Oops!
Hopefully everyone gets back without changing the time stream…..too much. But one never knows until it’s too late.
Find/read the short story “A Sound of Thunder” (Ray Bradbury, 1952). Credited as the origin of the term “butterfly effect”.
Bester is nearly forgotten today, but he almost single-handedly reinvented written SF in the 1950s.
“The Stars My Destination” aka “Tiger! Tiger” (1956) is the uber-example of proto-Cyberpunk. Not to mention being a strong influence on 1960s spy movies.
“The Demolished Man” (1953) set the rules for almost all portrayals of ESP and telepathy in SF down to the present. It’s not a coincidence that Walter Koenig’s nasty-assed “Psicop” on Babylon 5 was named “Bester”.
Harlan Ellison sued Carolco over the parallels between “The Terminator” (1984) and his story “Soldier” (done on TV in the original “Outer Limits” TV series in 1964). It probably owes more the Alfred Bester’s “Fondly Fahrenheit” (F & SF Aug 1954) than it does to Quarlo Klobregny.
Bester took written SF out of the “space opera” era and into the “Speculative Fiction” era. All in one decade.
Without Bester, odds are the Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” and “I will Fear No Evil” could probably never have been published.
RAH was ready and willing to write that sort of thing. But Bester convinced the publishers that the SciFans wanted to read it.
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Oh, this is going to be fun!
Ooopsie daisy.
Oops!
Hopefully everyone gets back without changing the time stream…..too much. But one never knows until it’s too late.
Find/read the short story “A Sound of Thunder” (Ray Bradbury, 1952). Credited as the origin of the term “butterfly effect”.
Don’t forget “The Men Who Murdered Mohammed” (F&SF Oct 1958) by Alfred Bester.
https://lecturia.org/en/short-stories/alfred-bester-the-men-who-murdered-mohammed/25010/
Bester is nearly forgotten today, but he almost single-handedly reinvented written SF in the 1950s.
“The Stars My Destination” aka “Tiger! Tiger” (1956) is the uber-example of proto-Cyberpunk. Not to mention being a strong influence on 1960s spy movies.
“The Demolished Man” (1953) set the rules for almost all portrayals of ESP and telepathy in SF down to the present. It’s not a coincidence that Walter Koenig’s nasty-assed “Psicop” on Babylon 5 was named “Bester”.
Harlan Ellison sued Carolco over the parallels between “The Terminator” (1984) and his story “Soldier” (done on TV in the original “Outer Limits” TV series in 1964). It probably owes more the Alfred Bester’s “Fondly Fahrenheit” (F & SF Aug 1954) than it does to Quarlo Klobregny.
Bester took written SF out of the “space opera” era and into the “Speculative Fiction” era. All in one decade.
Without Bester, odds are the Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land” and “I will Fear No Evil” could probably never have been published.
RAH was ready and willing to write that sort of thing. But Bester convinced the publishers that the SciFans wanted to read it.
clear ether
eon
Oops.
Hah! I read that one about a million years ago!