrator and artist; his first commission for a paperback cover came in 1972, when he had just finished college. He began to take on more assignments for sf covers in the 80s, and by the 90s he was one of the more sought-after artists in the genre.

‘Journeyman’ (Paper Tiger, UK, 2000) is an overview of Moore’s work from the early 80s through the late 1990s. The book intersperses reproductions of Moore’s work with text; the latter is a combination of a narrative of several  visits to the artist’s studio in East Lancashire by author Gallagher; as well a lengthy interview with Moore generated from these visits. 

While in most art books the text is something of a superficial overlay, in ‘Journeyman’ it’s actually quite interesting. As an interviewer Gallagher touches upon a variety of subjects, and Moore seems quite happy to respond, with anecdotes about producing album covers in the early 80s for UK bands and artists such as Rick Wakeman and Rod Stewart. (One of Moore's album cover paintings for Wakeman was so unusually life-like the record company staff thought it was a photograph).

In addition to discussing his painting techniques, Moore also comments on the business aspects and financial realities of being a commercial artist. 

Anyone interested in sf art, and commercial art in general, will want to keep an eye out for ‘Journeyman’.

(endpapers)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick, 1989

Tygers of Wrath by Philip Rosenberg, 1991

Buddy Holly (poster), 1985

Dark Wing by Richard Herman, 1993

The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, 1998

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester, 1998

 

We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by Philip K. Dick, 1990

 Emphyrio by Jack Vance, 1998

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, 1998

The Weight by Allen Steele, 1994

The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke, 1986