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<blockquote data-quote="Alsos" data-source="post: 622505" data-attributes="member: 8894">If you're interested in SF classics, I recently read Alfred Bester's &quot;The Demolished Man&quot; and &quot;The Stars My Destination&quot;. Both are good. &quot;The Demolished Man&quot; is a criminal procedural involving telepaths (you can readily see where Bester and the Psi Corps in &quot;Babylon 5&quot; originate). Man uses telepathy and subterfuge to commit the 'perfect murder', cop who is also telepathic hounds him relentlessly while searching for tangible proof of his guilt (telepathy itself being inadmissible as evidence). Has a cool vibe to it, like the Rat Pack meets &quot;Twin Peaks&quot;.&quot;The Stars My Destination&quot; is an odd story, 'experimental' without being unreadable New Wave garbage. Guy wakes up in remains of a destroyed spaceship, has to figure out who he is and what happened to him (and the spaceship) while being dogged by an apparition of a flaming head. The story gets stranger and more baroque until the big reveal, at which point everything snaps into place like in the closing minutes of &quot;Usual Suspects&quot;. Psychic teleportation is involved - it's a pity &quot;Babylon 5&quot; didn't borrow that idea from the real Bester, too.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Alsos, post: 622505, member: 8894"] If you're interested in SF classics, I recently read Alfred Bester's "The Demolished Man" and "The Stars My Destination". Both are good. "The Demolished Man" is a criminal procedural involving telepaths (you can readily see where Bester and the Psi Corps in "Babylon 5" originate). Man uses telepathy and subterfuge to commit the 'perfect murder', cop who is also telepathic hounds him relentlessly while searching for tangible proof of his guilt (telepathy itself being inadmissible as evidence). Has a cool vibe to it, like the Rat Pack meets "Twin Peaks". "The Stars My Destination" is an odd story, 'experimental' without being unreadable New Wave garbage. Guy wakes up in remains of a destroyed spaceship, has to figure out who he is and what happened to him (and the spaceship) while being dogged by an apparition of a flaming head. The story gets stranger and more baroque until the big reveal, at which point everything snaps into place like in the closing minutes of "Usual Suspects". Psychic teleportation is involved - it's a pity "Babylon 5" didn't borrow [i]that[/i] idea from the real Bester, too. [/QUOTE]

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