![]() ![]() Powell’s ace in the hole? That part about being a 1st Class Esper, or telepath. ![]() Reich plans the perfect crime-the only kind you dare contemplate in the world of The Demolished Man-to kill his rival in commerce, and Powell is the only man who can bring him to justice. There are many minor characters, but the plot is entirely driven by the cat-and-mouse game between Powell and Reich. Squared off are Lincoln Powell, Prefect of the Police Psychotic Division and 1st Class Esper, and Ben Reich, the scion of the Monarch Utilities and Resources commercial empire and a man who would be equally at home as the hero or the villain in an Ayn Rand novel. It’s a damned fun story of two men engaged in combat, each trying to destroy the other. But unlike many writers who set their sights high, Bester never stumbles at the lower orders of storytelling. It’s tense and taut throughout, if it never quite matches its own ambitions. The Demolished Man reads like equal parts hardboiled noir and cyberpunk. Īlfred Bester may have had a touch of psionic ability himself. Tension, apprehension, and dissension have begun. ![]()
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