Maxima Library

At the dawn of the Golden Age of Science Fiction, Alfred Bester--who as a comic book writer created the original Green Lantern

Oath and such supervillains as Solomon Grundy--wrote two of the seminal works of the genre and then pretty much retired from

the scene.  His first, The Demolished Man, won the inaugural Hugo Award in 1953.

These classic overtones helped to give added intellectual heft to what might have been merely one more entry in an essentially

pulp fiction medium.  Some of it is a little clunky now--the Freudian motivations ring especially hollow--but it's easy to see

why it would have been so important to the field of Science Fiction when it was written.  Borrowing from the classics, Bester

himself created a Classic.