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    The Demolished Man
    The Demolished Man
    The Demolished Man
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Demolished Man

    Written by Alfred Bester

    Narrated by Gerard Doyle

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In a world policed by telepaths, Ben Reich plans to commit a crime that hasn't been heard of in seventy years: murder. That's the only option left for Reich, whose company is losing a ten-year death struggle with rival D'Courtney Enterprises. Terrorized in his dreams by The Man With No Face and driven to the edge after D'Courtney refuses a merger offer, Reich murders his rival and bribes a high-ranking telepath to help him cover his tracks. But while police prefect Lincoln Powell knows Reich is guilty, his telepath's knowledge is a far cry from admissible evidence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 26, 2017
    ISBN9781541484207
    The Demolished Man

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    Reviews for The Demolished Man

    4/5

    1,306 ratings62 reviews

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    • 4/5
      The Demolished man won the first Hugo Award in 1953 and after reading the book I cannot imagine another book beating it. Seen by many as a precursor of the 'cyberpunk' sci-fi novels that followed later in the '80's it certainly has the same style of 'high tech and low life' with large megacorporations running a future society and telepaths (called Espers) are an everyday occurence in all walks of life from business and therapy to the police force. This is essentially a detective story where one of the owners of a multi-national corporation, Ben Reich, facing bankruptcy attempts to commit the perfect murder of his main rival Craye d'Courtney despite the seemingly insurmountable problem of doing so with Espers and modern police procedure having all but wiped out crime. To help him try to confuse their telepathic abilities he recites over and over a rhyme; "Tenser said the tensor; tension, apprehension and dissension have begun" which is so persistent it prevents the espers 'peeping' into his mind. And from this we follow a wonderful chase across space as the policeman in charge of the investigation, Lincoln Powell, attempts to prove his suspicions.It is a wonderfully fast paced book full of noir-ish characters in a seedy futuristic underworld but it is the language Alfred Bester uses that really makes this book stand out and the pictures of words he creates on the page when the espers are communicating with sentences seemingly running up, down and diagonally at the same time. It is often criticised for appearing dated but do not let this put you off, this is a wonderful moment from the golden age of sci-fi.
    • 4/5
      It was slow to start but hit it's stride by the end. The twist in the final chapters made some of the slow grind worth it. Overall, it's definitely dated but still worth a read.
    • 4/5
      ‘The Demolished Man’, set in the 24th century (2301-2400), pre-meditated murder has been abolished. It is not that people do not have murderous thoughts, crimes of passion still occur. Mankind has begun to harvest latent abilities in the human mind. Telepaths, known as Espers, are globally recognized and have formed a society inside our own.It is the existence of these telepathic individuals that deters murder. How can you avoid being “demolished” if the details of the murder you commit are easily read by a man standing next to you? How can you commit the murder in the first place, if someone walking down the street can hear your mind as you plan the details?Ben Reich, owner of Monarch Enterprises, contacts his rival businessman Craye d’Courtney and requests that they merge corporations. It would be of benefit to them both, and makes sense. Unfortunately, after d’Courtney responds, Reich misinterprets the coded positive reply. In a fit of anger, Reich has decided to find a way to kill d’Courtney.The concern is how to do this with out being caught. If he can beat out the telepaths, keep the police off balance, and avoid tainting himself.. it could all work out.There are a number of elements that really stood out for me while reading this-The Existence and organization of Espers:Seemingly an amalgam of various worker’s unions, the Espers (telepaths) have adopted a bastardized Hippocratic Oath to keep their society and selves in line. Nicknamed “Peepers” for their ability to Peep into the brains of others, they walk a fine line of being loathed and revered. They need these structures for safety sake.Peepers work in all branches of life. Class 3 peeps (the lowest ability) work as assistants, secretaries, and a number of other positions where additional clarity and quick response times are appreciated. Level2 Espers find work as researchers, policemen, corporate anti-piracy bagmen, private dicks, etc. Level1 being the more obscure of the three, is highly sought after they are the peepers that other Espers cannot read the minds of (easily).Ear Worms:Ear Worms are what we call songs, and jingles these days that get stuck in your head for long periods of time. Not referred to in this manner in the book, they do serve as an interesting tool. It has to be pretty difficult to filter through all the garbage in people’s minds. How hard would it be for a mind reader who has to combat against addictive loops of structured words and jingles?Typeset and book lay out:This would be a difficult book to read in digital format. At points, the layout and structure of the page is imperative. For example, in one scene, a room of telepaths are having a party. They are excited and having telepathic discussions, but none of them are following a standard protocol for communication. the page show the cluttered way in which words are mashed together if they fail to work together, reading each others minds in tandem-Frankly Canapes? Why Ellery Thanks delicious yes, I Mary, they're Tate, Don't I'm Think treating You'll Canapes? D'Courtney. We Be Ibrought Working Expect Galen For him along Monarch in to Much Canapes? townhelp him celebrate Longer. shortly. He's The just taken his Guild is exam just and about been to classed After they realize exactly how disorganized they are, they solidify into a more structured thought process, even playing games where thoughts would be drawn out into designs and images.Sorry, Lincoln. We weren't party-minded EnoughTate thought Esperbut Alan MenI'm Seaver remainingNot that a Pres was ever elected still unmarriedHugo Award:‘The Demolished Man’ is the first book to ever receive the Hugo Award for science fiction in 1953. The relevancy of this is pretty awesome as this book was very much ahead of it’s time.--xpost RawBlurb.com
    • 5/5
      A brilliant classic novel of crime, telepathy and police work. If you haven’t read it, do it now! If you have, it’s well worth reading.

      The audiobook is excellent as well.
    • 3/5
      Winner of the first Hugo award, I liked it but didn't love it. My first objection, is that when I'm reading a mystery I don't like the perpetrator revealed until the end, I like to try to solve the mystery not solve how the cop will solve the crime. The only time I've liked a mystery set up that way is the old TV show Colombo. I like reading non-fiction about psychology, but I'm not crazy about "psychological" novels, and eper novels read like psychological novels to me. My final objection was that I guessed who the faceless man was about 2/3's of the way through the book.
      Still really glad that I read this classic just wasn't blown away by it. I'm going to try "The Stars My Destination" next which I feel may be more to my tastes.
    • 2/5
      A decent crime thriller with a weak Sci-fi setting.
    • 3/5
      Interesting ideas and well written though jumbled in places and of its time stylistically and additionally. Definitely worth a read.
    • 4/5
      I really didn't have to cringe too much (as I quite often do with early sci-fi in terms of the sexism). There really weren't many strong female characters, but the sexism wasn't too overt. This was a pretty good sci-fi mystery - maybe better described as a police procedural - where the police prefect, an Esper (person who can read minds), is trying to land a murder case. In a universe filled with Espers, nobody commits murders anymore as they are usually prevented before they happen. A good read.
    • 5/5
      A great book. It's a wonderful nightmarish ride. One of the Best Sci-Fi books I have ever read. Thank you Reinaldo for sending me this!
    • 5/5
      The Demolished Man by Alfred BesterEight, sir; seven, sir;Six, sir; five, sir;Four, sir; three, sir;Two, sir; one!Tenser, said the Tensor.Tenser, said the Tensor.Tension, apprehension,And dissension have begunThis is the song that Ben Reich has implanted in his brain on a continuous loop to stop the detectives with telepathic powers from sensing his culpability to murder. Like most of this short but action packed science fiction novel it is extremely effective; as I was reading I found myself putting a tune to those words. The novel is set in the twenty fourth century; a minority of people have become telepaths, espers or more colloquially peepers. They are employed in the top echelons of society and form a powerful group that are treated with some suspicion, however their involvement in crime prevention has resulted in no cases of murder for the last 70 years. Ben Reich the brash and brilliant leader of one of the largest conglomerates plans the murder of D’Courtney from a rival company. Police prefect Lincoln Powell a class I peeper knows that Rich is planning a murder and sets out to try and prevent him. What follows is a police procedural with Reich for most of the novel one step ahead of Powell, with the added incentive that he is funding an anti peeper programme. The novel moves swiftly through an extravagant murder scene at the home of a rich society lady with a taste for adventurous sex, to a chase scenario and a tracking down of accomplishes to a final denouement. The plot is well worked with some twists and surprises, however the nightmare ending takes the novel into another level making it an unforgettable reading experienceThe novel takes place almost exclusively in the world of the super rich and Bester creates this world of wealthy sycophants whose lives are put under stress by the war between Reich and the peepers. Colourful characters breeze in and out of the story as the plot rolls relentlessly on. He uses different forms of writing to differentiate between peepers and normals. The peepers at the party/murder scene delight in creating word games taking the form of concrete poetry in Bester’s rendition, it helps to create a feeling of other worldliness or that sense of wonder that is so important for science fiction. This must be one of the great science fiction novels of the 1950’s, originally serialised in 1952 and then published as a novel the year after. It stays true to its origins in that it is a fast paced story novel which would have appealed to its target audience, but a few of these novels almost step outside of their genre with their invention and creation of their own world. This is certainly one of those and if it has passed you by, then its worth spending an evening catching up with it. 5 stars
    • 4/5
      really enjoyed this unique use of sci-fi with phycology twisted in; also like how he used Ecclesiastes hint plus the other multiple references he makes to a variety of things throughout
    • 5/5
      In a future where the law is staffed by telepaths, how can you plot a murder? Ben Reich thinks he’s found a way. Does he succeed? You’ll have to read the book to find out, and I envy anyone their first reading of this classic of science fiction.
    • 3/5
      I'm of two minds about this book. I loved the world, the espers & their guild, the little details Bester has (such as the orthography of names, or the patterns of telepathic communication), and how the plot built with mystery around the murder and the Man with No Face. And then it turned out the secret was that D'Courtney was secretly Reich's father? It was such an underwhelming, and Freudian, conclusion to that mystery, and such a poor explanation for the characters actions. I was hoping for something larger, and frankly more motivating and plausible. And so, while I loved the book up to that point, it's hard to rate it highly when the big reveal was so disappointing.
    • 4/5
      This first-Hugo winning novel has a lot of "what happens next?" power when I didn't dwell on the unlikely crime, or puzzling over how rare murder had supposedly become only for several to occur or be referred to in the story and mostly be little remarked upon. I did appreciate the depiction of a society rife with ESP, how this ability's operation in social and work contexts would work long after it was been accepted by that society as everyday. This aspect felt very real, producing some interesting dialogue and scenarios. I was surprised to learn this novel was a precursor of Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report". It's a fast-paced thriller and a fun ride if you look past its 1950s pedigree (a hurdle I can overcome, but not entirely ignore).
    • 4/5
      Very ahead of its time I can see why people describe this as one of the inspirations for cyberpunk. An excellent detective story.
    • 2/5
      Time did some damage to this book - very dated. It was...not so good.

    • 4/5
      Can one of the richest men in the world get away with murder? It’s 2301, and in the twenty-fourth century there’s another source of power in addition to wealth: the Esper Guild. “An Esper 3 can peep the conscious level of a mind—can discover what a subject is thinking at the moment of thought. A 3rd is the lowest class of telepath.” A 2nd class member of the guild can tell what you’re going to think before you think it. The elite 1st class Esper can read your unconscious primal desires. This presents a terrible problem for Ben Reich his offer to merge his company with that of his arch rival Cray D’Courtney has been flatly refused, and he’s so mad he wants to kill D’Courtney. It’s not just business. This is personal and Reich wants the satisfaction of doing it himself. Never mind that it’s been eighty-seven years since a murder was committed—he is determined and determined that the damned “peepers” won’t catch him.Bester’s story is a fast-paced cat and mouse game between Reich and Police Prefect, Lincoln Powell, a 1st class Esper. It won the first Hugo Award in 1953 for best science fiction novel.
    • 4/5
      Interesting idea but never really gripped me except a few pages about three quarters in, where some genuine uncertainty was introduced about the murder.
    • 1/5
      This kid has some real issues, not least the fact that someone else is being a bit more successful than he is. So obviously he had to murder him, because hard work is just too much like hard work. But oh WAIT. Not only is murder illegal, it's also impossible because the police can read minds. But that's okay because his psychotic ancestors (who have him his pathetic, weedy spoilt brat DNA) wrote a dossier on how to kill someone without the "peepers" (actual name) finding out. And like all /good/ ancient sci-fi that's won awards, it has zero women who aren't trying to fuck whichever loser is the protagonist. Ey. Great stuff.
    • 4/5
      future distopia, written many years ago about a future that still hasn't come. Not based on gadgets and science, but mind reading. Really fun stuff.
    • 5/5
      I no longer own this book, but when I read it in the 70's or 80's, I thought it was great. A comment at Mulholland books reminded me of it. bit.ly/1ofQUgr
    • 2/5
      There are telepaths/psychics and since they can read your mind, murder has mostly become a thing of the past (a la Minority Report). Unless you're Ben Reich, CEO of one of the world's two biggest companies. The owner of the other is your rival, and you want to kill him for obvious reasons. How do you do it with all these telepaths watching? Well, that's the question, and it becomes a thrilling cat-and-dog game between the guy who may have committed the perfect crime and the telepath detective pursuing him.At least it would be more thrilling if it wasn't so antiquated. Alfred Bester wrote radio serials and it shows. I kept hearing old episodes of The Shadow in my head during the dialogue. There are definite signs of its age -- a lot of the sci-fi tropes like common space travel that we know are implausible today are in place, and the storyline starts getting scrambled as you get further in the book. Suddenly everyone is someone's relative a la Star Wars. It felt like it was trying to get all artsy by making the page into a canvas and playing with word shapes.
    • 5/5
      First published in Galaxy in 1951 (as a serial), and then in 1953, this won the first Hugo awarded. Timescape (a specialized imprint similar to Spectra) reprinted it in 1978. The cover of this book (mine, at least) is barely legible as "Timescape" since it was dark grey over a pattern of two toned grey (the cover photo I selected seems to have had that same problem).Not all things written in the fifties really make the transition to more modern times (it's been more than sixty years, after all, since it was first written). I think this does. It still reads well, and the points it made then still hold.Dammit, now I have to put it on my "need to read this again" list.
    • 4/5
      This almost extraordinary for the first 80-85% of the book. The Final confrontation left a lot to be desired, and the "oh suddenly it's a romance portion" was just dreck and unnecessary. But then the last couple of pages just about made it worth sticking through that.
    • 4/5
      Not a bad story. The storytelling and style grate on me, as does most classic SF from mid-century. Oh well.
    • 5/5
      there's a line in this book that stayed in my head for many moons after I finished. i won't reveal it here, but when you read the book, you'll know the line i's referring to.
    • 2/5
      So, this is why I dislike scifi. When I think of scifi, I think of books that do a couple of things:

      - They immediately introduce you to some silly madeup words for futury sounding things. "Oh no, that's a peeper! Which of course as you know is a guy who can read minds, because that's a thing people can do here in the future." "Right, that! Gosh." *random mention of Ganymede, because that's in space*

      - And the writing is...just exposition, y'know? Just gettin' the sentences out. "He would have to act quickly, before the lights went back on. 'I'd better move fast,' he thought grimly as he raced down the corridor." *shooting self in brain*

      They're often about exciting things, plenty of people getting murdered and aliens attacking and stuff, but there's nothing very important going on: it's just a description of exciting things happening, which it turns out is not the same as being exciting.

      And the ending! Daddy issues! *fart noises* I knew the ending on like page 3, and omg seriously, with that Powell / Barbara love story? That was almost as bad as Heinlein.

      Okay, so if I might wax largescale for a minute: Burroughs (19teens) came right after Verne and Wells (late 19th), and ushered in the pulp era. Ably followed by Lovecraft (1920s), who's only a little better at writing but has a unique style. But 45 years later when Bester is writing, we've had Zamyatin ('21), Huxley ('31) and Orwell ('49), the second generation of literary scifi writers; Bester ('53) is ossifying the worst of Burroughs' habits, and it seems to me like he's defining the era of lazy scifi that turns me off so much. What I'm saying here is that all that stuff I mentioned above, about why scifi sucks? Totally Bester's fault.

      This book is lame.
    • 3/5
      An enjoyable story that combines a murder mystery with SF. I liked it, but was a bit let down after the awesomeness that was _The Stars My Destination_. Once again Bester introduces an sfnal change to the world and logically posits some of the possible changes that would result in society: in this case it is psychic ability.

      The most obvious impact that Bester examines is the way in which crime and policing will be affected by the fact that a fairly large segment of the population can at least sense, if not outright read, the thoughts of others. Thus in this world a premeditated murder has not happened for 70 years, primarily due to the existence of the Esper Guild, the mandatory society of all espers who live under a strict code of conduct...the angle on being able to stop murder before it happens reminded me of Philip K. Dick, though of course Bester did it here first.

      Along comes Ben Reich, one of the richest men in the solar system, and someone with both the resources and the willpower to get what he wants when he wants it. Ben Reich is also a man with a problem in the form of his biggest business rival Craye D'Courtney. When overtures of a more peaceable nature are apparently denied he decides it's high time that he proves that he is the one man on the planet that can get away with murder.

      Enter Lincoln Powell, class 1 telepath and police prefect. Lincoln is equally driven and just as resourceful as Reich. what ensues is a game of cat and mouse between the two, as each attempts to thwart the other using every resource at his disposal.

      As I said the story is enjoyable, but it seemed a bit more dated to me than _The Stars My Destination_. While some of the changes Bester made to his society made sense and certainly changed elements from what we know today, other aspects of it felt a lot like nothing much had changed since the 1950's and 60's, the era when the book was written. For some reason I also started to lag a bit near the middle of the book, but, as thus far has always been the case with Bester, he manages to turn things around at the end and make me see the whole as much greater than I thought it might end up being. The climax and finale of the book were especially enjoyable and had elements that made me think of the best aspects of the classic Twilight Zone series...not exactly an unforeseen conclusion, but one that was constructed just right.

      All in all an enjoyable read, if not one that totally blew me away.
    • 4/5
      I love that the title of the book tells you so much about it. You know you're reading about a "Demolished" man walking before you even begin (what exactly that means you won't find out until nearly the last page), before Ben Reich tries to get away with murder in a world where telepaths can take the confession from your mind.

      There are some outdated ideas in this book, but they don't interfere with the essence of the story.

      Overall, it deserves its Hugo and is worth picking up.
    • 3/5
      This book is so dated that for me it travels beyond being dated into portraying an oddly fascinating alternate reality. I think the future of this book may actually feel stranger to me now than it did to the people reading the book in 1953. They were confronted with a world of flying cars and miniature androids and bubble environments in space, but the strange new world was inhabited by people whose motivations and behaviors they accepted as recognizable. I am confronted by a world with all of those technological innovations, inhabited by people who seem like some sort of weird alien race.

      The men in this novel are all and always engaged in status contests with one another for access to power over one another. Some are seeking power for altruistic reasons, some for selfish reasons, some out of fear, or hunger, or desperation, but all of them believe unquestioningly that the only way to get what they need is to struggle to rise in a hierarchy of dominance.

      The women are some sort of strange symbiont creatures, almost entirely focused on finding a man or men to attach to and identify with. This identification is so complete that rejection by or loss of the symbiont threatens their sanity. These strange symbiont creatures are also prone to behaving like children, which is apparently some kind of sexual signaling device.

      In addition both the status warriors and the symbiont clingers act out various psycho dramas strictly along Freudian lines, with ids, egos, and super egos all battling it out - causing people to suddenly burst into hysterical laughter in the middle of a fist fight or fall unconscious at a party because they've suddenly been confronted by an unacceptable sense memory of their absent father or their death wish has gotten tangled up with their life force and is causing an uncomfortable pulsation in their sex drive, or who knows what all. They are very odd creatures really.

      Its been said that every reading of a novel is a little bit different because each reading is a collaboration between what the author wrote and what the reader brings to her understanding of it. In my case that collaboration has produced something rich and strange, a story of alien creatures struggling for dominance in a world that never was.