Alfred Bester was born on December 18, 1913, and died on September 30, 1987. He was an American science fiction author, TV and radio screenwriter, magazine editor, and comics scriptwriter. He is most well-known for his science fiction writing, especially the novel The Demolished Man, which won the first Hugo Award in 1953.
Science fiction author Harry Harrison said, "Alfred Bester was one of the few writers who helped create modern science fiction."
Before he died, the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) named Bester its ninth Grand Master. This award was given after his death in 1988. In 2001, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame honored him by inducting him into their group.
Life and career
Alfred Bester was born in Middletown, New York, on December 18, 1913. His father, James J. Bester, owned a shoe store and was a first-generation American whose parents were both Austrian Jews. Alfred’s mother, Belle (née Silverman), was born in Russia and spoke Yiddish as her first language before moving to America as a young person. Alfred was James and Belle’s second and final child, and their only son. (Their first child, Rita, was born in 1908.) Although his mother was born Jewish, she became a Christian Scientist, and Alfred was not raised in any religious tradition. He wrote that “his home life was completely liberal and iconoclastic.”
Bester attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a member of the Philomathean Society. He played on the Penn Quakers football team in 1935 and, by his own account, was “the most successful member of the fencing team.” He later went to Columbia Law School but left after becoming tired of it.
Bester and Rolly Goulko married in 1936. Rolly Bester was a Broadway, radio, and television actress, the first to play the role of Lois Lane on the radio program The Adventures of Superman. She changed careers in the 1960s, becoming a vice president, casting director, and supervisor at the advertising agency Ted Bates & Co. in New York City. The Besters stayed married for 48 years until Rolly’s death. Bester was nearly a lifelong New Yorker, although he lived in Europe for about a year in the mid-1950s and moved to a rural area in Pennsylvania with Rolly in the early 1980s. Once settled there, they lived on Geigel Hill Road in Ottsville, Pennsylvania.
After finishing university, 25-year-old Alfred Bester worked in public relations before turning to writing science fiction. His first published short story, “The Broken Axiom,” appeared in the April 1939 issue of Thrilling Wonder Stories after winning an amateur story competition. Bester recalled that two editors, Mort Weisinger and Jack Schiff, took an interest in him, partly because he had just finished reading and annotating Joyce’s Ulysses and would enthusiastically talk about it. They thought his story, originally titled “Diaz-X,” might be suitable if it was revised. This was the same contest that Robert A. Heinlein chose not to enter, as the prize was only $50. Heinlein later changed his mind and sold his story to Astounding Science Fiction for $70. Years later, Bester interviewed Heinlein for Publishers Weekly, and Heinlein mentioned changing his mind. Bester joked, “You sonofabitch. I won that Thrilling Wonder contest, and you beat me by twenty dollars.”
As the contest winner, Mort Weisinger also introduced Bester to informal lunch meetings with science fiction writers of the late 1930s. There, Bester met Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, Otto Binder, Malcolm Jameson, and Manly Wade Wellman. During 1939 and 1940, Weisinger published three more of Bester’s stories in Thrilling Wonder Stories and Startling Stories. For the next few years, Bester continued to publish short fiction, most notably in Astounding Science Fiction, edited by John W. Campbell.
In 1942, two of Bester’s science fiction editors began working at DC Comics and invited him to contribute to various DC titles. As a result, Bester left short story writing and began working for DC Comics as a writer, including Green Lantern under the editorship of Julius Schwartz. He created the super-villain Solomon Grundy and the version of the Green Lantern Oath that begins “In brightest day, In blackest night.” Bester also wrote for Lee Falk’s comic strips The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician while their creator was serving in World War II. It is widely believed that Bester influenced these comics. One theory suggests he gave the Phantom his surname, “Walker.”
After four years in the comics industry, in 1946 Bester turned to writing radio scripts. His wife, Rolly (a busy radio actress), told him that the show Nick Carter, Master Detective was looking for story submissions. Over the next few years, Bester wrote for Nick Carter, as well as The Shadow, Charlie Chan, The New Adventures of Nero Wolfe, and other shows. He later wrote for The CBS Radio Mystery Theater.
With the start of American network television in 1948, Bester also began writing for television, although most of these projects were not well known.
In early 1950, after eight years away from writing, Bester returned to science fiction short stories. However, after publishing “The Devil’s Invention” (also known as “Oddy and Id”) in Astounding, he stopped writing for the magazine in mid-1950 when editor John Campbell became focused on L. Ron Hubbard and Dianetics, the precursor to Scientology. Bester then turned to Galaxy Science Fiction, where he found another excellent editor, H. L. Gold, and a good friend.
In New York, he socialized at the Hydra Club, an organization of New York’s science fiction writers, whose notable members included Isaac Asimov, James Blish, Anthony Boucher, Avram Davidson, Judith Merril, and Theodore Sturgeon.
During his first period of writing science fiction (1939–1942), Bester built a reputation as a short story writer with stories like “Adam and No Eve.” However, Bester gained his greatest fame for the work he wrote and published in the 1950s, including The Demolished Man and The Stars My Destination (also known as Tiger! Tiger!).
The Demolished Man, which won the first Hugo Award for best science fiction novel, is a police procedural set in a future world where telepathy is common. Bester created a harshly capitalistic, hierarchical, and competitive society where people can access each other’s memories, secrets, fears, and past mistakes quickly.
Originally published in three parts in Galaxy, beginning in January 1952, The Demolished Man was released in book form in 1953. It was dedicated to Gold, who provided many suggestions during its writing. Bester originally wanted the title to be Demolition!, but Gold convinced him otherwise.
Bester’s 1953 novel Who He? (also known as The Rat Race) follows a TV variety show writer who wakes up after an alcoholic blackout and discovers someone is trying to destroy his life. According to Bester, the TV show elements were based on his work on The Paul Winchell Show.
Awards
In 1988, the Science Fiction Writers of America named Bester its ninth SFWA Grand Master. This honor was announced before his death in 1987. In 2001, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted him as part of its sixth class, which included two deceased writers and two living writers.
In addition to winning the first Hugo Award, Bester was a finalist for several other annual literary awards.
In the Best Novel category, The Computer Connection was a finalist for both the Hugo and Nebula Awards and received third place in the Locus Award.