Friday, June 16, 2006

Tiger! Tiger!

Gully Foyle is my name
And Terra is my nation
Deep space is my dwelling place
The stars my destination

The Stars My Destination - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This was my favorite book as a teen, and I still think it's a classic of the genre.

Gully Foyle is the classic driven man, who is transformed by the needs of his goal, vengeance. For being passed by a ship, when he was marooned in deep space. He goes from a third-class midshipman to become a dangerous commando, a dandy of high society, and an inmate in the fictional future Super-Max Prison equivalent.

I'd recommend it to anyone looking for classic sci-fi with psychological elements. It predated cyberpunk(my favorite genre) by almost forty years, yet anticipates many of the elements.

This book also shaped my view of capitalism and corporations as fundamentally much stronger forces than governments and councils, an opinion I still hold. It also introduces the concept of a corporation serving the vision of a single person, which I aspire to. The best intro in all of literature is still that of the CEO/Owner of the eponymous Presteign Corporation. "I am Presteign, of Presteign."

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