Rating: 
Summary: a flawed, but beautiful masterpiece by an undderead Master
Review: The opening lines of More Than Human are more poetry than prose, and a tribute to the ability of the most talented stylist ever to write fantastic fiction. Sturgeon weaves a tale of rare wonder, populated with tragic, human, and fully realized characters that fairly leap from the page and into your heart. The first two-thirds of this novel can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with anything ever written, in or out of genre. The book's only flaw lies in the last third of the book, which is anti-climactic and a little too pat. But it is a small flaw when viewed beside the novel's many strengths, and should not deter anyone from enjoying this powerful and powerfully written tale of who we are and who we might become.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the best SF book ever...
Review: The title of this review says it all. If you haven't read this book, your life is incomplete.
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous speculative fiction
Review: Theodore Sturgeon was a great writer and this is one of his best books. Expanded from the novella "Baby Is Three," which makes up the second of the novel's three parts, it tells the story of the evolution of _homo gestalt_ -- thereby introducing a "group mind" theme that is also taken up in the work of one of Sturgeon's biggest fans, Spider Robinson.It is not, by the way, an accident that Spider is both a Sturgeon fan _and_ a more or less unreconstructed hippie. Some readers of this book may not know how profound an effect SF had on the ideals of the 1960s -- and may, for example, be surprised to learn that the introduction to _Baby Is Three_ (Volume 6 of Sturgeon's collected works) was written by none other than David Crosby. (Another volume -- the fifth, I think -- is introduced by Kurt Vonnegut, who based Kilgore Trout loosely on Sturgeon.) But in fact this is one of two SF books you _must_ read if you want to understand what motivated (and still motivates) those ideals. The other is Robert Heinlein's _Stranger In A Strange Land_. It wouldn't be too much to describe the entire '60s "counterculture" phenomenon as an attempt to do some grokking and bleshing on an unprecedented scale. For "grokking," see the Heinlein book. "Bleshing" -- blending and meshing -- is what individual humans do when they make up a single "gestalt" being. They don't lose individuality; they just combine to make a whole greater than the separate sum of the parts. You know, like a '60s rock band . . . (My own favorite example is David Crosby's own _If I Could Only Remember My Name_, but his recent work with CPR bleshes pretty darn fine too.) Anyway, for my money, this volume is one of Sturgeon's finest works (not that any of it was _bad_). If you like it, check out Crosby's aforementioned introduction to Volume 6, and you might also like Spider Robinson's _Time Pressure_ (now available only in the combo volume _Deathkiller_, which also includes _Mindkiller_, the book to which _Time Pressure_ was the first sequel).
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous speculative fiction
Review: Theodore Sturgeon was a great writer and this is one of his best books. Expanded from the novella "Baby Is Three," which makes up the second of the novel's three parts, it tells the story of the evolution of _homo gestalt_ -- thereby introducing a "group mind" theme that is also taken up in the work of one of Sturgeon's biggest fans, Spider Robinson. It is not, by the way, an accident that Spider is both a Sturgeon fan _and_ a more or less unreconstructed hippie. Some readers of this book may not know how profound an effect SF had on the ideals of the 1960s -- and may, for example, be surprised to learn that the introduction to _Baby Is Three_ (Volume 6 of Sturgeon's collected works) was written by none other than David Crosby. (Another volume -- the fifth, I think -- is introduced by Kurt Vonnegut, who based Kilgore Trout loosely on Sturgeon.) But in fact this is one of two SF books you _must_ read if you want to understand what motivated (and still motivates) those ideals. The other is Robert Heinlein's _Stranger In A Strange Land_. It wouldn't be too much to describe the entire '60s "counterculture" phenomenon as an attempt to do some grokking and bleshing on an unprecedented scale. For "grokking," see the Heinlein book. "Bleshing" -- blending and meshing -- is what individual humans do when they make up a single "gestalt" being. They don't lose individuality; they just combine to make a whole greater than the separate sum of the parts. You know, like a '60s rock band . . . (My own favorite example is David Crosby's own _If I Could Only Remember My Name_, but his recent work with CPR bleshes pretty darn fine too.) Anyway, for my money, this volume is one of Sturgeon's finest works (not that any of it was _bad_). If you like it, check out Crosby's aforementioned introduction to Volume 6, and you might also like Spider Robinson's _Time Pressure_ (now available only in the combo volume _Deathkiller_, which also includes _Mindkiller_, the book to which _Time Pressure_ was the first sequel).
Rating:
Summary: One of SF's most challenging, thought-provoking novels
Review: Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human is, quite simply, one of the best and most original science fiction novels of all time; it is also one of the more neglected classics in the field. This magnificent example of literary science fiction belongs on the same shelf as Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and Alfred Bester's first two novels. I was already a Sturgeon fan before reading More Than Human, but even I almost scoffed at comparisons of this novel with the work of William Faulkner (my literary hero). Much to my surprise, though, there is indeed a Faulknerian aspect to this novel. The narrative radiates traces of stream of consciousness and moves quietly back and forth in time from place to place as it approaches the essence of a philosophical revelation from multiple levels. For this reason, you will most likely either love or hate the book, for its greatest strength is very likely, to some readers, its greatest weakness. More Than Human is such a unique novel that some individuals may not consider it science fiction at all; the science wrapped into these pages is of the most abstract and philosophical sort, centering on the question of the future evolution of the human race. The novel is broken up into three very distinct sections, each division marked by a shift in both emphasis and viewpoint. Initially, it can be a little difficult to get your bearings after one of these jumps, but all of the pieces of this giant puzzle come together in the end; I would qualify this by saying that the ultimate resolution happens in the reader's mind and is not necessarily spelled out by the author on the final page. The novel features some rather surprising plot twists along the way, and sometimes the reader may think Sturgeon has wandered far off the beaten track. In a sense he has because More Than Human marks the birth of a new kind of science fiction; rest assured that Sturgeon knows exactly where he is going from page one. The novel opens with a self-described and self-acknowledged idiot living the only life he has ever known, one of utter loneliness and nothingness. His one gift is an ability to make people do things for him by looking at them in a certain way. His encounter with a unique, incredibly over sheltered little girl in the woods leads to an early scene of great tragedy and a turning point in the young man's life. Lone, as he manages to name himself, is taken in by a farming couple and introduced to the life he had never known. Elsewhere, a young girl named Janie lives a life of unhappiness under the roof of her unfit mother. She has her own special gift, the ability to move things with her mind, and one day she comes to know a pair of black children who can disappear and reappear at will. All of these characters somehow find each other and begin to see themselves as something more than human after a mongoloid baby is added to the strange little family. Taken together, they are one person: Lone is the head, Janie and the twins are the legs and arms, and Baby is the brilliant thinker that only Janie can communicate with telepathically. What forms out of these interconnected lives is a new type of human being: Human Gestalt. Individual weakness is subsumed by group superhuman strength, but this new type of human is lonely and prone to make mistakes as it struggles to understand itself. The three sections are all remarkably different, yet they work together in much the same fashion as the children to become something incredibly powerful. In broad terms, the first section describes the birth of Human Gestalt, the second section describes its search for a purpose in life and a reason for being, and the third and most important section addresses the ethical and moral ramifications of such a new type of superhuman. The novel is told with such subtle power and mind-numbing beauty that any description I attempt to make will not do it justice. This is thought-provoking science fiction at its best.
Rating:
Summary: One of SF's most challenging, thought-provoking novels
Review: Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human is, quite simply, one of the best and most original science fiction novels of all time; it is also one of the more neglected classics in the field. This magnificent example of literary science fiction belongs on the same shelf as Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and Alfred Bester's first two novels. I was already a Sturgeon fan before reading More Than Human, but even I almost scoffed at comparisons of this novel with the work of William Faulkner (my literary hero). Much to my surprise, though, there is indeed a Faulknerian aspect to this novel. The narrative radiates traces of stream of consciousness and moves quietly back and forth in time from place to place as it approaches the essence of a philosophical revelation from multiple levels. For this reason, you will most likely either love or hate the book, for its greatest strength is very likely, to some readers, its greatest weakness. More Than Human is such a unique novel that some individuals may not consider it science fiction at all; the science wrapped into these pages is of the most abstract and philosophical sort, centering on the question of the future evolution of the human race. The novel is broken up into three very distinct sections, each division marked by a shift in both emphasis and viewpoint. Initially, it can be a little difficult to get your bearings after one of these jumps, but all of the pieces of this giant puzzle come together in the end; I would qualify this by saying that the ultimate resolution happens in the reader's mind and is not necessarily spelled out by the author on the final page. The novel features some rather surprising plot twists along the way, and sometimes the reader may think Sturgeon has wandered far off the beaten track. In a sense he has because More Than Human marks the birth of a new kind of science fiction; rest assured that Sturgeon knows exactly where he is going from page one. The novel opens with a self-described and self-acknowledged idiot living the only life he has ever known, one of utter loneliness and nothingness. His one gift is an ability to make people do things for him by looking at them in a certain way. His encounter with a unique, incredibly over sheltered little girl in the woods leads to an early scene of great tragedy and a turning point in the young man's life. Lone, as he manages to name himself, is taken in by a farming couple and introduced to the life he had never known. Elsewhere, a young girl named Janie lives a life of unhappiness under the roof of her unfit mother. She has her own special gift, the ability to move things with her mind, and one day she comes to know a pair of black children who can disappear and reappear at will. All of these characters somehow find each other and begin to see themselves as something more than human after a mongoloid baby is added to the strange little family. Taken together, they are one person: Lone is the head, Janie and the twins are the legs and arms, and Baby is the brilliant thinker that only Janie can communicate with telepathically. What forms out of these interconnected lives is a new type of human being: Human Gestalt. Individual weakness is subsumed by group superhuman strength, but this new type of human is lonely and prone to make mistakes as it struggles to understand itself. The three sections are all remarkably different, yet they work together in much the same fashion as the children to become something incredibly powerful. In broad terms, the first section describes the birth of Human Gestalt, the second section describes its search for a purpose in life and a reason for being, and the third and most important section addresses the ethical and moral ramifications of such a new type of superhuman. The novel is told with such subtle power and mind-numbing beauty that any description I attempt to make will not do it justice. This is thought-provoking science fiction at its best.
Rating:
Summary: A different science fiction novel
Review: There are several science fiction books about new human species. In most of them the good old Homo Sapienses battle against the new species but the new species is too powerful and destroys the old kind of human beings in the end. Not in this book. "In More than Human" the new species isn't a threat to the Homo Sapiens species, and during the book only one Homo Sapiens gets to know about the new Homo Gestalt species. Also unlike most science fiction books, More than Human isn't about future but past, times when Sturgeon was a child. It's a shame that Sturgeon was almost forgotten after his death. Probably because this kind of romantic and impressionistic yet intelligent books aren't fashionable nowadays.
Rating:
Summary: Superlative on so many levels.
Review: This book is among the best there is in science fiction, and for a number of reasons. I believe it to be one of the pre-eminent "soft SF" works in the field, for its focus lies in a social science; that is, how humanity develops. It is an excellent philosophical discussion about society and how society works and how it may work in the future. And it is, I believe, one of the best examples of writing in the field. Sturgeon, a renowned prose artist, struck me with the simplicity and yet beauty of the language that he uses. His work is structured in such a way as to engage the reader in prose rhythms, the unconscious metronome of a reader's mind that ticks as the reader watches the story unfold through words. Yet the book is not style for style's sake, for it has a most engaging plot and a very satisfying denouement. Every word has a purpose, and many times a sentence or paragraph has multiple functions; description of surroundings, description of character emotion, introducing another idea, mood, atmosphere. Reading the book was like watching a plant grow in time-lapse photography. That is, the speed that which the ideas and concepts come into the book is startling, and yet the whole seems natural and when the plant blossoms finally, the work is whole and complete, without any more loose ends to be tied up.
The book impressed me on a purely style level and its mastery of language, on a level of ideas, and on a level of philosophical discourse. It is certainly one of the best science fiction novels I have ever had the pleasure of reading.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: This book is deserving of the absolute highest praise. The Washington Post said that More than Human "marked a quantum leap in the development of science fiction as an art," and they are absolutely correct. This book, as well as all of Sturgeon's works, has a strong, involved plot which alone is enough to read the book. However, also true of all of Sturgeon's works, the focus of this story is on the characters. Deep, sensitive, intelligent, hurt, scarred, wonderful characters which you will without a doubt see some part of yourself in. This is not a great science-fiction novel, it is one of the most powerful novels of this century.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful
Review: This book is deserving of the absolute highest praise. The Washington Post said that More than Human "marked a quantum leap in the development of science fiction as an art," and they are absolutely correct. This book, as well as all of Sturgeon's works, has a strong, involved plot which alone is enough to read the book. However, also true of all of Sturgeon's works, the focus of this story is on the characters. Deep, sensitive, intelligent, hurt, scarred, wonderful characters which you will without a doubt see some part of yourself in. This is not a great science-fiction novel, it is one of the most powerful novels of this century.
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