{"id":253,"date":"2015-04-18T13:24:55","date_gmt":"2015-04-18T13:24:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/the-perfect-library.zonkdev.uk\/?p=253"},"modified":"2016-07-16T16:29:14","modified_gmt":"2016-07-16T16:29:14","slug":"tigertiger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/?p=253","title":{"rendered":"Tiger! Tiger!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Tiger!Tiger!\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tiger! Tiger! \u2013 Alfred Bester. Cover by Alan Aldridge, 1967.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tiger! Tiger!<\/em> is a science-fiction novel set in the 24<\/span>th<\/sup> century. It was first published as a four-part serial, <\/span>The Stars My Destination<\/em>, in the US science fiction magazine<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>Galaxy<\/em>, \u00a0beginning with the October 1956 issue.<\/span><\/p>\n

The novel first appeared in book form in the UK taking its title from William Blake’s\u00a0\u00a0poem, \u00a0The Tyger.\u00a0<\/em>The\u00a0poem’s\u00a0famous first verse \u00a0is printed as the first page of the novel.<\/p>\n

Alfred Bester, the 9th<\/sup> Grand Master of Science Fiction Writers of America, certainly packed a lot of action into the book’s\u00a0236 pages.<\/p>\n

The central character, Gulliver Foyle, is marooned in space when his ship is attacked. He is the only survivor and, after six months of waiting for rescue, is ignored by a passing spaceship. \u00a0 Foyle, not unreasonably, \u00a0is enraged and is transformed into a man consumed by\"224px-TheStarsMyDestination\"<\/a> revenge. \u00a0He repairs his spaceship, but is then captured by a cult\u00a0which tattoos\u00a0the image of a tiger on his face. He manages to escape and attempts to blow up the spaceship which abandoned him. He fails and is captured by the ship’s\u00a0owners who torture him.<\/p>\n

Foyle, protected by his own revenge fixation, cannot be broken. He is thrown into prison where he meets the magnificently named Jisbella McQueen. She \u00a0teaches him to think clearly and tells him he should find out who gave the order not to rescue him. Together they escape and, while they\u2019re at it, \u00a0arrange to have\u00a0 his tattoos removed. This is not a total success and the scars become visible whenever Foyle becomes too emotional. Undaunted they travel to find Foyle\u2019s old spaceship from which they recover a fortune in platinum. But\u2026 Foyle and Jis are captured again. And that\u2019s just the first chapter.<\/p>\n

\"Tiger<\/a>

“Surprise! Tiger in a Tropical Storm”, Henri Rousseau<\/p><\/div>\n

The novel inspired some wonderful cover designs but Alan Aldridge\u2019s 1967 version is not one of them. Penguin\u2019s founder Allen Lane certainly wasn’t a fan; he felt\u00a0that Aldridge’s designs\u00a0were too commercial and tasteless. If it had been up to me I would have used Rousseau’s scaredy-cat, T<\/span>iger in a Tropical Storm<\/em>. I like to think that Lane\u00a0would have approved.<\/span><\/p>\n

David Pelham designed the cover of the 1974 edition\u00a0which\u00a0\u00a0was inspired by the edition\u2019s back cover blurb; this described \u00a0Foyle as, \u201cliar, lecher, ghoul, walking cancer, obsessed by vengeance, the 24th century\u2019s most valuable commodity but he doesn\u2019t know it<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"1974cibydavidpelham\"<\/a>

Tiger! Tiger! 1974, David Pelham<\/p><\/div>\n

Pelham decided that it was impossible to depict such a multi-faceted character in a conventional portrait:\"Tiger!<\/a>\"Tiger!<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0drew a composite portrait made out of debris. If you have a copy of this book you might actually see Gully Foyle on the cover. He\u2019s a tiny white spot to the left of the portrait\u2019s left eye, adrift in space, because that\u2019s where we first come across him, barely getting by, living in the tangled remains of a drifting spaceship that has exploded\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n

Can you\u00a0spot him?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tiger! Tiger! \u2013 Alfred Bester. Cover by Alan Aldridge, 1967. Tiger! Tiger! is a science-fiction novel set in the 24th century. It was first published as a four-part serial, The Stars My Destination, in the US science fiction magazine\u00a0Galaxy, \u00a0beginning with the October 1956 issue. The novel first appeared in book form in the UK […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sci-fi"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":281,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions\/281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/the-perfect-library.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}