The Demolished Man
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Narrated by:
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Gerard Doyle
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By:
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Alfred Bester
About this listen
In a world policed by telepaths, Ben Reich plans to commit a crime that hasn't been heard of in 70 years: murder. That's the only option left for Reich, whose company is losing a 10-year death struggle with rival D'Courtney Enterprises.
Terrorized in his dreams by The Man with No Face and driven to the edge after D'Courtney refuses a merger offer, Reich murders his rival and bribes a high-ranking telepath to help him cover his tracks. But while police prefect Lincoln Powell knows Reich is guilty, his telepath's knowledge is a far cry from admissible evidence.
©1951 Galaxy Publishing Corporation; copyright 1953 by Alfred Bester; copyright renewed 1979 by Alfred Bester; Introduction copyright 1996 by Harry Harrison (P)2017 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But his real problem is not the enemy - it is his own army, which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he's assigned, he'll be in violation of Catch-22.
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Stop randomly adding music
- By Kenneth S. Clark on 08-31-18
By: Joseph Heller
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Omens
- By: Kelley Armstrong
- Narrated by: Carine Montbertrand, Mozhan Marnò
- Length: 14 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Twenty-four-year-old Olivia Taylor Jones has the perfect life. The only daughter of a wealthy, prominent Chicago family, she has an Ivy League education, pursues volunteerism and philanthropy, and is engaged to a handsome young tech firm CEO with political ambitions. But Olivia’s world is shattered when she learns that she’s adopted. Her real parents? Todd and Pamela Larsen, notorious serial killers serving a life sentence.
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Great start to a new series, but... CRINGE!
- By BookMama on 12-22-13
By: Kelley Armstrong
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Perchance to Dream
- Selected Stories
- By: Charles Beaumont
- Narrated by: J. Paul Boehmer, Gabrielle de Cuir, Harlan Ellison, and others
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writer. It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone - for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont's finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.
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Contents
- By Ralph Freaster on 06-22-16
By: Charles Beaumont
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Tales of the Red Panda: The Mind Master
- By: Gregg Taylor
- Narrated by: Gregg Taylor
- Length: 5 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Sinister forces are at work, striking within the very heart of the city's elite with powers that seem otherwordly. Are the attacks random? Simply for profit? Or is an unknown predator hunting our masked heroes themselves? If the mysterious Ajay Shah really does have powers that rival those of the Red Panda, will even the Terrific Twosome of Toronto be able to resist the might of... The Mind Master?
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Gregg Taylor Strikes Again
- By Craig on 02-16-13
By: Gregg Taylor
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Shadowline
- Starfishers, Book 1
- By: Glen Cook
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 11 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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The vendetta in space had started centuries before "Mouse" Storm was born, with his grandfather's raid on the planet Prefactlas, the bloodbath that freed the human slaves from their Sangaree masters. But one Sangaree survived--the young Norborn heir, the man who swore vengeance on the Storm family and their soldiers,in a carefully mapped plot that would take generations to fulfill. Now Mouse's father, Gneaus, must fight for an El Dorado of wealth on the burning half of the planet Blackworld.
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Beautiful Performance
- By Cliff on 05-21-18
By: Glen Cook
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Superheroes
- By: Peter S. Beagle, Daryl Gregory, James Patrick Kelly, and others
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman, Joe Barrett, Christina Delaine, and others
- Length: 17 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Modern gods and goddesses, remote, revered - and like the pantheon of heroes and heroines of ancient myth - possessing great power tempered with flaws. Now, find within this anthology great tales by gifted and award-winning authors who move superheroes from the four-color panels of comic books to the fantastic pages of fiction, stories that will remind anyone who ever wanted to wear a cape or don a cowl of the extraordinary powers of the imagination!
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Pretentious tired old concepts
- By BookofJoy on 12-29-14
By: Peter S. Beagle, and others
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The Queen of the Tearling
- A Novel
- By: Erika Johansen
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 14 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Magic, adventure, mystery, and romance combine in this epic debut in which a young princess must reclaim her dead mother’s throne, learn to be a ruler - and defeat the Red Queen, a powerful and malevolent sorceress determined to destroy her. On her 19th birthday, Princess Kelsea Raleigh Glynn, raised in exile, sets out on a perilous journey back to the castle of her birth to ascend her rightful throne. Plain and serious, a girl who loves books and learning, Kelsea bears little resemblance to her mother, the vain and frivolous Queen Elyssa.
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Volume changed a lot
- By Nik on 12-20-14
By: Erika Johansen
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The Grays
- By: Whitley Strieber
- Narrated by: Stephen Lang
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Millions of people are confronting aliens that authorities say do not exist. Now Whitley Strieber, author of the #1 best seller Communion, which detailed his own close encounters, returns with The Grays, a mind-bending journey behind the curtain of secrecy that surrounds the subject of aliens. This audiobook will make you think deeply, not only about the mystery of who the Grays are, but who exactly we are.
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EXCELLENT listen
- By L. on 09-29-06
By: Whitley Strieber
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The Book Club Murders
- By: Leslie Nagel
- Narrated by: Dina Pearlman
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In a charming cozy mystery series debut, Leslie Nagel's irrepressible small-town heroine finds that her fellow book club members may be taking their Agatha Christie a bit too literally - and murder a bit too lightly.
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Be will to suspend belief
- By wisconsinclark on 03-18-17
By: Leslie Nagel
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Ragle Gumm has a unique job: Every day he wins a newspaper contest. And when he isn’t consulting his charts and tables, he enjoys his life in a small town, in 1959. At least, that’s what he thinks. But then strange things start happening. He finds a phone book where all the numbers have been disconnected, and a magazine article about a famous starlet named Marilyn Monroe, whom he’s never heard of. Plus, everyday objects are beginning to disappear and are replaced by strips of paper with words written on them, like "bowl of flowers" and "soft-drink stand".
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Mediocre Mother to Gravity's Rainbow and the Truman Show?
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Along with a remarkable group of compatriots, including Alice Liddell Hargreaves (the Victorian girl who was the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland), an English-speaking Neanderthal, a WWII Holocaust survivor, and a wise extraterrestrial, Burton sets sail on the magnificent river. His mission: to confront humankind's mysterious benefactors, and learn the true purpose—innocent or evil—of the Riverworld....
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Great concept, dated writing.
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Fantastic and current
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Hugo Award Well Deserved. A+
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Mediocre Mother to Gravity's Rainbow and the Truman Show?
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dated scifi
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classic
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The Science Fiction Collection (20 Books)
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This Science Fiction Collection brings together 20 iconic works from some of the genre's most influential authors. Featuring Ray Bradbury's atmospheric The Monster Maker and Rocket Summer, Isaac Asimov's thought-provoking Youth, E.M. Forster's dystopian The Machine Stops, and H.G. Wells' timeless masterpiece The Time Machine, the anthology explores a wide range of speculative themes. From futuristic worlds and artificial intelligence to time travel and human survival, this collection delves into the challenges and possibilities of the future.
By: Ray Bradbury, and others
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In this Hugo Award-winning classic, Enoch Wallace is an ageless hermit, striding across his untended farm as he had done for over a century, still carrying the gun with which he had served in the Civil War. But what his neighbors must never know is that, inside his unchanging house, he meets with a host of unimaginable friends from the farthest stars.
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A very special novel that will inspire you.
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Big Time takes a long time
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Niblock House is a rising executive at General Technics, one of a few all-powerful corporations. His work is leading General Technics to the forefront of global domination, both in the marketplace and politically - it's about to take over a country in Africa. Donald Hogan is his roommate, a seemingly sheepish bookworm. But Hogan is a spy, and he's about to discover a breakthrough in genetic engineering that will change the world...and kill him. Society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers and mass-marketed psychedelic drugs.
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Gothic Horror Hard Science Fiction
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What happens after the bombs drop? This is the troubling question Philip K. Dick addresses with Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along After the Bomb. It is the story of a world reeling from the effects of nuclear annihilation and fallout, a world where mutated humans and animals are the norm, and the scattered survivors take comfort from a disc jockey endlessly circling the globe in a broken-down satellite.
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Post nuclear apocalyptic surburban middle class
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What listeners say about The Demolished Man
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- bar arad
- 10-10-19
A magnificent and ever relevant book
it was excellently narrated and despite being written more then 60 years ago is ever relevant in our day and age of corporations and complex and ambiguous motivations behind the behaviors of "world shakers" it shows great insight into the hearts and mind of man that would occupy such positions and the possible outcomes of their being left to their own devices. The worldbuilding is convincing and meticoulsly crafted . While some parts (such as female roles and women characters in general ) aren't quite up to date the compelling narrative and positive humanistic massage make this a very rewarding and affecting book
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- David Anderson
- 04-12-24
A clever mystery and fascinating science fiction
A clever police procedural written with a fascinating science fiction twist. The emergence of telepathy has made it impossible to commit murder and escape justice. But, a corrupt businessman pulls it off, and a telepathic police detective has to figure out how. A story that relies as much on psychology as mind reading.
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- Lindsay L Kessner
- 06-08-24
Incel’s delight
This is a fairly engaging and well-written psychological thriller, but the sexism is disturbing even for 1953. Every single female character exists only to lust after a man, who either doesn’t want her or abuses her. The protagonist actually falls in love with a sexy 25-year-old who has the literal mind of an infant, and also believes he is her “daddy.” And there are repeated scenes of women begging to be knocked around, 1953 was a different time, but it’s disheartening that this is the book that won the first Hugo Award.
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- Brett Lowry
- 03-02-24
Most excellent performance! Good story.
Most excellent performance! Good story. The ending touched me. Being from the 1950s, the story still holds up very well.
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- Michael G Kurilla
- 08-05-18
Demolishing the perfect murder
The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester is a far future tale of a perfectly planned murder in the context of a society where a portion of humanity possesses mind reading powers. A rich business tycoon plans the perfect murder of a rival, but things go awry when a witness shows up. The tycoon battles a determined police investigator with the highest esp levels. At the same time, the tycoon is battling a personal demon that haunts his dreams that is partly to blame for his paranoid behaviors.
The main sci-fi element is the development of latent "esper" power of the human mind that only some individuals possess to varying degree ("peeping" the conscious, the unconscious, or the subconscious). This effectively precludes someone from lying or hiding information. Major portions of the solar system have been settled, although life in many respects is pretty typical of mid 20th century (the tale is set at the dawn of the 24th century). The use of logic computer for assessing adequacy of a criminal case for prosecution was an intriguing application for its time. Finally, mental illness and criminal punishment is treated by "demolition" whereby the subject's mental construct is broken down and permitted to re-establish itself through an accelerated childhood that recapitulates normal growth.
The narration is well done with excellent character distinction of both genders. Pacing and tone are well aligned to the story, especially given the multiple scenes of nightmares and other related mental instabilities.
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7 people found this helpful
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- David
- 06-07-19
Worth the time
I didn't like it as much as The Stars My Destination however the story is still very entertaining and way ahead of it's time.
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- Kristopher Spencer
- 04-03-21
Listen and read
I recommend listening while reading the book because typography plays an important role in the storytelling. Excellent book and well-narrated.
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- Tezby
- 03-21-21
Profoundly dated, yet inventive sf
If like me you arrived here on the strength of Bester’s far superior second novel ‘The Stars My Destination’ here are a few words of warning.
The story of the so-called perfect murder is well told, and moves along at a quick pace. And Gerard Doyle’s read is lively. The future New York setting is largely sketched in lacking much of the detail of the author’s later works, focusing instead on the ESP abilities of the Espers. So far so good.
Unfortunately the story is profoundly dated, the deeply ingrained sexism and misogynistic attitudes marring an otherwise inventively told tale. Doyle’s read compounds the book’s problems by giving all the female characters an obsequious tone that ups the pulp quality of the dialogue beyond the point most could tolerate, even giving some allowance for the era it was written in.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Traci L. Brennan
- 05-15-18
It needed the visuals of the paper book.
There is no denying that Bester has written a top notch SF mystery. I read it many years ago in book form. While the audio is excellent, there were visuals that needed to be seen to understand some of the story. The conversational patterns just got lost without that visual. BUT...since I had read it before, I could follow along with those. The overall thrust of the story remained intact; I just missed those little things.
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10 people found this helpful
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- usernamenumber
- 12-27-19
Visionary and remarkably timeless
The winner of the very first Hugo, but it could have been written today.
I didn't expect a sci fi novel from 1952 to hold up as well as this one does, and while there are the odd tells with regard to assumptions about future technology, and one or two romantic interactions that might warrant a sidelong glance, the story is wildly innovative, and the writing superb. Anyone who has seen Babylon 5 knows it pays homage to Alfred Bester, but it's remarkable just how directly it and nearly any other book about telepaths is templated on this book in particular. A worthwhile read on its own merits as well as its place on the history of the genre.
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