Theodore Sturgeon
Audiobook | Pages: 326 pages Rating: 4.24 | 98 Users | 10 Reviews
Define Books In Pursuance Of Slow Sculpture (The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon #12)
| Original Title: | Slow Sculpture |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Series: | The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon #12 |
| Literary Awards: | Hugo Award for Best Short Story for “Slow Sculpture” (1971), Nebula Award for Best Novelette (1970), Locus Award Nominee for Best Collection (2010) |
Narrative Concering Books Slow Sculpture (The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon #12)
The strongest collection in the entire 13-volume series, if you can trust my tour of its highlights:~ "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff" is a novella straight from the pinnacle of Sturgeon's acme, casting (or, like the fire at its end, burning) insights into what makes human beings tick, and making us re-evaluate our taken-for-granteds. Such as the idea that staying decent is more important than staying alive. The story distills "Ask the next question," the principle that Sturgeon championed throughout his life.
It also took my breath away with its diversity of characters and thought processes. If there is one piece I could give as an example of writing a varied, verisimilar cast, this would be it.
If the plot had been more dynamic, I'd have placed "The [Widget]..." on the same pedestal as More Than Human and To Marry Medusa .
~ "Slow Sculpture" is the most condensed, most moving, most Sturgeonesque of them all. I know I still have a volume and a half to read, yet I am certain of this verdict.
It works on absolutely every level: the fascinating scientific theory; the enormous stakes (both the life of one protagonist and the fate of humankind--but not in that literal, banal sense); the lovable, multi-faceted protagonists, with their pain and pathos gathered over two lifetimes; the resolution; the choice of words and metaphors and imagery ....
I don't know if there's any point in writing this. Don't waste your time with it; go straight for "Slow Sculpture," even if it's the only Sturgeon story you'll ever read.
(I bet it won't be.)
~ In his mid-50s, Sturgeon was not only alive and well; he was also as naughty as ever. Consider "Necessary and Sufficient," a novelette in which a scientist functions better the greater the pressure on him. So he, perhaps unconsciously, gets involved with two women at the same time.
Here're some of the effects when the ladies find out about each other:
“What happened?”
“We’ll never know. Whatever it was, Lasvogel walked in on it.”
“That must have been the night he limped into the lab with the scratches on his face and the big bruise on his cheekbone.”
“Language of love,” said Merrihew. “One of ’em.”
“And by morning he had the new formulation.”
“Pressure enough,” said Merrihew, spreading his hands in a Q.E.D. gesture. “Necessary and sufficient.”
And then--the grand finale. Which I will not spoil for you. Let me just say I haven't laughed so hard in a while.
~ I've already talked so much about "Occam's Scalpel" to my friends (besides translating it for our anthology Зелени разкази (ама _наистина_)) that I'm hard put to find anything to say here. Just like in "Slow Sculpture," the characters are shown gorgeously, the scientific theory kicks our brains around ("Stop sleeping tight, ya morons!") , and the finale blows them into deep space. Looking for ... what? :D
... So. Is there any point in writing this?
~ Straight from the Story Notes on "Occam's Scalpel"--and in the face of materialist reductionists:
Sturgeon’s intro to this one:
Who was the richest man in the world in 1971, while I was writing this? And what came creeping into my typewriter to suggest that any particular rich man would die under inexplicably mysterious circumstances?
I am unabashedly proud of some of the things I have done and can do with a typewriter. I’ve gone through a lot of grinding and polishing and tumbling to learn how to do it.
But there is something else that happens once in a while, something I’m unaware of at the time, which doesn’t manifest itself to me until after I’ve written a passage and reread it. I see then some hundreds or thousands of words written outside any learned idiom, written, as it were, in a different “voice,” and containing, sometimes, factual material which I did not and could not have known at the time, and (rather more often) emotional reactions and attitudes which I know I have not experienced. This phenomenon is quite beyond my control; that is, I know of no way to command or evoke it. I just have to wait for it to happen, which it seldom does. When it does, it keeps me humble; when I’m complimented on it, I feel guilty.
Howard Hughes, the reclusive billionaire, died in April 1976 of malnutrion. Sturgeon seems to be implying by this introduction that at the time he wrote “Occam’s Scalpel,” it was not known that Hughes would die of starvation like the rich man in the story.
~ "Pruzy's Pot," the finishing touch to this collection, is both an act of wild hooliganism (I approve!) and a kick turning our fingers back at ourselves (I approve!).
A good way to conclude, all in all. Just ... hold your pants tight. ;)
Mention Of Books Slow Sculpture (The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon #12)
| Title | : | Slow Sculpture (The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon #12) |
| Author | : | Theodore Sturgeon |
| Book Format | : | Audiobook |
| Book Edition | : | Deluxe Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 326 pages |
| Published | : | Hugo Award Winners: Best Short Story 62 books — 43 voters Nebula Award: Best Novelette 40 books — 2 voters |
| Categories | : | Science Fiction. Short Stories. Fantasy |
Rating Of Books Slow Sculpture (The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon #12)
Ratings: 4.24 From 98 Users | 10 ReviewsEvaluate Of Books Slow Sculpture (The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon #12)
Theodore Sturgeon (19181985) is considered one of the godfathers of contemporary science fiction and dark fantasy. The author of numerous acclaimed short stories and novels, among them the classics More Than Human, Venus Plus X, and To Marry Medusa, Sturgeon also wrote for television and holds among his credits two episodes of the original 1960s Star Trek series, for which he created the VulcanThe strongest collection in the entire 13-volume series, if you can trust my tour of its highlights:~ "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff" is a novella straight from the pinnacle of Sturgeon's acme, casting (or, like the fire at its end, burning) insights into what makes human beings tick, and making us re-evaluate our taken-for-granteds. Such as the idea that staying decent is more important than staying alive. The story distills "Ask the next question," the principle that Sturgeon championedI rarely give a book the "it was amazing" five stars. Theodore Sturgeon manages to mix stories that cause serious thought with humor. Theodore Sturgeon was a fan of critical thinking, challenging assumptions, and a romantic at heart with the stories in this collection an expression of this.Aliens study Earth and its humans in The [Widget:], the [Wadget:], and Boff. The goal is to figure out if humans have Synapse Beta sub Sixteen. It seems like it's present but maybe they don't use it?The
The strongest collection in the entire 13-volume series, if you can trust my tour of its highlights:~ "The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff" is a novella straight from the pinnacle of Sturgeon's acme, casting (or, like the fire at its end, burning) insights into what makes human beings tick, and making us re-evaluate our taken-for-granteds. Such as the idea that staying decent is more important than staying alive. The story distills "Ask the next question," the principle that Sturgeon championed
One of my all-time favourite tear-jerkers.
This is an excellent set of short stories that belies Sturgeon's pronouncement that 99 percent of all genre fiction is crap and executes brilliantly his other dictum--that good writing and good thinking require us always to "ask the next question." It always amazes me how many of my friends who read science fiction regularly don't remember his work. He should be, and in my mind is, one of science fiction's pantheon along with Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Niven, and Bradbury.
Reading this one was kind of strange, if only for reasons that are highly specific to me and probably won't resonate with anyone else. When I started reading this series years and years ago (in the late nineties as the early volumes were coming out, before I wound up taking an unintended fifteen year hiatus) the one story the biographical blurbs kept referring to was "Slow Sculpture" since it had won the Hugo and Nebula the year it was published. I was at a stage where winning both awards to me
I actually blogged about this:http://hisvorpal.wordpress.com/2009/1...1 December 2009Sturgeon is Neither Alive nor WellJust in time for Christmas, I received Slow Sculpture, Volume XII of the complete stories of Theodore Sturgeon (hardcover, North Atlantic Press, $35, 299 p.)There are a number of interesting sidelights about it: this is the first of two volumes (Vol. XIII will be the final volume in 2010) to be edited by his daughter Noël Sturgeon (who has suffered a lifetime of umlaut
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