Talk:The Stars My Destination

Original Title
Where does the idea that "Tiger! Tiger!" was the original title come from? Right next to this text is the front cover of Galaxy magazine (where the novel was first published) indicating the title as "The Stars My Destination". Johnny &quot;ThunderPeel2001&quot; Walker (talk) 20:34, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Its first publishing in book form was in the UK under the title '''Tiger! Tiger! and in serialised form in Galaxy Science Fiction as The Stars My Destination''', both in 1956. While the magazine was published in October, it is not clear from The Internet Speculative Fiction Database (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1117) what the exact date of the book form was. PeterDebney —Preceding unsigned comment added by PeterDebney (talk • contribs) 12:43, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

It sounds like the notion that 'Tiger! Tiger!' was the 'original title' is original research at best (more likely plain speculation). Further, the parameters for infoboxes at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_book say 'title_orig Original title, if not in English'. So it's not really appropriate here. The subject of the title is addressed fully in the text. I've therefore removed the 'Original Title' from the infobox (there isn't provision for an 'alternative title' entry).182.240.9.215 (talk) 06:18, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

FWIW: As noted by PeterDebney, US serialization using the name "The Stars My Destination" was October 1956, and the exact date in 1956 of British publication as "Tiger! Tiger!" may not be known. But what *is* known is Bester was living in England in 1956, and that the British 1st edition was reviewed in the August 1956 issue of "New Worlds Science Fiction" (issue #50,  http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?1257717 ) -- which would lend some strength to the argument that "Tiger! Tiger!" should be considered (in the intro para even if not in the infobox) the Original title. (Although obviously it would be nice if someone could track down a copy of "New Worlds Science Fiction #50" and check it for any particulars about the street date of the book) -- hossman (talk) 04:53, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

I've located a copy of Astounding November 1957 (Vol 60, No 3: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?57630) which contains a review of (the 1957 paper back "US first" edition of) "The Stars My Destination" which begins with this opening paragraph... "Why this second science-fiction novel by the author of the memorable 'Demolished Man' isn't being published in hard covers here in the United States, I have no idea. The English edition was out as 'Tiger, Tiger'' last year, even before the serial started in Galaxy." (emphasis mine) That seems to lead strong support to editing the intro para of this wiki page to begin with something like... "The Stars My Destination is a science fiction novel by Alfred Bester. Originally published in England under the name 'Tiger, Tiger' it was subsequently serialized in Galaxy magazine in four parts beginning with the October 1956 issue under the name 'The Stars My Destination', which is how it is still widely known in many parts of the world. ..." -- hossman (talk) 05:07, 21 July 2016 (UTC)

ISFDB (http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?235529) now shows the UK publication date of Tiger! Tiger! to be June 14th 1956, sourced from the trade publication Whitaker's Cumulative Book List, 1956 and 1953-57 editions. This clearly pre-dates the serialization in Galaxy, and I have edited the intro paragraph along the lines suggested by Hossman above.

Ftld (talk) 15:26, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

24th vs 25th century
There seems to be some dispute as to when the story is set, with a recent (anon) editor changing 25th century to 24th century using the comment "correction. book clearly states 24th"

I've checked both the October 1956 printing of Galaxy, as well as a 1996 Random House edition and in both cases the last line of the Prologue states...

"It is against this seething background of the twenty-fifth century that the vengeful history of Gully Foyle begins."

...perhaps the anon editor was confused by 24xx years mentioned in the book? or some "historic" references to the prior century?

Either way a revert seems in order.

hossman (talk) 17:12, 3 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I am that anon. I have the June 1956 Sidgwick & Jackson edition, reprinted by Panther in October 1962. The last sentence of the prologue reads:


 * "It is against this seething background of the twenty-fourth century that the vengeful history of Gulliver Foyle begins."


 * So no, I'm not confused, but there are evidently at least two versions of the book. Perhaps the article needs to be adjusted to reflect this.92.24.248.144 (talk) 07:53, 6 May 2017 (UTC)


 * The recent edit seems like one reasonable way to acknowledge this apparent discrepancy between different editions. It sounds like an editor (of a printed edition) may have been confused by the 24xx dates constituting the 25th century.  Of course, Wikipedia has an article on "Century" which discusses this and other distinctions. 8^) At most, an explanatory footnote could be added to the article. Reify-tech (talk) 13:23, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Article edits
I removed the following paragraph because: A. it shows a highly dubious grasp of ethics B. the author has substituted his own culture for "today's society" All this talk of "themes" and "setting" makes the last section look suspiciously like someone's book report...

"The setting in the book is a time that is very different from the world we live in today. Sometime in the near future Earth and its outer systems abolish organized religion. This has a huge effect on mankind. It seems to abolish humans' technique of ethical questioning. With the jaunteing experiments, they take on human suicide testers. 80% die in the testing phase. This is something that would never be allowed to happen in today's society because people will question whether it is ethical or not. This is because many ethical questions are based on one's religion. They also have what's called "the freak factory" which is experiments led by a Doctor Baker who creates mermaids and other mythical creatures with willing human beings. In today's society this would have serious ethical questioning."


 * you should leave your name along with your comment.. :) Sunburst 2005 July 7 14:05 (UTC)


 * hate to burst your bubble, but recent research shows that the sense of morality and one's religious beliefs or non-beliefs have very little in common. faced with a moral dillema, such as for instance: "you see a kid drowning. jumping into the water to save it would require that you destroy your suit, which you just purchased recently. what do you do?", almost all of the interwievees respond in a similar fashion, regardless of whether they are religious or not. personaly, i find it distasteful that some people with religious beliefs try to hog morality. 213.172.246.24 15:48, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * You should read more clearly what you're replying to :)

Added reference to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series under "Trivia". --Wildfire1961 22:55, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Importance
How come importance rating is set to low? Google "stars my destination cyberpunk" for alternative views. --23:29, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Importance seconded
I agree, importance should be higher. Most of the reading public dismiss SF as "genre fiction." And much of it certainly is crap. But much "serious literature" is crap as well. Maybe the fact that the story has been optioned by Hollywood will wake up literary "sheeple" at least to the existence of this book.

Where is the Graphic Novel?
Let's see a mention of it please? - Sparky (talk) 07:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Excised cultural references
I have removed the following section from the article as trivia:

Skomorokh  02:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It may be worth mentioning here that a character in the popular 1970s UK sitcom "George and Mildred" is called Jeffrey Fourmile, which may be inspired by Gully Foyle's "Geoffrey Fourmyle" alias. 2A00:23C8:8F9F:4801:5409:396D:8B5B:EFA (talk) 14:43, 24 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Without a reference, it wouldn't be included. At the moment all you have is a similar sounding name without evidence that it was deliberately chosen in homage. MarcGarver (talk) 08:44, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Synaesthesia
The graphic descrition of Synaesthesia in the novel is actually not at all accurate - it is not a complete cross-over of sensory modalities as described. Rather, modalities combine in a subtle way, e.g. "coloured hearing" where letters have different colours. The condition is not temporary or induced by physical trauma such as the one experienced by Gully Foyle; nor do synaesthetes regard the condition as an affliction - most regard it as positive, many are even unaware that it is not the norm. Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire, Vladimir Nabokov and his son Dmitri are all said to have had the condition. user:chris_london_1955 6 June 2010 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chris London 1955 (talk • contribs) 22:18, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Jaunting
I am new to wikipedia as a contributor anyway, so am feeling my way with your protocols and procedures, so if I make gauche mistakes or tread on anyone's toes please bear with me.

I think it has been established that Bester coined the term "Jaunting" to describe teleportation? after all it was named after an individual called Jaunt. I have for many years made the connection with the British childrens TV series of the 1970's "The Tomorrow People" where the term Jaunting was also used to describe teleporting, as far as I can see no one has mentioned this in either wiki article, is it not reasonable to reference this and if so how should it be cited? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.100.110 (talk) 15:03, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * First of all, thanks for beginning a talk page discussion, rather than simply reinserting the information. Bester did coin the term, yes, so if it was used in another medium, it was probably done in reference to Bester's novel.  What you need is an independent, third-party source that talks about the tv show and makes the connection between their use of the term and Bester's novel, indicating that their use was done knowingly.  See WP:CITE for more information on how to properly cite a source. ---  RepublicanJacobite  The'FortyFive'  15:23, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I must take issue with an assertion put forth in the Background and influences section. The following assertion, "Bester's unique addition to this mix is the concept that human beings could learn to teleport, or "jaunte" from point to point, provided they know the exact locations of their departure and arrival and have physically seen the destination." is untrue. The exact same concept was introduced eleven years before Bester's story was first published, by A. E. van Vogt with his character Gilbert Gosseyn in The World of Null-A, which was originally published as a 1945 serial in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction. It was published in novel form in 1948. So this "concept" was neither unique nor attributable to Bester. This does not take away from Bester's talent, but one must give credit where credit is due, or not, as the case may be. I will edit the cited passage accordingly. Gil gosseyn (talk) 07:42, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Hoy Fort
I've removed this claim from the article, as all online references to it seem to be derivative of this article: "Charles Fort Jaunte, the discoverer of jaunting, is named after Charles Hoy Fort, the American journalist and author who coined the word teleportation." Skomorokh  04:03, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

"One Weird Idea"
I find this a curious sentence: "To this it added the standard "one weird idea" of science fiction..." Does anyone have some kind of citation that a "one weird idea" is somehow standard to science fiction? Because, IMHO, it's totally not, but I don't want to edit without seeing if someone else has an opinion on it. Esprix (talk) 06:38, 13 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Agreed, without a citation, the statement is OR/POV. I've rewritten that statement to avoid the problem, and done some other cleanup/rearrangements as well. Beyond My Ken (talk) 07:08, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

"standard "one weird idea" of science fiction..." - I absolutely agree. A good SF story has exactly one "weird" idea. Would be good to find a reference to a SF writer/editor. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.220.164.198 (talk) 06:41, 25 November 2018 (UTC)

Plot edits
I have made a number of edits, mostly for punctuation or clarity, but also in the Plot section for accuracy. I made a mistake in the process and undid my edits to restore the one by Omeganian at 17:55, 24 July 2011, so that is the one to compare this one (01:12, 15 August 2011) to. Non-exhaustive list:


 * "They grill Foyle about Nomad but he refuses to talk, and to that end Foyle is thrown into the Gouffre Martel, a complex of underground caves in the Pyrenees. These are used as a prison, where the inmates live in total darkness, unable to form a picture of their location in order to jaunte."
 * "to that end" means "for that purpose". I don't remember if Foyle was thrown in to make him talk or just to get him out of circulation. If the former, the sentence should be restructured.
 * I specified the character of Olivia's altered sense of sight.
 * "The Scientific People recognize that he is now a holy man, and take up vigil to await his Revelation."
 * This sentence takes it as a given that Foyle is now a holy man. Changed to "The Scientific People now see him as a holy man, and take up vigil to await his revelation."

Also, in Background and influences, I amplified the requirements for a successful jaunte, which are critical to the description of Gouffre Martel.

--Thnidu (talk) 01:28, 15 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Good grief! I didn't recognize this or remember writing it at all, so my signature came as a surprise to me. --Thnidu (talk) 16:35, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Foyle's tattoo visible in infrared
One point left out: IIRC, Foyle looses [sic] his rigid self-control in Olivia's presence because he thinks that, being blind, she can't see his tattoo. But her infrared vision reveals it to her. I don't remember how this figures in the plot. --Thnidu (talk) 01:29, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

D&D reference doesnt' really sound like a reference
"The Dungeons and Dragons tabletop game has a spell called Ethereal Jaunt. The spell, however, functions differently; instead of teleportation, it makes the user incorporeal and invisible." Is this actually a reference to the book? The word "jaunt" as a kind of voyage or trip dates back to the 1600's (reference http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=jaunt). Rmd1023 (talk) 01:28, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Copyright status
I excised the link to the full text of the book, as it does not appear to be in the public domain. 128.189.169.233 (talk) 07:39, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Dagenham
(Saul) Dagenham is referred to twice before any explanation of who he is. I would clean it up if I could find my copy of the novel to do it right. --Thnidu (talk) 03:16, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Presteign, Presteign
In Plot, I'm changing
 * He blackmails her into helping him, but his attack on the Vorga fails and he is captured by security forces working for Presteign, the aristocratic head of the huge Presteign corporation (owner of the Vorga).

to
 * He blackmails her into helping him, but his attack on the Vorga fails and he is captured by security forces working for Presteign, the aristocratic head of the huge corporation that owns the Vorga.

We don't need to add that the corporation is named after him. After all, he makes a great haughty point that he is not "Mr. Presteign" but "Presteign of Presteign", the head of his influential House, and the article doesn't mention that at all, nor does it need to.

I wouldn't even bother explaining this in such detail, except that in (quite reasonably) deleting an   I had embedded in the text, Beyond My Ken also undid this edit that I had made at the same time.

Thnidu (talk) 03:32, 23 December 2012 (UTC)
 * He is also just "Presteign" not "The Presteign". Should be changed.--TeakHoken213.150.232.3 (talk) 14:56, 16 May 2018 (UTC)


 * Done. --Thnidu (talk) 16:37, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Unknown to him, the Nomad, was carrying "PyrE"
“Unknown to him, the Nomad, was carrying "PyrE"” Unknown to Foyle? Unknown to Presteign? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.28.219.189 (talk) 20:31, 6 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Fixed. --Thnidu (talk) 04:07, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

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Needs more prominent mention in the Wikipedia Cyberpunk article
The Stars My Destination is briefly mentioned in passing in one of the sections of the Wikipedia article on Cyberpunk. The excellent quotes from Gibson, Moorcock, Gaiman etc on the TSMD page clearly show its importance to Cyberpunk. I have opened a new section on the Cyberpunk Talk page pointing this out and suggesting that TSMD be given more prominence. I'm not very good at wiki editing, so if some kind soul from this page feels like heading over to assist with editing the Cyberpunk page, please be my guest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Cyberpunk#Move_.27The_Stars_My_Destination.27_.281956.29_to_History_and_Origins_of_Cyberpunk.2C_and_make_it_more_prominent.3F

RedTomato (talk) 23:27, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

Names
Y'ang-Yeovil: The first part of this surname is pseudo-Chinese. Bester was undoubtedly thinking of names such as Ch'iu, Ts'ao, P'eng, T'ien, and K'ung, as  romanized in the now-obsolescent Wade–Giles system (without tone markings). But Wade–Giles does not use the apostrophe after any consonants but these and tz, so Y'ang is an impossible name.

Presteign is addressed and referred to not as "Mr. Presteign" or "the Presteign" but simply as "Presteign":


 * in direct address
 * "Mr. Presteign," he began. "I'm from the Internal Revenue Department, I must see you this morn–" Presteign cut him short with an icy stare. "There are thousands of Presteigns," he pronounced. "All are addressed as Mister. But I am Presteign of Presteign, head of house and sept, first of the family, chieftain of the clan. I am addressed as Presteign. Not 'Mister' Presteign." (p. 385)


 * in third-person reference:
 * Presteign of Presteign arose, dressed with the aid of his valet and barber…
 * Presteign still maintained an antique telephone switchboard with an operator…
 * Eighty seconds after Presteign's call was put through… (all: p.383, Presteign's first appearance)

--Thnidu (talk) 21:53, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

Names within names, anagrams, and connotations
Why does the reader know that Presteign is at the very tip-top level of society, just from seeing his name? At least, that's how I felt on reading this novel way back in the sixties, but the answer didn't hit me till recently. Drop the "n" and move the "e" two places to the right: Presteig n Presteig Prestige

Similarly, though we're told that Dagenham had planted the name "Fourmyle of Ceres" in Foyle's brain, you need only delete the "urm" and you get... Fo urm yle Fo  yle Foyle

--Thnidu (talk) 03:54, 3 October 2019 (UTC)

Different editions, summary at Ansible
Dave Langford has written of the differences in many of the printed editions at https://ansible.uk/writing/bester.html, which may help resolve some of the other questions raised in this Talk page. It mentions other editorial changes too - "kill you filthy" was bowdlerized as "kill you deadly". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.14.38.24 (talk) 13:54, 26 January 2021 (UTC)