Book Description
Sci-fi master Theodore Sturgeon wrote stories with power and freshness, and in telling them created a broader understanding of humanity — a legacy for readers and writers to mine for generations. Along with the title story, the collection includes stories written between 1953 and 1955, Sturgeon’s greatest period, with such favorites as “Bulkhead,” “The Golden Helix,” and “To Here and the Easel.”

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This eighth volume of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon collects eleven stories written by the great storyteller at the height of his creative powers, in the years 1953-55. Included are some of his most powerful and best-remembered tales: "The Golden Helix," "Bulkhead," "To Here and the Easel," and the title story "Bright Segment," which was made into a television film in France in 1974. Sturgeon called "Bright Segment," "surely one of the most powerful stories I have ever written."

In 2001, when the readers of Locus, "the newspaper of the science fiction field," were asked to "name the five deceased twentieth-century SF and fantasy writers you think will still be read fifty years from now," Theodore Sturgeon was among the top seven (those named by the most readers).

Although universally acknowledged as "one of the all-time masters of the science fiction short story," Sturgeon has also been referred to (by critic and science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany) as "the American short story writer." In this collection, readers have a chance to explore the range of Sturgeon's work, from classic "hard" science fiction ("The Golden Helix," "Extrapolation") to a "what would happen if?" story that isn't science fiction or fantasy at all ("Bright Segment"), to a story closer to a literary western like Stephen Crane's "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" than to science fiction, although its fantastic element is intriguing and original ("Cactus Dance"). One can also enjoy Sturgeon's exploration of one of the earliest forms of fantastic literature, a tale of the Norse Gods ("The Riddle of Ragnarok"). And of course one will also find examples of Sturgeon's characteristic and very modern, moving, and thought-provoking psychological science fiction ("When You're Smiling," "Twink").

Another example of Sturgeon's surprising range of styles and forms and subjects at this high point in his writing career is "To Here and the Easel," a fantasy novella based in language as well as in theme on Ludovico Ariosto's sixteenth-century epic poem "Orlando Furioso." Critic James Blish called this "my favorite Sturgeon story." It seems very likely that almost every story in this remarkable collection qualifies as someone's favorite Sturgeon story. Another science fiction critic, Damon Knight, wrote, "'To Here and the Easel' was written at the very top of Sturgeon's range, on the same level as More than Human and 'Saucer of Loneliness' and a few others -- a breathtaking display of sustained brilliance."