Introduction
Alfred Bester Born Alfred M. Bester in New York City on December 18, 1913, the second child of James J. Bester, who owned a shoe store, and Belle Bester (née Silverman), a Russian immigrant. Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where he played on the football team, in 1935; studied law at Columbia for two years. In 1936 married Rolly Goulko, an actress and later advertising executive. Published his first story, “The Broken Axiom,” in Thrilling Wonder Stories in 1939, winning a prize for best amateur contribution. Wrote thirteen more stories for the magazine by 1942, when he followed his editors Jack Schiff and Mort Weisinger to DC Comics; contributed scripts and outlines for Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and Captain Marvel, also working on the Lee Falk comic strips The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician. In 1946, began writing radio scripts for The Shadow, Charlie Chan, Nick Carter, Nero Wolfe, and other programs, shifting to television in 1948, most notably with Tom Corbett: Space Cadet. Returned to science fiction beginning in 1950, publishing stories in Astounding Science Fiction and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and his first novel, The Demolished Man, in Galaxy magazine in 1952 (book, 1953); it won the first Hugo Award. Attended gatherings of the Hydra Club, meeting Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Anthony Boucher, Avram Davidson, Judith Merril, Theodore Sturgeon, and others. In 1953 published “Who He?” (later reprinted as The Rat Race), a novel about the television industry. With the proceeds of the film rights, moved with Rolly to England and then Italy, where he wrote articles on European television for Holiday magazine, and finished The Stars My Destination, his third novel (first published in England as Tiger! Tiger!, 1956, then in the U.S. in 1957; adapted as a graphic novel in 1979 and 1992). In 1957, delivered lecture “Science Fiction and the Renaissance Man” at the University of Chicago. Published Starburst, a collection of stories, in 1958 (later collections included The Dark Side of the Earth, 1964, and Starlight, 1976). Adapted his story “Fondly Fahrenheit” for television as Murder and the Android (1959). Became a regular contributor to Holiday and then senior editor from 1963 to 1971, when the magazine folded. Went on to write novels The Computer Connection (1975; serialized as The Indian Giver and published in the United Kingdom as Extro), Golem100 (1980), and The Deceivers (1981). Moved to Ottsville, Pennsylvania, in the early 1980s; died of complications from a broken hip on September 30, 1987, in nearby Doylestown. His unpublished early thriller Tender Loving Rage appeared posthumously in 1991, followed in 1998 by an unfinished novel, Psychoshop (completed by Roger Zelazny). In 2001 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
Alfred Bester had a long and interesting writing career, first in science fiction, then comics, then radio. In the 1950s he wrote two classic award-winning novels, “The Demolished Man” and “The Stars My Destination.” In the 1960s he became an editor for a travel magazine and wrote little fiction, but in the 1970s, he returned to science fiction with this new novel published in 1975. I’d never read it, and decided to try it recently.
Literature Review
The story involves a group of immortal humans who have become that way through accidental and peculiar situations, different for each of them. Gradually they have come to know each other and form a loose group of kindred souls. Each member of the group takes on a nickname to avoid the confusion of the multiple identities they must assume in the mundane world to avoid questions about their age. The narrator of the story is one of these immortals, who goes by the name Grand Guignol or Guig for short. He’s been trying for centuries to understand and duplicate the immortality process, and he finds what he thinks would be the perfect candidate, a Cherokee physicist named Sequoyah Guess. Guess is about to begin a major experiment with the help of a giant computer. Some of the immortals are present when he does, but the experiment goes wrong, and Guess is incapacitated and in a coma even though evidence shows he’s gained immortality. The Immortals take Guess to the lands of his people, where he gradually recovers, but something is wrong. His personality has changed, and it’s gradually revealed that the computer has taken over his mind, and they are now merged, causing Guess to take uncharacteristic actions, including trying to kill some of the immortals who the computer sees as a threat. Meanwhile, Guig has fallen in love with Sequoyah’s sister in his time on the reservation, and they marry. After Guig is nearly killed by the computer, he and his wife retreat to a remote part of South America. Gradually the immortals reconnect with each other and put together a dangerous plan to destroy the computer that’s making life difficult for all of them.
Our hero is one Ned Curzon; a delightful fellow who’d been transformed into an immortal through an strange accident involving the explosive destruction of Krakatoa, and a member of an extended family of same eternal and eccentric folks: Nemo, Herb Wells, The Syndicate, Hillel the Jew, Borgia, Jacy (yes, that J.C.), Sam Pepys (not their realsies, you understand, just their ‘nom de years’). Ned, it seems, has been nicknamed Guigol (Guig for short), for his attempts to indoctrinate other people into their unique group. The problem, you see, is that to become immortal you have to go through a lot of terror and pain – and a lot of folks just don’t make it. Guigol as in Grand Guigol.
Then, right out of left field, the Group has a new member, the brilliant Amerid scientist Dr. Sequoya Guess – but an unforeseen side effect slipped into the immortality process as well, a side effect that has linked Guess to the Extro, the planet-wide system of intelligent machines and has given him incredible abilities and a lethal intent towards Guig and the members of his delightful group. As the back cover puts it: so how do you kill an immortal?
In the future, a band of immortals (some who are famous historical characters, some who have tried their best to avoid becoming so), including Herb Wells, Ned Curzon (nicknamed Grand Guignol), Hillel, and Sam Pepys have only one requirement for membership: don’t die. Through their extensive social network, they come across a brilliant Cherokee physicist named Sequoya Guess, who himself has only very recently learned of his peculiarity and the catches and loopholes that come along with it. This creates a swift change in Guess’s day-to-day life that is as much a shock to his friends as to himself. At the same time, the world’s scientists are collaborating to bring together a supercomputer named Extro that will monitor and control all mechanical activity on Earth. The immortals create a plan to subtly harness Extro to aid them in their quest for knowledge and use some of the experience they’ve gained to assist it in its task. Working outside of expected behavior, Extro instead seizes control of Dr. Guess, leaving the only people who know what’s going on — the Immortals and Guess’s nearest friends — to grapple with the heart and mind of a malevolent machine in the body of an Immortal, a powerful and ingenious man who cannot be killed.
This starts out with the main character escaping from some obscure threat and reaching a friend’s place. The friend sends him into the past — so you think it’s going to be a time-travel story. In the past he tries to save a struggling artist by giving him gold.
And that’s the last we hear of time travel. It’s actually a story of humans who have attained bodily immortality through various traumatic incidents, and things going on with them. There’s some space travel, and, not surprisingly given the title, a computer connection.