The Dreaming Jewels/The Cosmic Rape/Venus Plus X

by Theodore Sturgeon, Theo Rudnak (Illustrator)

THE DREAMING The story follows an 8-year-old boy named Horton "Horty" Bluett, who runs away from his abusive family, carrying only a smashed jack-in-the-box named Junky. Horty takes refuge among the "strange people" in a traveling circus, disguised as a girl. The owner of the carnival, Pierre Monetre, is a disgraced doctor and scientist with a deep hatred of mankind. Having discovered intelligent extraterrestrial life in the form of crystal-like jewels, Monetre works to unlock the source of their great power and, ultimately, destroy mankind. This book was also published as "Synthetic Man". THE COSMIC The Cosmic Rape is also known as To Marry Medusa (1987). Expanded from the novelette "To Marry Medusa". The Medusa, a hive-like being with a consuming appetite to absorb all life in the universe, had come to Earth and taken control of its first human being, a skid-row drunk. Through him it would possess the world... VENUS PLUS Charlie Johns has been snatched from his home on 61 North 34th Street and delivered to the strange future world of Ledom. Here, violence is a vague and improbable notion. Technology has triumphed over hunger, overpopulation, pollution, even time and space. But there is a change Charlie finds even more gender is a thing of the past. Venus Plus X is Theodore Sturgeon's brilliant evocation of a civilization for whom tensions between male and female and the human preoccupation with sex no longer exist. As Charlie Johns explores Ledom and its people, he finds that the human precepts he holds dear are profane in this new world. But has Charlie learned all there is to know about this advanced society? And why are the Ledom so intent on gaining Charlie's approval? Unsettling, compelling, and no less than visionary, here is science fiction at its a novel whose wisdom and lyricism make it one of the most original and insightful speculations on gender ever produced.

Genres: Science Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Fiction

537 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1990

About the author

Theodore Sturgeon (1918–1985) 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 Vulcan mating ritual and the expression "Live long and prosper." He is also credited as the inspiration for Kurt Vonnegut's recurring fictional character Kilgore Trout.

Sturgeon is the recipient of the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the International Fantasy Award. In 2000, he was posthumously honored with a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.

Reviews

[David Anderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I shall take the same approach to reading, rating, and/or reviewing this Theodore Sturgeon omnibus edition as I have with other omnibus editions (such as The Mysterious Mr. Ripley, a Patricia Highsmith omnibus). I will mark my progress in reading each novel here, but post my rating and review on the Goodreads page for that novel, providing an overall rating for the omnibus when I finish the last novel.

Finished reading; highly recommended, 4 of 5 stars.

[Loring Wirbel · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I was in my elementary school kick of reading collections of sci-fi short stories, I always kept my eye out for Theodore Sturgeon. The stories were far better written than your average space opera, in fact closer to literary fiction than to sci-fi per se. I was dimly aware that Kurt Vonnegut used Sturgeon as the model for Kilgore Trout, and that writers with a post-mortem bloom in popularity, like Philip K. Dick, often pointed to Sturgeon as a template or muse. Given that, why have I ignored the dozen or so volumes of Sturgeon's short stories, which have given him a deserved 21st-century audience? Maybe the massive nature of the task scared me.

Anyway, I'm glad to have found a used copy of this odd 1990 collection of three great novels from Sturgeon. What is evident here is that he is almost as open about gender roles and norms of empathy, even while writing in the repressive 1950s, as Ursula K. LeGuin is, but he doesn't go as far in declaring his utopias. Instead, Sturgeon just sets out the characters and societies as existing the way they should be. As such, they seem like normal scenarious in 2026.

I'd like to know the genesis of how this book was published. Although Quality Paperbacks was considered a known entity in tue 1980s/90s, this edition was a slapdash affair - the three novels were lifted from their earlier editions while preserving the original font and typeface size, which made the book as a whole seem like a scrapbook. Of course, games with display could not change the quality of the underlying words, and all three of these novels rank among Sturgeon's finest books. The fact that there are so many volumes of his short stories available now, may mean he is enjoying a renaissance the size of Philip K. Dick's. I can't think of anyone in the mid-century sci-fi scene who deserved it more.

[Denis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of what I’ve read from Theodore Sturgeon are short stories. Like Clarke, those are what he is most prolific and known for - and, as is with Clarke, perhaps, best with. When it comes to his novels – those I’ve read: “More than Human” (which is a fix-up mostly consisting of previously published short stories) and his swansong “Godbody” – which was a rather short novel.

This is an omnibus edition that includes "The Dreaming Jewels (aka "The Synthetic Man"), "The Cosmic Rape" (aka "To Marry Medusa") and "Venus X".

"The Dreaming Jewels" (aka "The Synthetic Man") consisted of a standard Sturgeon theme: Misfits with extraordinary sensitive human traits. He often includes obligatory quasi pseudo-science, but his strength is with his depiction of human emotion and how one who is somehow alienated from society and or his own culture, copes with the so called "norm".

The protagonist – a weird adopted kid, who is not loved in his home, gets sent home from school because he was caught eating ants. The result leads him to running away and join the circus - a classic idea, yes, but because he ate ant? - an that is Sturgeon's genius. He then gets a gig playing the part of a girl midget with another who is really a girl... and so on. That’s the set up. The dialogue is, at times, a bit stiff, but the overall story is quite good. It is mulch-dimentional, fun and sad and laced with moments of brilliance.