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stoutfellowI'm currently reading Microcosmic God, the second volume of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon. I'm not quite finished, but I have a few comments to make.
1) The early part of the book consists mainly of dark fantasy or horror stories. (Only two of the stories in volume one were science fiction; the rest were mainstream or fantasy.) I suppose this should not have surprised me; after all, Sturgeon's writing career included (early on) "It!" (the progenitor of DC Comics' Swamp Thing) and (later) "Killdozer". Still, I wasn't expecting it.
2) The notes comment that Sturgeon was not fond of the title story, even though it's one of his two best-known and best-loved stories (the other being "Baby Is Three"). I can understand that; Sturgeon took pride in vivid sensual and emotional description in his writing, and these are lacking in "Microcosmic God". More serious, to my mind, is something I noticed on this reading. The story is told in omniscient POV; we are told of Kidder's thoughts and actions when he is alone, and we also see scenes in a secret office in the White House. But the story ends with the line, "When I think of that, I feel frightened." The narrator is thus located in the time and place of the story, and his place is outside Kidder's impenetrable force field - despite having, a page or two earlier, described with understated certainty what Kidder was doing under that field. That's kind of a significant blunder; whether it was part of Sturgeon's complaint, I don't know.
3) This is trivial, but it's what prompted this post now instead of later. In "Two Percent Inspiration", Sturgeon's mad scientist invites his new intern to board "the good ship Stoutfella".... :grins:
1) The early part of the book consists mainly of dark fantasy or horror stories. (Only two of the stories in volume one were science fiction; the rest were mainstream or fantasy.) I suppose this should not have surprised me; after all, Sturgeon's writing career included (early on) "It!" (the progenitor of DC Comics' Swamp Thing) and (later) "Killdozer". Still, I wasn't expecting it.
2) The notes comment that Sturgeon was not fond of the title story, even though it's one of his two best-known and best-loved stories (the other being "Baby Is Three"). I can understand that; Sturgeon took pride in vivid sensual and emotional description in his writing, and these are lacking in "Microcosmic God". More serious, to my mind, is something I noticed on this reading. The story is told in omniscient POV; we are told of Kidder's thoughts and actions when he is alone, and we also see scenes in a secret office in the White House. But the story ends with the line, "When I think of that, I feel frightened." The narrator is thus located in the time and place of the story, and his place is outside Kidder's impenetrable force field - despite having, a page or two earlier, described with understated certainty what Kidder was doing under that field. That's kind of a significant blunder; whether it was part of Sturgeon's complaint, I don't know.
3) This is trivial, but it's what prompted this post now instead of later. In "Two Percent Inspiration", Sturgeon's mad scientist invites his new intern to board "the good ship Stoutfella".... :grins:
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Date: 2013-11-30 06:53 pm (UTC)