The Stars My Destination

The Stars My Destination (also called Tiger! Tiger!) is a science fiction novel by Alfred Bester, first published in Galaxy magazine in October 1956.

Tech of the Book

There are two major technologies here. The first, and most significant, is "jaunting"; named after the scientist (Jaunte) who discovered it, it is instantaneous telepathic teleportation. One is able to move up to a thousand miles by just thinking. This technology totally destroys the economic balance between the inner planets (Venus, Earth, Mars, and the Moon) and the outer planets (various moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune), eventually starting a war between the two. It effectively takes the whole social fabric of the world and gives it a good shake, forming shapes at once both familiar and unknown, to be examined in true science-fictional fashion. Women get locked up "for their protection", the treatment of criminals of necessity goes back to the Victorian "Separate System", and freaks and monsters abound. It is to this world that a driven man comes, and the consequences are explosive...

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The second technology is "pyrE", a weapon powerful enough to win an interplanetary war.

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