Influences, Influences, Influences

Growing up in the Fifties, I read all the great science fiction writers of the period - Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, A.E. van Vogt, Simak, etc. But none of them really fired my desire to become a writer until I got my hands on my first Alfred Bester story. It was, of course, "Fondly Fahrenheit." It's the tale of a rich playboy, James Vandaleur, and his murderous android and the fact that they end up as one very insane personalitiy. The use of shifting viewpoints was unique to me at the time, but what really fired my imagination was Bester's use of language. At that time, it had a kind of "hip" quality unlike anything in science fiction - staccato, rhyming, and with a kind of macabre flippancy that underscored the horrible madness of the situation. Compared to Bester's prose, the writing of other science fiction writers was a dull vanilla against the multi-colored explosions of his words and sentences. The introduction took me on to his novel, The Stars My Destination, the story of Gully Foyle and an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo. In that book, I discovered that Bester could be the best writer in the world and the worst (often on the same page), but, oh, the imagination of the man! It soared and surged throughout the novel, and it was like a very contagious virus of creativity that infected my system. I wanted very badly to write like Alfed Bester, but, you know what, it took me more than 40 years to end up writing like myself! What took me so long? That's a tale for the next blog!