I curled up at Barnes and Noble and read about half of a book on the psychology of trading. Not every geek's bread and butter but it's mine.

Then I wandered up Broadway looking for interesting food. I've had enough diet food for the past few days. I wound up in Big Nick's, an old style burger diner ... with a 16 ounce Sumo Burger ... in a booth with a signed picture of Bill Clinton and Nick, "Nick -- thanks for the great food." It doesn't get more artery-clogging than that! Score!

Then I doubled back to the sidewalk book seller I had passed by.

This guy had a lot of interesting books, although he was light on the geek side (that's the Upper West Side for you). I found a few paperbacks, including a copy of "Fearless", which was made into one of my favorite movies ever, with Jeff Bridges. I love finding random books for a $1 on the street like that! Score again!

On the next table the guy had a box of crap CD's. Well, for $1, I'll listen to just about anything, so I picked up a few forgettable CD's.

By now I was looking at my watch. I had only a few minutes left to catch the subway back to South Ferry, and my ferry runs only once an hour at Sunday nights. But, hey, the guy's got a table of comic books (single issues and graphic novels), so I can spend a minute or two seeing if he's got something interesting.

I see a picture of a rugged guy in a space suit against a port hole. Hmmm, this might have some geek potential. Then the title blows my eyeballs out.

The Complete Alfred Bester's Stars My Destination
Howard Chaykin, Brian Preiss

"Holy Mary, Mother of God".

All of a sudden, I'm not sure whether I'm awake or dreaming. I pick up the book and flip it open, thinking that it's going to be all blank inside, or it's going to be some other Alfred Bester, or some other The Stars My Destination, or that I really am dreaming and I won't actually be able to read what's inside.

The book opens up to a 2/3 page picture of a brutally handsome man in a tuxedo dancing with a tall beautiful redhead at a formal ball. I flip through the book. More scenes. It's for real. And it's for sale, and I'm holding it.

"Oh my God."

There's no price on the book. I look at the bookseller. I am on auto-pilot. I ask him "how much?". He is going to tell me how much, and I am going to pay him. He can say whatever he wants, and I am going to pay him. I realize this, and I realize that being an Upper West Side sidewalk book seller, he can read all this written all over me.

"Three dollars."

I am whipping out three one-dollar bills as fast as I can, before he changes his mind, before the book dissolves, before some other Bester fan teleports in, before I wake up. I'm afraid that if I give him a twenty, he will have time to change his mind.

As a graphic novel, it's flawed. Presteign and Olivia Presteign don't look right to me. The pictures and the text run side by side, and are not well integrated. The text has been edited and some juicy bits have been excised. There are embarrassing typographical errors. Most of the artwork does not come close to the scope and drama that it needs.

But still ... this book knocked me on my ass when I was 12, and it is so visual, that any pictures at all are good pictures. It's got pictures of Foyle crawling through the wreckage of Nomad, and 25th century New York, and the Star Chamber, and Dagenham cupping an orchard, and Gully and Jizbella running naked through the caves, and Sam Quatt's magnificent dive, and ... and that's just Part 1.

Take a war to make you spend. Take a jam to make you think. Take a challenge to make you great. Rest of the time you sit around, lazy, you. All right, damn you! I challenge you, me. Die or live and be great. Blow yourselves up or come and find me, Gully Foyle, and I make you great. I give you the stars.

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"But you've got everything now
and what a terrible mess I've made of my life."