Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man in an innovative, exciting novel that drops you into a cyberpunkish future. First published in 1953, The Demolished Man was the first winner of the Hugo Award and was hailed by Isaac Asimov as "One of the all-time classics of science fiction."

Three hundred years in the future, a small number of men and women have developed telepathic abilities. They are called "Espers" (after ESP) and can "peep" into another's mind. While some can only peep general emotions, a select few can even read actual thoughts.

Because of this talent, Espers can "feel" the mindset of persons who are about to commit or have committed crimes. For this reason, crime has become nearly non-existent. At the time of the story, it has been seventy years since someone got away with murder.

But corporate magnate Ben Reich wants to change all that.

Facing certain financial ruin from a competing business, Reich tries to save himself by suggesting a merger between the two companies. When the offer is refused, however, Reich goes ballistic and plans to personally execute his rival.

The main obstacle, of course, is that Espers will know what he's up to and restrain him before he can do any harm. So, Reich sets forth a maniacal plan to consecrate his desire of premeditated murder.

After bribing the help of a high-ability Esper, Reich needs to find a way to keep other Espers from reading his mind. The only way to block his musings of murder, though, is to keep his mind occupied on other thoughts at all times. This maddening situation is reflected in the rhythmic phrase that Reich then begins to repeat over and over and over in his mind: "Tension , apprehension, and dissension have begun...tension , apprehension, and dissension have begun..."

Part of the joy in reading this book is how it portrays the mental breakdown of a man who has delusions of grandeur. We can see inside his head and we begin to question whether or not he's getting everything right or even if he's deceiving himself.

This is a novel about perception. How we can sometimes see one thing and think another, how our view of the world can be one-dimensional, and how things look differently to different people.

The book is balanced well between its two main characters of Ben Reich and his foil Lincoln Powell, the Esper police detective who knows that Reich has committed murder but needs the physical evidence to prove it. Both men have their own mental challenges: Reich's hiding his crime and dealing with his dreams of a faceless man, and Lincoln Powell's alternate personality, "Dishonest Abe," who sometimes takes control of him.

One of the novel features of the book is how Bester reproduces how a telepathic conversation between a group of Espers would look like on the printed page. First, there is a jumble of words, phrases and sentences. Then as the Espers begin to organize their thoughts, a structured/patterned flow of thought is maintained to keep things clear.

Bester was a follower of psychoanalysis and this is apparent in The Demolished Man. The focus on the struggle between Id, Ego, and Superego is a recurrent theme throughout the novel (as well as most of Bester's works) and makes for good reading.

After half a century, The Demolished Man remains an enduring masterpiece of science fiction and (along with Bester's other celebrated novel, The Stars My Destination) was seminal to the genre and its offshoot, cyberpunk.