The year is 2301. Telepaths are common, including within the police department. Consequently, there hasn’t been a murder perpetrated in over 70 years.
Ben Reich aims to change that fact.
Ben is the head of Monarch, a huge commercial cartel locked in a death struggle with another cartel and losing. Ben becomes obsessed with killing the owner of the competing cartel for reasons he doesn’t even fully understand. This obsession brings him into conflict with Lincoln Powell, the police prefect and a 1st class telepath.
The two engage is a deadly game of cat and mouse in which the stakes are Demolition; the complete tear down and death of a person’s personality.
The Demolished Man is a legitimate classic of the sci-fi genre, and won the very first Hugo Award in 1953. Its author, Alfred Bester, would only publish six novels in his lifetime, but two of the first three are among the best science fiction novels ever written, that being The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination.
The Demolished Man is written in a pulpy style more common at the time, but still holds up well today. Ben Reich and Lincoln Powell are both interesting characters in their own right, and the world that surrounds them is full of imagination and interesting anachronisms when considered from a modern point of view.
The Demolished Man is fast-paced and full of interesting twists. It is highly recommended to fans of sci-fi or the old pulp style of writing, or anyone willing to wade into it with an open mind and a curiosity for all the interesting little details of its setting.
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