The novel “The Stars My Destination”, also known as “Tiger! Tiger!” by Alfred Bester was published for the first time in 1956, serialized in the magazine “Galaxy” and as a book.

In the 25th century, for humans jaunting has become the normal way to travel. It’s a form of teleportation named after the scientist Charles Fort Jaunte who had discovered it. The jaunte changed society a lot making personal transport unnecessary but the economic consequences have broken the delicate balance existing leading to a war between the Inner Planets and the Outer Satellites.

Gulliver “Gully” Foyle is a mechanic with no ambitions who is the sole survivor of the crew of the spaceship Nomad after it was attacked and nearly destroyed. Remained adrift for months, he can barely survive when the starship Vorga passes in the area. Foyle signals his presence but is ignored and abandoned to his fate. The fury of that event turns an insignificant man in one possessed by the lust for vengeance and capable of any action to obtain it.

Alfred Bester drew inspiration from various sources while writing “The Stars My Destination”. The title is part of a quatrain which appears at the beginning of the novel in a certain form and towards the end in a form a little different. Those quatrains are built in a format that was popular in England and the USA from the 18th to the mid-20th century.

The other title “Tiger! Tiger!” is a tribute to the poem “The Tyger” by William Blake and a tiger face is what is tattooed on Gully Foyle’s face. The idea of a starship adrift derived from a similar event that took place during World War II Bester read about in a newspaper article. The novel, however, is mainly inspired by “The Count of Monte Cristo”, of which it mimics some elements of the plot but also the themes of justice, vengeance and forgiveness.

“The Stars My Destination” is in many ways a precursor of cyberpunk since it shows a fictional universe in many ways dystopian dominated by powerful corporations in which for humans it’s possible to augment their bodies with cybernetic implants. To future technologies, Alfred Bester adds various mental powers: telepathy, telekinesis, but in particular the form of teleportation called jaunting.

The society described in “The Stars My Destination” is strongly influenced by jaunting, for the consequences on the economy but also on security. To be able to jaunte you need to know the exact start and arrival location so places such as prison cells or other safe locations are built in mazes to prevent those who enter to establish their exact position. For women of the upper classes there’s a loss of freedom because they’re almost locked up in anti-jaunte rooms with the excuse of protecting them.

In this society, during the war between the Inner Planets and the Outer Satellites, starts the adventure of Gully Foyle, a mediocre man who happened to survive the attack on the starship he serves on. For months he scrapes by in the wreckage for pure survival instinct but when the starship Vorga passes in the area and ignores his distress calls it’s like if a switch flips in his mind, transforming him radically.

Suddenly, Gully Foyle starts being consumed by the lust for revenge against the crew of the Vorga but to succeed he must be able to perform feats far superior to anything he’s ever done in his life. After a life of mediocrity, he has the motivations that lead him to fulfill his potential but he uses what he learns in an absolutely destructive way.

Foyle is an anti-hero because no act of violence is too much in his obsessive quest for revenge. Throughout the story the reader sometimes sympathize with him for his condition but in most cases his ruthless actions, sometimes even gratuitous, cause repulsion. In all cases, he’s a character that can’t leave us indifferent.

The plot of “The Stars My Destination” is linear and yet it’s far more complex than the standard of the ’50s for the many elements such as the relationships between the various characters. Gully Foyle is the protagonist of the novel, and for this reason also the most developed character, but other characters revolve around him with and inevitably their relationships with him are complex.

Gully Foyle is on the hunt for those who had abandoned him in the wreck of the spaceship Nomad but Presteign, head of a very powerful corporation that also owns the spaceship Nomad, is hunting him to get his hands on something very precious which was trasnported by the Nomad. In some moments it looks like a competition to see who among the characters is the most ruthless.

The pace of the story is high, sometimes hectic, always intense and this is appropriate considering the Gully Foyle’s fierce determination. “The Stars My Destination” is definitely an action novel but in the course of the story it becomes a story of people. What they do is determined by precise motivations and have consequences that affect the characters. From this point of view, Alfred Bester gives us a depth well above the standard of the ’50s.

“The Stars My Destination” was acclaimed since its publication as an extraordinary novel and over time it’s become a classic and a source of inspiration for other writers, for example in the aforementioned cyberpunk subgenre. It’s simply a masterpiece, therefore a must-have for anyone interested in science fiction.