The Demolished Man
Encyclopedia
The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester
, is a science fiction
novel that was the first Hugo Award
winner in 1953. The story was first serialized in three parts, beginning with the January 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction
, followed by publication of the novel in 1953. The novel is dedicated to Galaxys editor, H. L. Gold
, who made suggestions during its writing. Bester's title was Demolition!, but Gold talked him out of it.
novel set in a future where telepathy
is common, although much of its effectiveness is derived from one individual having greater telepathic skill than another. Written 30 years before the 1980s cyberpunk
boom, the novel anticipates that sub-genre with its mix of plot elements such as powerful corporations, high-tech weaponry and the interplay between varying classes of society.
In the 24th Century, telepaths—"Espers" (short for Extrasensory perception), colloquially known as "peepers"—are completely integrated into all levels of society. Espers are classed according to their abilities: Class 3 Espers, the most common, can detect only conscious thoughts at the time they are formed and are often employed as secretaries or administrators; Class 2 Espers can dig more deeply, to the pre-conscious level, detecting subliminal patterns, epiphanies and tenuous associations, and they are employed in the professional middle class—lawyers, managers, psychologists, etc. Class 1 Espers can detect all of the foregoing plus sub-conscious primitive urges, and they occupy only the highest levels of power in fields such as the police, government, and medicine (such as psychiatry). All Espers can telepathically communicate amongst themselves, and the more powerful Espers can overwhelm their juniors. Telepathic ability is innate and heritable but can remain latent and undetected in untrained persons. Once recognized, however, natural aptitude can be developed through instruction and exercise. There is a guild to improve Espers' telepathic skills, to set and enforce ethical conduct guidelines, and to increase the Esper population through intermarriage. Some telepaths object to the Esper Guild's authoritarian control, however, and remain outside of it.
Ben Reich is the impetuous young owner of Monarch Enterprises, a commercial cartel
that the Reich family has possessed for generations. Monarch Enterprises is in danger of bankruptcy, because of its chief rival, the D'Courtney Cartel, headed by the older Craye D'Courtney. Reich suffers recurring nightmares in which a "Man with No Face" persecutes him.
Reich contacts D'Courtney and proposes a merger of their concerns, but Reich's damaged psychological state causes him to misread D'Courtney's positive response as a refusal. Frustrated and desperate, Reich determines to kill Craye D'Courtney. The presence of peepers has prevented the commission of murder for more than 70 years, so Reich devises an elaborate plan to ensure his freedom. If caught, Reich will certainly face "Demolition", a terrible punishment described only at story's end.
Reich hires an Esper to "run interference" for him—hiding his murderous thoughts from any peepers present at the scene of the planned crime. Reich has many Class 2 and Class 3 Espers working for him, but for this task he must hire a top Class 1 Esper. Reich bribes Dr. Augustus ("Gus") Tate, a prominent peeper psychiatrist, to be his mental bodyguard during the murder. Tate helps Reich, stealing information about D'Courtney's whereabouts by peeping an unknowing colleague.
To further conceal his intentions, Reich visits a songwriter who teaches him a deceptively simple jingle: "Eight 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 begun.'" that proves to be an earworm
, so persistent and involving that it blocks most Espers from properly peeping into Reich's mind. Reich secures a small flash grenade which can disrupt a victim's perception of time by destroying the eyes' rhodopsin
, and an antique (20th-century) handgun, a rare object in a largely non-violent society. Reich is also advised how to replace the bullet in the handgun's ammunition with a gelatin capsule filled with water, in order to eliminate ballistics evidence.
Influencing a socialite
into playing a game of Sardines
at a party, Reich executes his plan during the game, but at the moment he shoots D'Courtney, D'Courtney's young daughter, Barbara, witnesses the murder and runs away. She is later found, suffering severe psychological shock that renders her catatonic and mute.
Police Prefect Lincoln Powell is a Class 1 Esper, a highly talented man expected to become the next president of the Esper Guild. Powell discovers Reich through some cleverly disguised peeping. However, Reich's Esper attorney is present at that encounter, noting that telepathically-gathered evidence is legally inadmissible in court. This obliges Powell to assemble the murder case with traditional police procedures and to establish motive, opportunity, and method.
Both sides center on finding and questioning (or, in Reich's case, silencing) Barbara D'Courtney. Although Reich finds her first, he is unable to kill her before she is rescued by Powell. Powell loses Reich, however, for a while. Powell's pursuit traverses the Solar System
, as Reich escapes the police and a series of mysterious assassination attempts. Others are attacked also: during Powell's attempt to interrogate the Esper pawnbroker from whom Reich bought the gun, an unknown person attacks the pawnshop with a "harmonic gun" which kills by resonant
sonic vibration. Reich tries but fails to murder Hassop, his chief of communications (to try to prevent him from assisting the police with his knowledge of the corporate codes), and Powell succeeds in abducting Hassop.
Powell has already established opportunity, and eventually method through discovery of a tiny fragment of gelatin in the body. However, just as Powell believes that he has wrapped the case up entirely, the interrogation of Hassop yields disturbing results—D'Courtney had accepted the merger proposal. That dashes Powell's case; as he remarks, no court in the Solar System would believe Reich murdered D'Courtney when D'Courtney was needed alive for the merger (which would save Reich and give him all the power and wealth he dreamed of) to succeed.
Reich's tortured mental state is unknown to Reich himself, and so Powell does not suspect that the motive for the murder was something other than financial. Powell recognizes that the forces behind Reich's crime are greater than anticipated. He asks the help of every Esper in attempting to arrest Reich, channeling their collective mental energy through Powell in the dangerous telepathic procedure called the "Mass Cathexis Measure"; Powell narrowly succeeds.
Reich is revealed to be the illegitimate son of Craye D'Courtney—Reich's hatred of him was probably because of his latent, telepathic knowledge of that fact. Reich's knowledge isn't explicitly stated, but Barbara, whom Powell discovers to be Reich's half-sister, is herself revealed to be a peeper. The assassination attempts on Reich were carried out by Reich himself, as a result of his disturbed state. Once arrested and convicted, Reich is sentenced to the dreaded Demolition—the stripping away of his memories and the upper layers of his personality, emptying his mind for re-education. This 24th-century society uses psychological demolition because it recognizes the social value of strong personalities able to successfully defy the law, seeking the salvaging of positive traits while ridding the person of the evil consciousness of the criminal.
characterized The Demolished Man as "a magnificent novel. . . as fascinating a study of character as I have ever read." Boucher
and McComas
praised the novel as "a taut, surrealistic melodrama [and] a masterful compounding of science and detective fiction," singling out Bester's depiction of a "ruthless and money-mad [society] that is dominated and being subtly reshaped by telepaths" as particularly accomplished. Imagination
reviewer Mark Reinsberg received the novel favorably, citing its "brilliant depictions of future civilization and 24th century social life." In his "Books" column for F&SF, Damon Knight
selected Bester's novel as one of the 10 best sf books of the 1950's.
The Demolished Man won the 1953 Hugo Award for Best Novel
and placed second for the year's International Fantasy Award
for fiction.
Minor characters include:
Note on typography:
Bester decided to play with typographic symbols when constructing various characters' names. This gave Wyg& for Wygand; @kins for Atkins; and ¼maine for Quartermaine. He initially used $$son for Jackson, using the slang term "jack" for "money" (represented by the dollar signs). He decided that the pun would be too obscure, though, and changed it to normal text.
has said that Demolished is shaped by Freudian psychology, comparing it to The Last Battle
' s relation to Christianity
, and emphasizing that the resolution of the plot only makes sense in a Freudian context: Reich's hatred of D'Courtney is motivated by oedipal feelings
.
Alfred Bester
Alfred Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books...
, is a science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novel that was the first Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
winner in 1953. The story was first serialized in three parts, beginning with the January 1952 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction
Galaxy Science Fiction was an American digest-size science fiction magazine, published from 1950 to 1980. It was founded by an Italian company, World Editions, which was looking to break in to the American market. World Editions hired as editor H. L...
, followed by publication of the novel in 1953. The novel is dedicated to Galaxys editor, H. L. Gold
H. L. Gold
Horace Leonard Gold was a science fiction writer and editor. Born in Canada, Gold moved to the United States at the age of two...
, who made suggestions during its writing. Bester's title was Demolition!, but Gold talked him out of it.
Characters and story
The Demolished Man is an American science fiction police proceduralPolice procedural
The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several...
novel set in a future where telepathy
Telepathy
Telepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
is common, although much of its effectiveness is derived from one individual having greater telepathic skill than another. Written 30 years before the 1980s cyberpunk
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk is a postmodern and science fiction genre noted for its focus on "high tech and low life." The name is a portmanteau of cybernetics and punk, and was originally coined by Bruce Bethke as the title of his short story "Cyberpunk," published in 1983...
boom, the novel anticipates that sub-genre with its mix of plot elements such as powerful corporations, high-tech weaponry and the interplay between varying classes of society.
Ben Reich is the impetuous young owner of Monarch Enterprises, a commercial cartel
Cartel
A cartel is a formal agreement among competing firms. It is a formal organization of producers and manufacturers that agree to fix prices, marketing, and production. Cartels usually occur in an oligopolistic industry, where there is a small number of sellers and usually involve homogeneous products...
that the Reich family has possessed for generations. Monarch Enterprises is in danger of bankruptcy, because of its chief rival, the D'Courtney Cartel, headed by the older Craye D'Courtney. Reich suffers recurring nightmares in which a "Man with No Face" persecutes him.
Reich contacts D'Courtney and proposes a merger of their concerns, but Reich's damaged psychological state causes him to misread D'Courtney's positive response as a refusal. Frustrated and desperate, Reich determines to kill Craye D'Courtney. The presence of peepers has prevented the commission of murder for more than 70 years, so Reich devises an elaborate plan to ensure his freedom. If caught, Reich will certainly face "Demolition", a terrible punishment described only at story's end.
Reich hires an Esper to "run interference" for him—hiding his murderous thoughts from any peepers present at the scene of the planned crime. Reich has many Class 2 and Class 3 Espers working for him, but for this task he must hire a top Class 1 Esper. Reich bribes Dr. Augustus ("Gus") Tate, a prominent peeper psychiatrist, to be his mental bodyguard during the murder. Tate helps Reich, stealing information about D'Courtney's whereabouts by peeping an unknowing colleague.
To further conceal his intentions, Reich visits a songwriter who teaches him a deceptively simple jingle: "Eight sir, seven sir, six sir, five sir, four sir, three sir, two sir, one. 'Tenser,' said the Tensor
Tensor
Tensors are geometric objects that describe linear relations between vectors, scalars, and other tensors. Elementary examples include the dot product, the cross product, and linear maps. Vectors and scalars themselves are also tensors. A tensor can be represented as a multi-dimensional array of...
, 'Tenser,' said the Tensor. 'Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun.'" that proves to be an earworm
Earworm
Earworm, a loan translation of the German Ohrwurm, is a portion of a song or other music that repeats compulsively within one's mind, put colloquially as "music being stuck in one's head."...
, so persistent and involving that it blocks most Espers from properly peeping into Reich's mind. Reich secures a small flash grenade which can disrupt a victim's perception of time by destroying the eyes' rhodopsin
Rhodopsin
Rhodopsin, also known as visual purple, is a biological pigment of the retina that is responsible for both the formation of the photoreceptor cells and the first events in the perception of light. Rhodopsins belong to the G-protein coupled receptor family and are extremely sensitive to light,...
, and an antique (20th-century) handgun, a rare object in a largely non-violent society. Reich is also advised how to replace the bullet in the handgun's ammunition with a gelatin capsule filled with water, in order to eliminate ballistics evidence.
Influencing a socialite
Socialite
A socialite is a person who participates in social activities and spends a significant amount of time entertaining and being entertained at fashionable upper-class events....
into playing a game of Sardines
Hide and seek
Hide-and-seek or hide-and-go-seek is a variant of the game tag, in which a number of players conceal themselves in the environment, to be found by one or more seekers.-Variants:Numerous variants of the game can be found around the world...
at a party, Reich executes his plan during the game, but at the moment he shoots D'Courtney, D'Courtney's young daughter, Barbara, witnesses the murder and runs away. She is later found, suffering severe psychological shock that renders her catatonic and mute.
Police Prefect Lincoln Powell is a Class 1 Esper, a highly talented man expected to become the next president of the Esper Guild. Powell discovers Reich through some cleverly disguised peeping. However, Reich's Esper attorney is present at that encounter, noting that telepathically-gathered evidence is legally inadmissible in court. This obliges Powell to assemble the murder case with traditional police procedures and to establish motive, opportunity, and method.
Both sides center on finding and questioning (or, in Reich's case, silencing) Barbara D'Courtney. Although Reich finds her first, he is unable to kill her before she is rescued by Powell. Powell loses Reich, however, for a while. Powell's pursuit traverses the Solar System
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
, as Reich escapes the police and a series of mysterious assassination attempts. Others are attacked also: during Powell's attempt to interrogate the Esper pawnbroker from whom Reich bought the gun, an unknown person attacks the pawnshop with a "harmonic gun" which kills by resonant
Resonance
In physics, resonance is the tendency of a system to oscillate at a greater amplitude at some frequencies than at others. These are known as the system's resonant frequencies...
sonic vibration. Reich tries but fails to murder Hassop, his chief of communications (to try to prevent him from assisting the police with his knowledge of the corporate codes), and Powell succeeds in abducting Hassop.
Powell has already established opportunity, and eventually method through discovery of a tiny fragment of gelatin in the body. However, just as Powell believes that he has wrapped the case up entirely, the interrogation of Hassop yields disturbing results—D'Courtney had accepted the merger proposal. That dashes Powell's case; as he remarks, no court in the Solar System would believe Reich murdered D'Courtney when D'Courtney was needed alive for the merger (which would save Reich and give him all the power and wealth he dreamed of) to succeed.
Reich's tortured mental state is unknown to Reich himself, and so Powell does not suspect that the motive for the murder was something other than financial. Powell recognizes that the forces behind Reich's crime are greater than anticipated. He asks the help of every Esper in attempting to arrest Reich, channeling their collective mental energy through Powell in the dangerous telepathic procedure called the "Mass Cathexis Measure"; Powell narrowly succeeds.
Reich is revealed to be the illegitimate son of Craye D'Courtney—Reich's hatred of him was probably because of his latent, telepathic knowledge of that fact. Reich's knowledge isn't explicitly stated, but Barbara, whom Powell discovers to be Reich's half-sister, is herself revealed to be a peeper. The assassination attempts on Reich were carried out by Reich himself, as a result of his disturbed state. Once arrested and convicted, Reich is sentenced to the dreaded Demolition—the stripping away of his memories and the upper layers of his personality, emptying his mind for re-education. This 24th-century society uses psychological demolition because it recognizes the social value of strong personalities able to successfully defy the law, seeking the salvaging of positive traits while ridding the person of the evil consciousness of the criminal.
Reception
Reviewer Groff ConklinGroff Conklin
Edward Groff Conklin was a leading science fiction anthologist. He edited 40 anthologies of science fiction, one of mystery stories , wrote books on home improvement and was a freelance writer on scientific subjects as well as a published poet...
characterized The Demolished Man as "a magnificent novel. . . as fascinating a study of character as I have ever read." Boucher
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...
and McComas
J. Francis McComas
Jesse Francis McComas was an American science fiction editor. McComas wrote several stories on his own in the 1950s using both his own name and the pseudonym Webb Marlowe....
praised the novel as "a taut, surrealistic melodrama [and] a masterful compounding of science and detective fiction," singling out Bester's depiction of a "ruthless and money-mad [society] that is dominated and being subtly reshaped by telepaths" as particularly accomplished. Imagination
Imagination (magazine)
Imagination was an American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in October 1950 by Raymond Palmer's Clark Publishing Company. The magazine was sold almost immediately to Greenleaf Publishing Company, owned by William Hamling, who published and edited it from the third issue,...
reviewer Mark Reinsberg received the novel favorably, citing its "brilliant depictions of future civilization and 24th century social life." In his "Books" column for F&SF, Damon Knight
Damon Knight
Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...
selected Bester's novel as one of the 10 best sf books of the 1950's.
The Demolished Man won the 1953 Hugo Award for Best Novel
Hugo Award for Best Novel
The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
and placed second for the year's International Fantasy Award
International Fantasy Award
The International Fantasy Award was an annual literary award for the best science fiction or fantasy book and, in 1951-1953, the best non-fiction book of interest to science fiction and fantasy readers. The IFA was given by an international panel of prominent fans and professionals in 1951-1955 and...
for fiction.
Characters
Major characters include:- Ben Reich, who lacks moral integrity and is willing to take considerable risks in order to see his wishes carried out. However, he is a very charming man to many around him, especially at the story's beginning when his desperation is still checked. His personal mantraMantraA mantra is a sound, syllable, word, or group of words that is considered capable of "creating transformation"...
is: "Make your enemies by choice, not by accident".
- Lincoln Powell, said to have a dual personality; behind the correct role of model Esper and perfect cop hides Dishonest Abe, a parody of Abraham LincolnAbraham LincolnAbraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
. Often, Dishonest Abe takes the lead in conversation, with Powell finding himself lying in earnest to anybody, just for the sake of amusing himself.
Minor characters include:
- Keno Quizzard, the blind albino (a motif also in The Stars My DestinationThe Stars My DestinationThe Stars My Destination is a science fiction novel by Alfred Bester. Originally serialized in Galaxy magazine in four parts beginning with the October 1956 issue, it first appeared in book form in the United Kingdom as Tiger! Tiger! – after William Blake's poem "The Tyger", the first verse...
), leader of an underworld organization employing "gimpsters" (gangsters), hired by Reich to help find Barbara D'Courtney.
- Chooka Frood is a corrupt brothel keeper. She keeps a bodyguard (a possible friend-companion-lover) named Magda who has red eyes, laughs continually, dresses in leather and studs, and is apt to attack at the slightest provocation.
- Duffy Wyg& (read "Wygand"), the composer of the "'Tenser,' said the Tensor" jingle, is portrayed as the essential "modern career girl - the virgin seductress" who seems to crave either humiliation or conquest by men.
Note on typography:
Bester decided to play with typographic symbols when constructing various characters' names. This gave Wyg& for Wygand; @kins for Atkins; and ¼maine for Quartermaine. He initially used $$son for Jackson, using the slang term "jack" for "money" (represented by the dollar signs). He decided that the pun would be too obscure, though, and changed it to normal text.
Major themes
Jo WaltonJo Walton
Jo Walton is a Welsh-Canadian fantasy and science fiction writer and poet. She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2002 and the World Fantasy award for her novel Tooth and Claw in 2004. Her novel Ha'penny was a co-winner of the 2008 Prometheus Award...
has said that Demolished is shaped by Freudian psychology, comparing it to The Last Battle
The Last Battle
The Last Battle is the seventh and final novel in The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. It won the prestigious Carnegie Medal in Literature in 1956.-Plot summary:In The Last Battle, Lewis brings The Chronicles of Narnia to an end...
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, and emphasizing that the resolution of the plot only makes sense in a Freudian context: Reich's hatred of D'Courtney is motivated by oedipal feelings
Oedipus complex
In psychoanalytic theory, the term Oedipus complex denotes the emotions and ideas that the mind keeps in the unconscious, via dynamic repression, that concentrate upon a boy’s desire to sexually possess his mother, and kill his father...
.