Review: Virtual Unrealities by Alfred Bester

My review for my first TBR read is a bit late since I finished this book about a week ago!

Virtual Realities by Alfred Bester is an excellent collection of his short stories, a couple of which were found after his death. I had previously read two of his novels, The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man, both scifi classics in every sense of the word, so I expected to rediscover that noir-ish feel with which Bester infuses his stories. It’s as much a sign of the world he inhabited when he was writing as much as it is his own unique style.

Some of my favorite stories are “Galatea Galante,” “Star Light, Star Bright,” “Time Is The Traitor,” “Will You Wait?” and “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed.” I confess that I didn’t dislike any of the stories in this volume, but some of them were pretty strange. In “Fondly Fahrenheit” the reader meets a man and his android companion, the latter being accused of several murders across civilized space - but since man and android can’t distinguish between each other, who’s really the killer? In “The Pi Man,” the narrator must compensate for discrepancies in his environment by committing some of the most outlandish and horrifying acts - which doesn’t prevent his personal secretary from falling in love with him. Quite a few of these stories cross genres, as a matter of fact, but each is uniquely futuristic and even fantastical in foundation.

I haven’t had time to look for more of Bester’s work since I finished Virtual Unrealities, but I would recommend this book of short stories if you want to get a taste of his quick-witted, well-rounded prose. It’s somewhere between pulp and noir - excellent pulp and excellent noir - and either way you look at it, the stories still read well for our times.

~ by RhiGirl on January 20, 2008.