Combined with The Stars My Destination, I'm left with the impression that Bester doesn't really understand how evolution works:"It was anger for the relentless force of evolution that insisted on endowing man with increased powers without removing the vestigial vices that prevented him from using them."It's as if he thinks that humankind's mental abilities are growing or improving over time, but he does not offer any mechanism for selection of the trait. The Demolished Man is a noir-ish police procedural set in a future where a subclass of humans have varying degrees of ESP powers.The science is weak. The final scene when Powell traps Reich and turns him mad probably would have played out much better on film than in a book. The behaviors of the women in the story were odd - especially Duffy Wygand.The concept of espers, their means of communication, and the pain associated with excommunication is highly interesting.
The whole father/son/sister stuff is not something I picked up on at all. With this book, I found quite a lot of it more opaque than normal. Powell is assigned to find out who killed Craye D'Courtney and why and Reich beats him.I'm the kind of reader who will push through parts of books that I don't completely understand and I assume that I'll gain greater understanding farther into the book. When Reich decides that the only way he can survive is by killing Craye D'Courtney - the head of the conglomerate that is beating Reich's Monarch, he does something that no one in almost 100 years has done - plan and execute premeditated murder. Lincoln Powell is an Esper cop who is half-heartedly trying to find a woman he can marry. Ben Reich is a man who has everything, but is losing it all.
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