Normally I don't have a problem with early science fiction, but Sturgeon's stuff from the 1940s and 1950s leaves much to be desired. The stories are very chatty, don't flow well and the book has editorial errors here and there which can be distracting.

The story Shottle Bop was disappointing, for example. A guy walks into a shop that's really not there and makes major changes in his life due to a magic potion. However he uses (and was warned not to) use the power for selfish ends. Then he has a bad end. OK, so? Rod Serling did better.

The last tale, Memorial, about a guy who wants to make an example to Man of the dangers of atomic war has it all backfire. This was a decent tale and thought-provoking.

The story, Maturity, was anything but! A fake love angle with a genius who gets his hormones rebalanced I guess is supposed to be comedy but left me dry and dull.

There are better anthologies out there. I'm sure this may not be the book you want to start to get to know Golden Age fiction nor Theodore Sturgeon's style. Perhaps his style is not mine!

Others that May Work Better:

The Ultimate Egoist: Volume I: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
More Than Human
Selected Stories


( )

Normally I don't have a problem with early science fiction, but Sturgeon's stuff from the 1940s and 1950s leaves much to be desired. The stories are very chatty, don't flow well and the book has editorial errors here and there which can be distracting.

The story Shottle Bop was disappointing, for example. A guy walks into a shop that's really not there and makes major changes in his life due to a magic potion. However he uses (and was warned not to) use the power for selfish ends. Then he has a bad end. OK, so? Rod Serling did better.

The last tale, Memorial, about a guy who wants to make an example to Man of the dangers of atomic war has it all backfire. This was a decent tale and thought-provoking.

The story, Maturity, was anything but! A fake love angle with a genius who gets his hormones rebalanced I guess is supposed to be comedy but left me dry and dull.

There are better anthologies out there. I'm sure this may not be the book you want to start to get to know Golden Age fiction nor Theodore Sturgeon's style. Perhaps his style is not mine!

Others that May Work Better:

The Ultimate Egoist: Volume I: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
More Than Human
Selected Stories


( )

Indeholder "Theodore Sturgeon: From Plynck to Planck, an editorial-introduction", "The Skills of Xanadu", "There Is No Defense", "The Perfect Host", "The Graveyard Reader", "The Other Man", "The Sky Was Filled with Ships", "Shottle Bop", "Maturity", "Memorial".

"Theodore Sturgeon: From Plynck to Planck, an editorial-introduction" handler om ???
"The Skills of Xanadu" handler om ???
"There Is No Defense" handler om ???
"The Perfect Host" handler om ???
"The Graveyard Reader" handler om ???
"The Other Man" handler om ???
"The Sky Was Filled with Ships" handler om ???
"Shottle Bop" handler om ???
"Maturity" handler om ???
"Memorial" handler om ??? ( )

I romanzi brevi ed i racconti di questa antologia sono stati scritti fra il 1946 e il 1956, e forniscono uno spaccato ideale delle tendenze e dei gusti di questo autore; dai temi della fantascienza classica a quelli dell'orrore, dal fantasy al puro gusto per l'insolito (spesso quotidiano), Sturgeon dilata la sua lente poetica e crudele nella sua visione del mondo , con stile a volte allusivo e sempre penetrante,
Incline ad un approfondimento nell'intera gamma dei valori umani, Sturgeon scava sempre a fondo nell'animo umano per estrarne la materia primitiva di ogni sua storia.

Another collection of solid short fiction from Theodore Sturgeon, although I wouldn't put any of these amongst his best. Most of these stories date from the late 1940s. While a couple are science fiction ("There Is No Defense" and "The Sky Was Filled with Ships"), most are more in a dark fantasy bordering on horror vein. Two of them ("There Is No Defense" and "Memorial") are clearly early reactions to the nuclear arms race. Many of these stories show off Sturgeon's trademark empathy for mankind (despite our shortcomings).

Of the six stories which were new to me my favorite was "The Graveyard Reader," which tells of a man who learns to do exactly what the title says. This story included a powerful image which C.L. Moore would repeat almost verbatim in her novel Doomsday Morning (which oddly enough I just finished reading a couple of weeks before picking up this collection) when it was published the following year.

"Shottle Bop" was a repeat for me. The first couple of pages of this early Sturgeon short story are just about perfect, before it heads off in an unexpected direction and finally morphs into the kind of ghost story that we used to swap around the campfire trying to scare each other.

The only real disappointment to me in the collection was the "should we use a superweapon against aliens?" novelette "There Is No Defense." ( )