****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
What sets *Starlight* apart from *Virtual Unrealities* and *Re-Demolished* is simply the voice of non-Sci-Fi Bester. The introductions and anecdotes preceding each story is a fascinating look into the writer's craft and the mind of a lifelong (though more talented than most) dilletante.This is really the only opportunity left to us in (somewhat widely) available print to see Bester when he's not spinning wildly inventive fiction or fantasy. While one can still find *My Affair With Science Fiction* re-printed here and there, where else are we going to find the source material for the characters of "Hell is Forever" or Bester's personal opinion of Dillenger?Perhaps *Re-Demolished* provides us with a wider spectrum of Bester's works (there are a few pieces there with NO ties to science fiction), but in *Starlight* we get glorious flashes of Bester away from the fantasy: occasional glimpses of libaries, foreign lands, fishing trips, and television studios.Alfred Bester was a prodigious 20th-century talent, and *Starlight* allows us to get as close to a conversation with him as possible.Rest in peace, Alfie.
