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Rating: Summary: A literary slap in the face Review: As a writer, Sturgeon provokes one of two reactions in me: either to just give up since I know I'll never be able to equal that much quality for as long as I live, or to sit back down and write even more in an redoubled effort to equal that quality. I tend to like the second myself and I think Ted would agree, reading one of his stories you get a sense of wonder and enchantment, much as he probably felt writing it and to me it's like a gaunlet being thrown down saying, "This is the best I can do, I know you can do just as good. Prove it." Ah but the quality here is not to be believed. Even if you discount the "undiscovered" story "Quietly" which is apparently a precursor somehow to More Than Human (it's a tenuous link, even the series editor admits it) there's stuff like the title story, one of the groundbreaking stories not only for science fiction telling but the short story genre in general, there's also a neat creepy jazz story and a Western story and so much that when you finish you sit back and think about all the good stuff you just read . . . and then realize that the five volumes that are to come are supposed to represent his very best work. Argh, Ted, you don't make the challenge easy but I think it's one I accept. You want no less. Read them all already, what are you waiting for?
Rating: Summary: Love me tender, love me true Review: I now have all 7 volumes - all 7 available currently. But I only got volume 5 about a month ago, much later than 6 and 7. And the biggest problem I am facing now - how am I going to make it last till they print the 8th?! I read one story per week - though I die to gulp them down and make a feast of reading this book. Each precious tender love story - only one a week. Once in a week I sit down and switch the world off and read about love - because that is what Sturgeon have been writing about all his life. He takes you by hand and shows you that somebody's Eden is always somebody's else Hell; and makes you walk beside a quiet girl - quietly.. Or sit and listen to a slow dialogue of two cowboys near the fire - and at the last words to burst out laughing only to smile sadly and tenderly a minute later... Theodore Sturgeon makes you love life - and that is the best compliment I could pay any writer.
Rating: Summary: Introduce yourself to science fiction's greatest writer. Review: The publication of the collected short works of Theodore Sturgeon is cause for rejoicing. Sturgeon is the Beethoven of Science Fiction, and this fact has not yet been recognized. The thing that makes Beethoven tower over all other classical composers is his compelling ability to communicate powerful emotion. His greatest works are more than technical masterpieces; they make the listener glad to be human. They uplift, magnificantly.This is also exactly true of Theododre Sturgeon. Sturgeon's greatest works speak directly to the heart, as do the works of Beethoven. And they do so as powerfully, since they almost always speak of love. Human love, not any pale imitation. For several decades, most people new to Sturgeon had to approach him through his novels, since publishers did not like to print short story collections. This is a shame, since approaching Sturgeon through his novels is very much like approaching Beethoven through his string quartets. Masterpieces they may be, but they're not terribly approachable. If you want to appreciate Beethoven, start with his symphonies. If you want to appreciate Sturgeon, start with his short stories. And just as Beethoven's best work was done later in his life, so also were Sturgeon's best stories. In the time frame that "The Perfect Host" covers, Sturgeon was just beginning to hit his stride. His greatest work will show up in the volumes to come. Thank you, Paul Williams, more than I can say, for bringing this collection into print.
Rating: Summary: Introduce yourself to science fiction's greatest writer. Review: The publication of the collected short works of Theodore Sturgeon is cause for rejoicing. Sturgeon is the Beethoven of Science Fiction, and this fact has not yet been recognized. The thing that makes Beethoven tower over all other classical composers is his compelling ability to communicate powerful emotion. His greatest works are more than technical masterpieces; they make the listener glad to be human. They uplift, magnificantly. This is also exactly true of Theododre Sturgeon. Sturgeon's greatest works speak directly to the heart, as do the works of Beethoven. And they do so as powerfully, since they almost always speak of love. Human love, not any pale imitation. For several decades, most people new to Sturgeon had to approach him through his novels, since publishers did not like to print short story collections. This is a shame, since approaching Sturgeon through his novels is very much like approaching Beethoven through his string quartets. Masterpieces they may be, but they're not terribly approachable. If you want to appreciate Beethoven, start with his symphonies. If you want to appreciate Sturgeon, start with his short stories. And just as Beethoven's best work was done later in his life, so also were Sturgeon's best stories. In the time frame that "The Perfect Host" covers, Sturgeon was just beginning to hit his stride. His greatest work will show up in the volumes to come. Thank you, Paul Williams, more than I can say, for bringing this collection into print.
Rating: Summary: Volume Five Review: This fifth volume of the Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon includes stories written between 1947 and 1949, a time when Sturgeon and science fiction were finding new respectability and larger audiences. Included here, along with such science fiction and fantasy classics as "The Perfect Host," Unite and Conquer," and "The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast" are his finest western story, "Scars," the crime story "Till Death do Us Join" and one of Sturgeon's best-loved and remembered stories, "Die Maestro, Die!" Readers wondering why Samuel R. Delany calls Sturgeon "the American short story writer" and Hames Blish called him "the finest conscious artist science fiction ever had," can find the answers in the volume. In 1947-49, Theodore Sturgeon's first book, the collection Without Sorcery, was published, and he wrote his first novel, The Dreaming of Jewels. But financial problems related to trying to make a living as a genre writer ("he was making a fraction of a penny a word, and not about to write anything else but stuff for Amazing Stories and so forth," says Kurt Vonnegut, explaining why Sturgeon was the model for his character Kilgore Trout) forced him to repeatedly postpone his marriage to beautiful singer Mary Mair. In 1949 he took a job writing promotional copy for Time, Inc. Devotees of Sturgeon's writing will be pleased to find in this volume seven stories that have never before appeared in a Sturgeon collection, and two published here for the first time,including an astonishing discovery, "Quietly." This previously unknown 1947 story seems to be an early start on what would six years later become Sturgeon's greatest novel, More than Human.
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