The Stars My Destination (1956) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

show spoilers

Characters/People edit see section history

show spoilers

• Gulliver 'Gully' Foyle: Foyle is a cipher, a man with potential but no motivation, who is suddenly marooned in space. Even this is not enough to galvanize him beyond trying to find air and food on the wreck. But all changes when an apparent rescue ship deliberately passes him by, stirring him irrevocably out of his passivity.
• Robin Wednesbury: A telepath who can only project her thoughts, Wednesbury uses her limited gift to re-train people on how to "jaunt", or teleport through the power of their mind.
• Presteign of Presteign: Head of the Presteign clan, which heads the leading industrial conglomerate on Terra.
• Olivia Presteign: The daughter of Presteign of Presteign, she is an albino who can only see in the infrared spectrum.
• Saul Dagenham: A brilliant former research physicist who was made dangerously radioactive by an accident, he is the founder and president of the firm Dagenham Couriers.
• Regis Sheffield: Leader of the Terra's ruling Liberal Party.
• Peter Y'ang-Yeovil: A captain in the Inner Planets' Central Intelligence service.
• Jisabella McQueen: Add a description of this character.

Quotes edit see section history

• “Gully Foyle is my name / And Terra is my nation. / Deep space is my dwelling place / And death's my destination.”

  Gulliver 'Gully' Foyle

• “Gully Foyle is my name / And Terra is my nation. / Deep space is my dwelling place / The stars my destination.”

  Gulliver 'Gully' Foyle

• “'Vorga,' I kill you filthy.”

  Lemuel Gulliver

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• I’ve handed life and death back to the people who do the living and dying.

  Highlighted by 8 Kindle customers

• “It isn’t necessary to have something to believe in. It’s only necessary to believe that somewhere there’s something worthy of belief”

  Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers

• “Stop treating them like children and they’ll stop behaving like children. Who the hell are you to play monitor?”

  Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers

• “Yes, no matter how we defend ourselves against the outside we’re always licked by something from the inside. There’s no defense against betrayal, and we all betray ourselves.”

  Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers

• Devoted to the principle of conspicuous waste, on which all society is based,

  Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers

• It was an age of freaks, monsters, and grotesques. All the world was misshapen in marvelous and malevolent ways.

  Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers

• “Take a war to make you spend. Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great. Rest of the time you sit around lazy, you. Pigs, you! All right, God damn you! I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great. Blow yourselves to Christ gone or come and find me, Gully Foyle, and I make you men. I make you great. I give you the stars.”

  Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers

• Where’s the joy in perpetual motion? Is there any extravagance in entropy? Millions for nonsense but not one cent for entropy. My slogan.”

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• The twenty-fifth century had not yet abolished God, but it had abolished organized religion.

  Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers

• “You’ve been running. Haven’t you ever heard of Attack-Escape? To run away from reality by attacking it ... denying it ... destroying it? That’s what you’ve been doing.”

  Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Sargasso Asteroid: A base in the asteroid belt assembled out of rocks and salvaged spaceships. Created by a group of marooned scientists, it is inhabited by their descendants, who continually scavenge spaceships to expand their home.

First Sentence edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Jaunting: The technique of mental teleportation, it was accidentally discovered by Charles Forte Jaunte in the late 23rd century.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Alfred Bester (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Prometheus Award (1988)
• Geffen Award (Finalist, 2007: Best Translated Science Fiction Book)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Add a note to help parents select a book for a child.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Authors, A-Z › ( B ) › Bester, Alfred
• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Science Fiction