The Demolished Man

The Demolished Man
Cover of first edition (hardcover)
Author	Alfred Bester
Cover artist	Mark Reinsberg
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Science fiction novel
Publisher	Shasta Publishers (first edition)
Publication date	1953
Media type	Print (Hardback)
Pages	250 pp
ISBN	NA
OCLC Number	3638143

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 Galaxy's editor, H. L. Gold, 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 procedural 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.

Cover of 1953 Panther paperback edition.

In the 24th Century, telepaths—"Espers", 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 form the professional middle class—lawyers, managers. Class 1 Espers can detect all of the foregoing plus sub-conscious primitive urges, and they occupy only the highest levels of power in the police and government. 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.^[1] 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. 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: "'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 speechless.

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; Powell rescues her but loses Reich. Powell's pursuit traverses the Solar System, as Reich escapes the police and a series of mysterious assassination attempts with a harmonic gun which kills by sonic vibration. Reich fails to murder his chief of communications, and Powell succeeds in abducting him.

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 Reich's communications chief yields 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 him, 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 "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, 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 in ridding the person of the evil consciousness of the criminal.

Character analysis

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Bester sought to create equal rivals in his depictions of Reich and Powell. Although the figures are not properly balanced, they share qualities that set them apart from their peers. Reich 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 mantra is: "Make your enemies by choice, not by accident".

Powell is said to have a dual personality; behind the correct role of model Esper and perfect cop hides Dishonest Abe, a parody of Abraham Lincoln. Usually, Dishonest Abe takes the lead in conversation; with Powell finding himself lying in earnest to anybody, for the sake of just amusing himself. This characterization serves to represent two things: As perhaps the best mind on the planet, Powell finds himself constantly alone and must invent games to keep himself amused. Second, this character trait shows that both Reich and Powell are exceptional, and that people such as they always must violate society's rules in order to improve it.

Minor characters include:

• Keno Quizzard, the blind albino (a motif also in The Stars My Destination), 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 woman, the virgin seductress"^{[citation needed]} who seems to crave either humiliation or conquest by men, although such a woman is a staple genre character in film noir and hard-boiled detective fiction, her character and presence in 1951 science fiction, are, again, remarkable.

Major themes

Stylistic methods

Foremost among the interesting stylistic methods that Bester uses are the graphologic deviations representing communication among the Esper characters. The range of graphologic layouts represent the human psyche's chaotic nature, and how Espers have learned to structure their thoughts for smooth telepathic communication. The Espers use different patterns in structuring their thoughts, (and also for their own entertainment). For example, when a telepath party begins, Espers' thoughts are represented chaotically, in unbound form:

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                                       I
brought         Working                                Expect
  Galen           For                                     him
    along          Monarch                                   in
       to           Much   Canapes?                           town
help him celebrate     Longer.                                 shortly.
                He's      The 
          just taken his Guild
                         is   exam
                      just       and
                     about         been
                     to              classed

Once the party is properly structured, however, we see the group force themselves to play their thoughts into a cohesive pattern:

Sorry, Lincoln.    We weren't party-minded   Enough
Tate               thought                   Esper
but                Alan                      Men
I'm                Seaver                    remaining
Not that a Pres    was ever elected still    unmarried

This pattern is the "simple basket weave," but others exist. Mathematical curves, music and architectural design also are mentioned in the same passage. The Espers also use this technique in playing simple logic games and in creating pattern puzzles. An example of this is the Einstein rebus word picture of an eyeball floating in a stein; (an eye in a stein -> eye in stein -> Einstein).

Allusions and references to actual history, geography and current science

This section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (September 2009)

The action occurs in New York City, years after a major war left some remarkable geographic features. One is the "Bomb Inlet", but the most bizarre is the place called "99 Bastion West Side", a mega-brothel built where a nuclear explosion melted thousands of tons of glass and ceramics in an underground chamber. The result is a multi-colored, singing, solid lake which owner, Chooka Frood, uses as part of a mystic fortune-telling act. It is there that Barbara d'Courtney eventually is found, in a zombie-like mental state, participating in the fortune-telling act. The building above is a three-dimensional maze of odd-sized chambers variously used for pursuing vice and for evading pursuing police.

This combination of low-life characters in wrecked, run-down places is a reason The Demolished Man is regarded as prototypical of the literary style now known as "cyberpunk".

Much high technology in evidence, though it is used to propel the plot in comic-book fashion, regardless of the long-term narrative consequences; thus the fast space-ships, artificial gravity, Neuron Scrambler guns, aerial cars known as Jumpers, force-shields and "temporal phase" technology used to hide a safe. The weapon used for the murder, however, is from that most ancient establishment, the pawnshop, run by an ostracized telepath who made the mistake of breaking Guild rules for money offered by Reich.

In a prescient joke for the 1950s, it is revealed that annoyingly catchy jingles are nicknamed "Pepsis", though no one can remember why.

References

• Chalker, Jack L.; Mark Owings (1998). The Science-Fantasy Publishers: A Bibliographic History, 1923-1998. Westminster, MD and Baltimore: Mirage Press, Ltd.. pp. 593–594. 
• Tuck, Donald H. (1974). The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Chicago: Advent. p. 43. ISBN 0-911682-20-1. 

External links

• The Demolished Man publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database