Psycho Shop

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ibooks, Jun 17, 2013 - Fiction - 230 pages
“A dark acid curio, brisk, fast, memorable, a rare improvisational duet from two of our best.”—Greg Bear “Alfred Bester was one of the handful of writers who invented modern science fiction.” —Harry Harrison, author of Adventures of the Stanless Steel Rat “Let there be light, and let there always be Roger Zelazny.”—Philip José Farmer, author of To Your Scattered Bodies Go From Publishers Weekly: This odd novel, left incomplete when Bester died in 1987, was finished by Zelazny, who himself died in 1995. In his introduction, Bear refers to Bester (The Deceivers) and Zelazny (Donnerjack) as masters of SF jazz, geniuses of improvisation, and the book has that feel to it. The plot is full of bizarre twists and turns. Neat ideas surface and disappear in an eyeblink and characters transform radically from one page to the next. Alf Noir, an investigative reporter, is sent to Rome to look into the mysterious Black Place of the Soul-Changer and its enigmatic proprietor, Adam Maser. Alf discovers that Maser is a Psychbroker, a sort of pawnbroker of the spirit, dealing in emotions, talents and psychological traits. Want more courage, the ability to see into the infrared, an understanding of ancient Persian? Maser will trade it to you for your mind-reading ability, or a rare coin, or perhaps for the secret of the collective unconscious. Alf discovers that Maser isn't human, but a highly evolved cat from the far future. Nothing is what it seems and no one can be trusted, not even Maser's sexy assistant, an evolved snake with whom Alf has an affair. There's much fun to be had here, but the book doesn't represent either writer in top form. Bester's style in the first part of the novel seems dated, and things don't gel until Zelazny takes over halfway through the book. Vintage has brought Bester's finest work back into print, and for this it deserves praise, but this novel is most likely to appeal to Zelazny's much larger readership.
 

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Contents

SFJazz B to
Two The hoping Lit
Three S O S In A Minibottle
Four Seven WellHung Gentlemen
Five Brains and Biscuits
Six Macavitys Smile
Seven A Man of Many Parts
Eight Singular Encounter
Nine Nuovo Buoco Nero
Copyright

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About the author (2013)

ALFRED BESTER was born in New York in 1913. After attending the University of Pennsylvania, he sold several stories to Thrilling Wonder Stories in the early 1940s. He then embarked on a career as a scripter for comics, radio, and television, where he worked on such classic characters as Superman, Batman, Nick Carter, Charlie Chan, Tom Corbett, and the Shadow. In the 1950s, he returned to prose, publishing several short stories and two brilliant, seminal works, The Demolished Man (which was the first winner of the Hugo Award for Best Novel) and The Stars My Destination, In the late 1950s, he wrote travel articles for Holiday magazine, and eventually became their Senior Literary Editor, keeping the position until the magazine folded in the 1970s. In 1974, he once again came back to writing science fiction with the novels The Computer Connection, Golem100, and The Deceivers, and numerous short stories. A collection of his short stories, Virtual Unrealities, was published in 1997. After being a New Yorker all his life, he died in Pennsylvania in 1987, but not before he was honored by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America with a Grandmaster Award. ROGER ZELAZNY Roger Zelazny authored many science fiction and fantasy classics, and won three Nebula Awards and six Hugo Awards over the course of his long and distinguished career. While he is best known for his ten-volume Amber series of novels (beginning with 1970’s Nine Princes in Amber), Zelazny also wrote many other novels, short stories, and novellas, including the award-winning Lord of Light and the stories “24 Views of Mount Fuji, by Hokusai,” “Permafrost,” and “Home Is the Hangman.” Zelazny died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in June 1995.

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