Twenty years after _The Stars My Destination_, Bester returned to fiction with this book, about a time in the future when a band of immortals -- eccentrics from Lucretia Borgia and Captain Nemo to Edison and even a Neanderthal Man -- band together to combat the threat when one of their newest members is taken over by a computer hooked up to all other computers and electrical appliances across the planet. The narrator Guig (short for "Grand Guignol") leads the fight, while incidentally marrying a lithe Indian maiden and mentoring a feisty 13-year-old girl. Lots of nifty ideas, but the story only really gets rolling halfway through and characters keep pouring out of the woodwork, so it's hard to follow and to connect emotionally.
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The review of this Book prepared by David Loftus
