The Demolished Man

The Demolished Man is a science fiction novel by the American writer Alfred Bester. It appeared in three instalments in Galaxy Science Fiction beginning in January 1952, was published as a book in 1953, and took the first Hugo Award for Best Novel that year.

Telepathy in this future is ordinary and organised. Espers are graded by how deeply they can read a mind and how well they can shield their own, they work in commerce, government and the police, and a guild sets and enforces the rules about intruding on somebody else. A society arranged that way can in principle detect an intention before it becomes an act, and Bester uses the arrangement as the basis of a detective story told from the criminal's side.

Ben Reich heads a commercial empire that spans the solar system, a driven and frightened man who has convinced himself that a rival has to be removed. His problem is not motive or opportunity but minds, his own included, and the novel follows both his preparations and the investigation that slowly assembles itself around him. It is dedicated to Galaxy's editor, H. L. Gold, who suggested changes while it was being written.