Theodore Sturgeon | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Edward Hamilton Waldo (1918-02-26)February 26, 1918 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | May 8, 1985(1985-05-08) (aged 67) Eugene, Oregon, U.S. |
| Pen name | E. Waldo Hunter |
| Relatives | Peter A. Sturgeon (brother) |
| Writing career | |
| Occupation |
|
| Period | 1938–1985 |
| Genre | |
| Subject | Science fiction (as critic) |
| Notable works |
|
| Notable awards | |
Theodore Sturgeon (/ˈstɜːrdʒən/; bornEdward Hamilton Waldo, February 26, 1918 – May 8, 1985) was an American author of primarilyfantasy,science fiction, andhorror, as well as a critic. He wrote approximately 400 reviews and more than 120 short stories, 11 novels, and several scripts forStar Trek: The Original Series.[1]
Sturgeon's science fiction novelMore Than Human (1953) won the 1954International Fantasy Award (for SF and fantasy) as the year's best novel, and theScience Fiction Writers of America ranked "Baby Is Three" number five among the "Greatest Science Fiction Novellas of All Time" to 1964. Ranked by votes for all of their pre-1965 novellas, Sturgeon wassecond among authors, behindRobert Heinlein.
TheScience Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame inducted Sturgeon in 2000, its fifth class of two dead and two living writers.[2]
Sturgeon was born Edward Hamilton Waldo inStaten Island, New York, in 1918. His name was legally changed to Theodore Sturgeon at age eleven after his mother's divorce and subsequent marriage to William Dicky ("Argyll") Sturgeon.[3]Theodore's birth father, Edward Waldo, was a color and dye manufacturer of middling success. With his second wife, Anne, he had one daughter, Joan. Theodore's mother, Christine Hamilton Dicker (Waldo) Sturgeon, was a well-educated writer, watercolorist, and poet who published journalism, poetry, and fiction under the name Felix Sturgeon. His stepfather, William Dickie Sturgeon (sometimes known as Argyll), was a mathematics teacher at a prep school and then Romance Languages Professor at Drexel Institute (laterDrexel Institute of Technology) in Philadelphia. Sturgeon's account of his stepfather is included in a posthumous memoir.[4] Sturgeon's sibling,Peter Sturgeon, wrote technical material for the pharmaceutical industry and theWHO, and founded the American branch ofMensa.
Upon graduating from high school in 1935, Sturgeon pleaded to be allowed to attend college, but his step-father refused to support him, citing his frivolity.[5]
The young Sturgeon held a wide variety of jobs. As an adolescent, he wanted to be a circusacrobat; an episode ofrheumatic fever prevented him from pursuing this. From 1935 (aged 17) to 1938, he was a sailor in themerchant marine, and elements of that experience found their way into several stories. He soldrefrigerators door to door. He managed a hotel inJamaica around 1940–1941, worked in several construction and infrastructure jobs (driving a bulldozer inPuerto Rico, operating afilling station and truck lubrication center, work at adrydock) for the US Army in the early war years, and by 1944 was an advertising copywriter. In addition to freelance fiction and television writing, in New York City he opened his own literary agency[6] (which was eventually transferred toScott Meredith), worked forFortune magazine and other Time Inc. properties on circulation, and edited various publications.
Sturgeon initially had a somewhat irregular output, frequently suffering fromwriter's block. He sold his first story, "Heavy Insurance", in 1938 to theMcClure Syndicate, which bought much of his early work. It appeared in theMilwaukee Journal on July 16th. At first, he wrote mainly short stories, primarily for genre magazines such asAstounding andUnknown, but also for general-interest publications such asArgosy Magazine. He used thepen name "E. Waldo Hunter" when two of his stories ran in the same issue ofAstounding. A few of his early stories were signed "Theodore H. Sturgeon".
Although the bulk of Sturgeon's short story work dated from the 1940s and '50s, his original novels were all published between 1950 and 1961. Disliking arguments withJohn W. Campbell over editorial decisions, Sturgeon only published one story inAstounding after 1950.[7] He did, however, take very seriously Campbell's enthusiasms forpsionics and forL. Ron Hubbard'sDianetics (even before it became theChurch of Scientology in 1953). Sturgeon was"audited" by Campbell himself, and according toAlec Nevala-Lee, he became more devoted to it than any other science fiction writer other thanA.E. van Vogt.[8] He became a trained auditor and defended the Church for decades.
Sturgeon published the "first stories in science fiction which dealt with homosexuality, 'The World Well Lost' [June 1953] and 'Affair with a Green Monkey' [May 1957]",[9] and sometimes put gaysubtext in his work, such as the back-rub scene in "Shore Leave",[10] or in his Western story, "Scars".[11]
Carl Sagan later described "To Here and the Easel" (1954) as "a stunning portrait of personality disassociation as perceived from the inside", and further said that many of Sturgeon's works were among the "rare few science‐fiction novels [that] combine a standard science‐fiction theme with a deep human sensitivity".[12]According to science fiction writerSamuel R. Delany, a friend of Sturgeon's,[13] Sturgeon was bisexual.[14]
Though not as well known to the general public as contemporaries likeIsaac Asimov orRay Bradbury, Sturgeon became well known among readers of mid-20th-century science fiction anthologies. At the height of his popularity in the 1950s he was the most anthologized English-language author alive.[15][16]
Three Sturgeon stories were adapted for the 1950s NBC radio anthologyX Minus One: "A Saucer of Loneliness" (broadcast twice), "The Stars Are the Styx" and "Mr. Costello, Hero".
Sturgeon was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club theTrap Door Spiders, which served as the basis ofIsaac Asimov's fictional group of mystery solvers theBlack Widowers. In 1959, Sturgeon moved toTruro, Massachusetts where he met and became friendly with a then unknownKurt Vonnegut, Jr. (Sturgeon was the inspiration for the recurrent character ofKilgore Trout in Vonnegut's novels.[17])
In 1959, he began to write book reviews forNational Review, and continued until 1973.
Sturgeonghost-wrote oneEllery Queenmystery novel,The Player on the Other Side (Random House, 1963). This novel was praised by criticH. R. F. Keating: "[I] had almost finished writingCrime and Mystery: The 100 Best Books, in which I had includedThe Player on the Other Side ... placing the book squarely in the Queen canon"[18] when he learned that it had been written by Sturgeon. Similarly, William DeAndrea, author and winner ofMystery Writers of America awards, selecting his ten favorite mystery novels for the magazineArmchair Detective, pickedThe Player on the Other Side as one of them. He said: "This book changed my life ... and made a raving mystery fan (and therefore ultimately a mystery writer) out of me. ... The book must be 'one of the most skillful pastiches in the history of literature. An amazing piece of work, whomever did it'."[18]
Sturgeon wrote the screenplays for theStar Trek: The Original Series episodes "Shore Leave" (1966) and "Amok Time" (1967, adapted as aBantam Books "Star Trek Fotonovel" in 1978).[1] The latter featured the first appearance ofpon farr, theVulcan mating ritual, the sentence "Live long and prosper"[19] and theVulcan hand symbol. Sturgeon also wrote several moreStar Trek scripts that were never produced. One of these first introduced thePrime Directive.
Sturgeon also wrote an episode of the Saturday morning showLand of the Lost, "The Pylon Express", in 1975. His 1944 novellaKilldozer! was the inspiration for the 1974made-for-TV movie,Marvel comic book, andalternative rock band of the same name, as well as becoming the colloquial name forMarvin Heemeyer's 2004 bulldozer rage incident.
Though Sturgeon continued to write through 1983, his work rate dipped noticeably in the later years of his life; a 1971 story collection entitledSturgeon Is Alive and Well... addressed Sturgeon's seeming withdrawal from the public eye in a tongue-in-cheek manner. Two of his stories were adapted for the 1980s revival ofThe Twilight Zone. One, "A Saucer of Loneliness", was broadcast in 1986 and was dedicated to his memory. Another short story, "Yesterday Was Monday", was the inspiration forThe Twilight Zone episode "A Matter of Minutes".
Sturgeon played guitar and wrote music, which he sometimes performed atscience fiction conventions. He lived for several years inSpringfield, Oregon.[20] He died on May 8, 1985, oflung fibrosis, atSacred Heart General Hospital in the neighboring city ofEugene.[20] He had been a lifelongpipe smoker and his death from lung fibrosis may have been caused by exposure toasbestos during his Merchant Marine years.
John Clute wrote inThe Encyclopedia of Science Fiction: "His influence upon writers likeHarlan Ellison andSamuel R. Delany was seminal, and in his life and work he was a powerful and generally liberating influence in post-WWII US sf". He won comparatively few genre awards; one was theWorld Fantasy Award for Life Achievement from the 1985 World Fantasy Convention.[21]
In 1957, Sturgeon coined what is now known asSturgeon's Law:
Ninety percent of [science fiction] is crud, but then, ninety percent ofeverything is crud.[22]
This was originally known asSturgeon's Revelation; Sturgeon has said that "Sturgeon's Law" was originally
Nothing is always absolutely so.[This quote needs a citation]
However, the former statement is now widely referred to as Sturgeon's Law. He is also known for his dedication to a credo of critical thinking that challenged all normative assumptions: "Ask the next question."[23] This was the subject of an essay published inCavalier Magazine in June 1967. He represented this credo by the symbol of a Q with an arrow through it, an example of which he wore around his neck and used as part of his signature in the last 15 years of his life.[24]
Sturgeon was married three times, had two long-term committed relationships outside of marriage, divorced once, and fathered a total of seven children. His first wife was Dorothe Fillingame (married 1940, divorced 1945), with whom he had two daughters.[citation needed] He was married to singer Mary Mair from 1949 until an annulment in 1951.[citation needed] In 1953, he wed Marion McGahan, with whom he had two sons and two daughters.[25] In 1969, he began living with Wina Golden, a journalist, with whom he had a son.[26]
Finally, his last long-term committed relationship was with writer and educator Jayne Englehart Tannehill, with whom he remained until the time of his death. She joined Sturgeon at book signings for his collectionMaturity, and signed as "Jayne Sturgeon". Englehart had her own biological son prior to her partnership with Sturgeon, to whom Sturgeon became like a stepfather.[citation needed]
In 1965,Kurt Vonnegut devised the name of his fictional science-fiction writerKilgore Trout as an obscure reference to Sturgeon's name.[27] The two writers had become friends when Sturgeon moved toTruro, Massachusetts in 1957. Vonnegut described Trout as a notably unsuccessful writer, prolifically publishing hackwork only inpulp and pornographic magazines. Since the characterization was unflattering, it was not until after Sturgeon's death that Vonnegut explicitly acknowledged the connection; he stated in a 1987 interview that "Yeah, it said so in his obituary inThe New York Times. I was delighted that it said in the middle of it that he was the inspiration for the Kurt Vonnegut character of Kilgore Trout."[28] In 2000, Vonnegut wrote an admiring introduction to Volume VII ofThe Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon.[29]
Sturgeon, under his own name, was hired to write novelizations of the following movies based on their scripts (links go to articles about the movies):
Sturgeon published numerous short story collections during his lifetime, many drawing on his most prolific writing years of the 1940s and 1950s.
Note that some reprints of these titles (especially paperback editions) may cut one or two stories from the line-up. Statistics herein refer to the original editions only.
The following table includes sixteen volumes (one of them collectingwestern stories). These are considered "original" collections of Sturgeon material, in that they compiled previously uncollected stories. However, some volumes did contain a few reprinted stories: this list includes books that collected only previously uncollected material, as well as those volumes that collectedmostly new material, but also contained up to three stories (representing no more than half the book) that were previously published in a Sturgeon collection.
| Title | Year | Number of stories | previously collected | Originally published | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Earliest story | Latest story | ||||
| Without Sorcery | 1948 | 13 | 1939 | 1947 | |
| E Pluribus Unicorn | 1953 | 13 | 1947 | 1953 | |
| A Way Home | 1955 | 11 | 1946 | 1955 | |
| Caviar | 7 | 1 | 1941 | 1955 | |
| A Touch of Strange | 1958 | 11 | 1953 | 1958 | |
| Aliens 4 | 1959 | 4 | 1944 | 1958 | |
| Beyond | 1960 | 6 | 1941 | 1960 | |
| Sturgeon In Orbit | 1964 | 5 | 1951 | 1955 | |
| Starshine | 1966 | 6 | 3 | 1940 | 1961 |
| Sturgeon Is Alive and Well ... | 1971 | 11 | 1954 | 1971 | |
| The Worlds of Theodore Sturgeon | 1972 | 10 | 3 | 1941 | 1962 |
| Sturgeon's West (westerns) | 1973 | 7 | 1949 | 1973 | |
| Case and the Dreamer | 1974 | 3 | 1962 | 1973 | |
| Visions and Venturers | 1978 | 8 | 1 | 1942 | 1965 |
| The Stars Are The Styx | 1979 | 10 | 1 | 1951 | 1971 |
| The Golden Helix | 10 | 3 | 1941 | 1973 | |
The following six collections consisted entirely of reprints of previously collected material:
| Title | Year | Stories | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Earliest | Latest | |||
| Thunder and Roses | 1957 | 8 | 1946 | 1955 | selected from 11 in 1955's "A Way Home" |
| Not Without Sorcery | 1961 | 8 | 1939 | 1941 | selected from 13 in 1948'sWithout Sorcery |
| The Joyous Invasions | 1965 | 3 | 1955 | 1958 | selected from 4 in 1959's "Aliens 4" |
| To Here and the Easel | 1973 | 6 | 1941 | 1958 | |
| Maturity | 1979 | 3 | 1947 | 1958 | |
| Alien Cargo | 1984 | 14 | 1940 | 1956 | |
North Atlantic Books released the chronologically assembledThe Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, edited byPaul Williams. The series consisted of 13 volumes published between 1994 and 2010. Introductions were provided byHarlan Ellison,Samuel R. Delany,Kurt Vonnegut,Gene Wolfe,Connie Willis,Jonathan Lethem, and others. Extensive story notes were provided byPaul Williams and, in the last two volumes, Sturgeon's daughter Noël.
Sturgeon was best known for his short stories and novellas. The best-known include:
Theodore Sturgeon, the most anthologized writer in the English language but one who'd never written for television beforeStar Trek, received several long letters and memos from Roddenberry.
Veteran science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, reportedly the most anthologized science fiction writer of all time, wrote the teleplay adaptation of his own short story for the ABC-TV movieKilldozer (1974).
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