Star Light, Star Bright: The Great Short Fiction of Alfred Bester Volume II

by Alfred Bester

Contents:

• Adam and No Eve
• Time Is the Traitor
• Oddy and Id
• Hobson's Choice
• Star Light, Star Bright
• They Don't Make Life Like They Used To
• Of Time and Third Avenue
• Isaac Asimov
• The Pi Man
• Something Up There Likes Me
• My Affair with Science Fiction

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Fantasy, Collections

248 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 1976

About the author

Alfred Bester was an American science fiction author, TV and radio scriptwriter, magazine editor and scripter for comic strips and comic books.

Though successful in all these fields, he is best remembered for his science fiction, including The Demolished Man, winner of the inaugural Hugo Award in 1953, a story about murder in a future society where the police are telepathic, and The Stars My Destination, a 1956 SF classic about a man bent on revenge in a world where people can teleport, that inspired numerous authors in the genre and is considered an early precursor to the cyberpunk movement in the 1980s.

AKA:
Άλφρεντ Μπέστερ (Greek)

Reviews

[Megan Baxter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a solid, if not spectacular, collection of short stories. The problem is, based on the two Bester novels I've read, I expect spectacular. I expect him to bend language to his will and plunge headlong into experimentation and emerge with gems. In this collection, only one story explores those aspects of his writing that I've most enjoyed in the past. For the rest, they were entertaining, but I don't really expect them to stay with me in the same way The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man have.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.

In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook

[Peter Tillman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reread (partial) early 2021. Complete TOC & story notes/sources: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?3...
NB: There is also an omnibus edition: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?2...
If you are new to Bester, or want to binge-reread -- that's the one you want!
Our library has the 1976 hc first ed, which is what I have in front of me.

This one has my favorite, his "Last Woman on Earth" story, "They Don't Make Life Like They Used to" (1963), novelette. I'm pretty sure there's an online copy [looks].
https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_S...
5 stars! Don't miss!

Plus, I enjoyed his autobiographical essay, and his interview of Isaac Asimov from Publisher's Weekly, 1973.

Most of the stories, I remembered too well to really need to reread them. But they're all first-rate, and if you happen to be new to Bester... Well. You have treats awaiting you. He didn't write much SF, but it's all good to great stuff. Enjoy!

[Temucano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Me encanta como escribe este tipo, sin freno ni concierto, tomando riesgos cuando nadie lo hacía. Es cierto que ahora escritores así abundan, pero la gracia es que Bester fue el primero, el escritor distinto que imprimió un sello indeleble en la edad de oro de la ciencia ficción.

Este volumen, y su excelente primera parte, contienen cuentos que son verdaderas joyas, quizás un poco mejores en el volumen anterior, pero éste igual entretiene. Mis favoritos: "Elección forzosa" (también conocido como "La opción de Hobson"), una nueva forma de viajar y otra vuelta de tuerca a las vicisitudes de los viajes temporales. "Mi amigo de arriba" muy buen relato, cuando nuestro trabajo se escapa de las manos; "Adán sin Eva", sobre un lapidario futuro para nuestro planeta; y "Oh, luminosa y brillante estrella", y un final que sorprende para el cuento que da el título al libro.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls]

Contains the stories:

Adam And No Eve -
Time Is the Traitor -
Oddy and Id -
Hobson's Choice -
Star Light, Star Bright -
They Don't Make Life Like They Used To -
Of Time and Third Avenue -
Isaac Asimov -
The Pi Man -
Something Up There Likes Me -
My Affair with Science Fiction -

[Maya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Alfred Bester’s writing was ahead of his time and for that I appreciate it. I wrote an entire essay on Adam and No Eve following themes of climate change. Nature is often referred to as a nurturing body which will continue without humans. He often references cycles which can be seen in the constellations and the tide. Overall I did not like this short story but I appreciate it as a powerful work of literature. I would not recommend this to anyone unless they are writing an analytical essay and want to talk about climate change.

Read for school Eng 1120

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of the two collections Bester published in this year, this is by far the better. Some of the stories have aged badly ("Adam and No Eve", in which a Last Man discovers he needs no Last Woman in order to seed the reemergence of life billennia hence, "Oddy and Id", which assumes Freud was right), but others are humdingers even unto this day. In "Time is the Traitor" we have a love story involving an interstellar serial killer. "Hobson's Choice" might well have been one of the definitive time-travel stories had it not been for Bester's seeming trivialization of the sheer horror of the Hiroshima bombing. "Star Light, Star Bright", the title story, is a deliciously Collieresque fantasy tale -- or Bixbyesque nightmare. "They Don't Make Life Like They Used To" is probably the best future-Adam-and-Eve tale ever written. And "The Pi Man" is, without doubt, among the best sf short stories ever written (if you liked Bester's amazing novel TheDemolished Man, you'll swoon over this).

Of the 11 items in this collection, two are nonfiction pieces that I declined to read again: an interview with Isaac Asimov and an essay called "My Affair with Science Fiction". That left nine stories, of which none was poor and almost all were as fine as you'll ever find between two covers. This is what skiffy collections were meant to be.

[Andres Borbon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro genial. Es ciencia ficción de la llamada "edad de oro" y, por lo tanto, parecerá un poco ingenua. Bester fue uno de los grandes, junto con Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, Sturgeon y Kuttner, pero abandonó la ciencia ficción por muchos años y exploró el mundo de los cómics, la televisión y el periodismo. Tal vez por eso resulta menos conocido, ademas de que muchas de sus novelas son extravagantes, algo caóticas. Como sea, éste volumen es realmente bueno, con historias realmente notables y, lo mejor de todo, son sus comentarios personales, la introducción que hace de cada relato. En estos breves prólogos, nos da una probada de cómo fue vivir en la época que dio origen a la ciencia ficción moderna.

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second of two British editions of Bester's 1950s short SF, each story with a witty intro by the author. One story and two nonfiction pieces were new to me; one of the latter is a stylish 25-page biographical sketch about his writing career.

[Timothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

9 stories:

Adam and No Eve (1941)
Time Is the Traitor (1953)
Oddy and Id (1950)
Hobson's Choice (1952)
Star Light, Star Bright (1953)
They Don't Make Life Like They Used to (1963)
Of Time and Third Avenue (1951)
The Pi Man (1959)
Something Up There Likes Me (1973)

[Xabi1990 · Rating 3 out of 5]

5/10. Aprobadillo raspado y gracias en mis inicios con la CF.

[Gr1972 · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 out of 5

[Nick Tramdack · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think prefer Bester's long form work over his short stories. The tales in this book are all entertaining and often very funny, but the scales kind of fell from my eyes a little when I realized that Bester is constantly treating the same plots over and over again.

-last man and woman on earth / first man and woman on earth

-unfairly persecuted hero strikes back against everyone

-guy with uncontrollable secret power based on Freudian principles

At his best, Bester displays a wry awareness of this repetition and even puts some ironic distance between himself and his SF wish-fulfillment scenarios. Here's a good one, from "Hobson's Choice", a nice corrective for anyone who imagines traveling to the past and using his knowledge of technology to become a powerhouse:

"...What superior knowledge? Your hazy recollection of science and invention? Don't be a damned fool, Addyer. You enjoy your technology without the faintest idea of how it works."

Recommended for Bester fans, but read the novels first!

[TrumanCoyote · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best stories here I think are "Hobson's Choice" and the eponymous one. Also "The Pi Man" achieved a certain transcendent wackiness. A couple others were alright...but "They Don't Make Life" was unspeakably bad (have no idea why he included that one in here). Maybe the most interesting material of all was the reminiscence at the end, especially his weird weird meeting with J W Campbell.

[Tom Loock · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this one a long time ago (pre-1980)

[Robert Walrod · Rating 2 out of 5]

Highlights: "Adam and No Eve," "Something Up There Likes Me."

[DaughterDaDa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great short stories.