The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume IV: Thunder and Roses

The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon #4

by Theodore Sturgeon, James Gunn (Foreword), Paul Williams (Editor)

Table of Contents:
Foreword by James Gunn
Stories:
Maturity
Tiny and the Monster
The Sky Was Full of Ships
Largo
Thunder and Roses
It Wasn't Syzygy
The Blue Letter (prev unpub)
Wham Bop
Well Spiced
Hurricane Trio
That Low
Memory
There Is No Defense
The Professor's Teddy-Bear
A Way Home
Maturity (original second half)

Genres: Science Fiction, Short Stories, Collections, Speculative Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy, Horror

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

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

[Kalin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a marvel to behold, how Sturgeon the apprentice burst into the master Sturgeon. Bang at the start of the book too: smiling at you along with Robin English from "Maturity."

(However, this may be an exaggeration. Sturgeon did rewrite the second half of "Maturity" several years later, to make it more, well, more mature. The first version, as Clifford Simak pointed out to him, had a stellar start but slid into mundanity.)

Stop reading this review and go read that collection. Especially "Maturity," "Thunder and Roses," "Tiny and the Monster."

... Still here?! Ah well. Suit yourselves.

Or help yourselves to these bites, cooked as I read.

[Gabi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great presentation of Sturgeon’s work.

It starts of with „Maturity“ (1947), a story where the title fits the content as well as the writing development of the author himself. Here is the Sturgeon I learned to know when I first started reading SF short stories (which mainly consisted of his later works): Deeply immersed in a topic, thinking it through to the very end. What if we had superpowers? Where would it eventually lead to?
I was especially delighted that this volume contains the re-written end of the story as well as the first ending. Sturgeon did re-write his already published story after critique from Clifford D. Simak and the second ending is so much better!

Again in this volume can be witnessed the broad range of interests and style of Sturgeon. There is „Hurrican Trio“, the deeply human and thoughful scenario of the boredom of a marriage and the meaning of love, which enchanted me with its honest and tender writing.
Or the title story „Thunder and Roses“ which moved me to tears with its consequential follow up of the disaster of an atomic war.
Apparently completely fascinated by rhythm and arrangement of music he wrote „Wham Bop!“, which just went over my head, cause I’m not familiar enough with the insight into jazz bands or playing those kind of instruments.
Then we have „The Professor’s Teddy Bear“, a blood chilling, merciless horror story and the weird „It wasn’t Syzygy“, which deals with a topic quite frequent in SF, but back then when I read it for the first time it was all new to me and fascinated me profoundly.

Sturgeon takes anything that interests him and turns it into writing. Since his interests are rather wide spread so are the topics of his stories, which results in the fact, that some of them pierce right through my heart and are among the best I’ve ever read, and some of them I DNF, because I can’t get into the writing or the plot at all – yet all of them have the very special Sturgeon stamp affixed, the mark of his genius.

I’m so grateful for these collections and the work Paul Williams put into them. On to the next volume!

[Michael O'Donnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This fourth volume of ‘The Complete Stories’ series consists of stories written between 1946 and 1948, when Sturgeon had recovered from his writers’ block and regained his confidence as a writer following his competition win with ‘Bianca’s Hands’ in Argosy magazine.

The volume contains the following stories:

Maturity

A savant, suffering from infantilism, undergoes hormone treatment to give him a more mature personality. Fearing that loss of his child-like wonder at the world will stunt his creativity, the man suspends treatment. The resulting hormonal imbalance results in his mind maturing to a level never seen before in humanity, with tragic consequences.

Considered one of Sturgeon’s best and most critically acclaimed stories.


Tiny And The Monster

A lighthearted story of a metallurgist, whose dog appears to be able to read her mind and seems to be trying to tell her something.


The Sky Was Full of Ships

A cave is discovered containing an alien recording device, which has been recording the whole of human history since pre-historic times. The device begins transmitting its information to its creators when the first atomic bomb is used.

The story was adapted for radio in 1950 as an episode of Beyond Tomorrow under the title Incident at Switchpath. Anyone interested in hearing this can find it at my website, scifimike.com.


Largo

A violinist, being exploited by his manager and obsessed with his manager’s wife, composes a musical masterpiece which he uses to get revenge.


Thunder and Roses

Following a devastating nuclear attack on the United States, with everyone in the Western hemisphere dead or dying of radiation sickness, a soldier must decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike at the enemy, which will sterilise the entire Earth, or hold off and allow humanity to survive.


It’s Not Syzygy

A man falls in love with his ideal woman and finds that he is also the man of her dreams.


The Blue Letter

A short, unpublished story about a man who receives a letter from his wife requesting a divorce, leading him to re-evaluate his relationship with his new girlfriend.


Wham Bop!

A drummer in a jazz band tries to sabotage his rival’s chance of being spotted by a big-time talent scout.

One of the few Sturgeon stories, other than his early work for newspaper syndication, not published in a science fiction magazine. This was published in Varsity, a magazine aimed at high school boys.


Well Spiced

Another of the few non-sf Sturgeon stories. This one was published in Zane Grey’s Western Magazine and follows a cook in a western frontier town who uses his culinary skill to expose a fraud in a neighbouring town, which is competing to become county seat and attract the railroad.


Hurricane Trio

A man is killed in a car crash with a parked flying saucer on a lonely country road. Restored to life by the aliens, with a new, improved mind and body, the man re-assesses his relationship with his wife and the woman he was contemplating leaving her for.

Written in a more literary style and originally with no SF content, this story was intended for sale to the ‘slick’ magazines, but it didn’t sell. The story was rewritten, with the SF element added, and sold to Galaxy Science Fiction magazine a few years later.


How Low

A failure visits a psychic to see what his future holds before deciding whether to kill himself.


Memory

A tale of industrial espionage, as a two-man family business must fend off a giant conglomerate determined to steal their idea of how to fit more plastic pipe into the limited space in a cargo spacecraft’s hold.


There Is No Defence

Following an interplanetary war between Earth, Mars and Jupiter, a fragile peace holds, overseen by The Joint Solar Military Council. When an unknown, invincible spaceship enters the Solar System and begins a series of devastating attacks on colonies and bases, the Council must decide whether to use the ultimate weapon — The Death. But first, they have to persuade the pacifist delegate to the Council to agree, as a unanimous decision is required. And why is the Jovian delegate abstaining from voting?


The Professor’s Teddy Bear

A monster, disguised as a child’s teddy bear, manipulates the mind of a child such that he has waking dreams of his future self. The monster then feeds on the knowledge provided by the child’s adult self in the dream.


A Way Home

A boy decides to run away from home, and imagines various scenarios for his future life and how he would return home as an adult.


All together, another well worthwhile collection of Sturgeon stories. The quality of the author’s writing is now consistently above average, as this volume shows with Hurricane Trio and A Way Home, both originally intended for the higher paying non-SF market, and Maturity, with it’s definite Flowers For Algernon vibe.

Highly recommended for anyone wanting an introduction to Sturgeon.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ted Sturgeon is one of those strange authors that plenty of people in the speculative fiction genres cite as a major influence, yet is not widely known by most anyone else. could be that in the era of dwindling short fiction magazines, most press coverage (e.g., NYT bestseller lists and all) focuses only on novels? Sturgeon only ever wrote a few novels, and they're each reviewed as pretty good at best. but short stories, WOW, he was an absolute master at the form.

this particular collection, volume 4 out of a 10+ book series collecting ALL of his shorter-than-novel-length work, focuses around the mid-1940s. some of it comes off a bit dated (social mores at the time included use of "negro" or "colored", and it's jarring in our modern sensitivity), but most of it is still as freshly futuristic as when it was written. this isn't all gleaming 'rocket boy saves the world' sci-fi; much of it is dystopic, some is horrific, some is beautiful, but all of it is distinctly human. Sturgeon is definitely a writer's writer: wordplay is amazing without being pretentious (just try reading some of these out loud, the cadence & rhythm is subtle but beautiful), and there is a real magic in creating an entire world/emotion in the span of 8 pages. rather unusual for these old back-in-the-day guys, female characters are both as strong and as flawed as their male counterparts, not ghettoized into being only demure violets or domestic goddesses. this entire series is well worth checking out.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not going to be a complete story-by-story review of the book Thunder and Roses.

First, about the parts beside the stories:

I think that Jacek Yerka's "Sun Spots" cover is dreadful. I have seen other work from Yerka (including the cover of the first book in this series, The Ultimate Egoist) that I like, but this picture is not only ugly but not, in my opinion, in any way representative of the spirit of Theodore Sturgeon.

I note that James Gunn's "Foreward" was not written for this book. It comes from Gunn's earlier book, The Joy Machine, which was based on an unused outline written by Sturgeon for an episode of Star Trek that was never filmed. (The copyright for the foreward, which for some reason amuses me, is "by Paramount Pictures.") The foreward tells of Gunn's acquaintance and growing friendship with Sturgeon, and of Sturgeon's career and his "charm and empathy and concern for style." This is a gracious and touching memoir.

The story notes by Paul Williams are, as they are throughout this series, both helpful and frustrating. I greatly wish that Williams had included more opinions, more about the stories as fiction; that was clearly not what Williams wanted to do, though. Some of the notes are terse, as in the following, quoted in its entirety:

"Memory": first published in Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1948. Written in summer or fall 1947.

Others are very much longer with valuable information, particularly the notes on "Maturity," "Largo," "Thunder and Roses," and "It Wasn't Syzygy."

And as for the stories...

There are fifteen stories in this volume, all written in 1946-1947. Most of them are science fiction or fantasy. The ones that are not are "The Blue Letter," "Wham Bop!," "Well Spiced," and "A Way Home." Of the science fiction tales, three of them seem to me to be not especially memorable. There is little in them that seems to me to proclaim, "This was written by Theodore Sturgeon!" Those are "The Sky Was Full of Ships," "Memory," and "There Is No Defense."

"The Blue Letter" is a brief, New Yorker-ish story that had not been published before appearing here. I don't know why it wasn't. I like it, and think it conveys its mood effectively.

"Wham Bop!" is about jazz musicians. "Well Spiced" is a Western, originally appearing in Zane Grey's Western Magazine. They are both good but unexciting tales.

"A Way Home" is a non-genre story that was originally published in a science fiction magazine, Amazing. Some of the children in Sturgeon's fiction are vaudeville comics in miniature - see, for example, the little girls in "Mewhu's Jet," "The Chromium Helmet," and "The Hag Sèleen." He generally does better with boys: Gerry in "Baby Is Three," Horty in The Dreaming Jewels, and Paul in this story, all convincing as children. This is about a boy running away from home, who pictures scenarios of his possible future, and then makes a decision. It is a genuine shame that works as good as this did not reach the larger audience for whom they were intended.

"The Professor's Teddy Bear" is a horror story that originally appeared in Weird Tales. Sturgeon did not write much flat-out horror, but that included some of his most memorable work. "Bianca's Hands" and "It" are probably his most famous horror tales, but "The Professor's Teddy Bear" is also fine.

"That Low" is the strangest, and in some ways the saddest, story in this book. The main character is named Fowler, but he is a spiritual brother to Al Capp's Joe Btfsplk, the guy in Li'l Abner with a permanent raincloud over his head. He is also a (very) distant cousin to Cleveland Wheeler in Sturgeon's story "Occam's Scalpel." Fowler was "a failure specialist"; Wheeler never had "a failure in anything he tried." But they each at one point owe a lot of money. Fowler "put a list of his obligations down on paper and drew up a plan to take care of things. It was a plan that was within his capabilities and meant chip, chip, chip for a long, long time before he could ever call himself honestly broke again." Wheeler "went on until all the bills were paid - every cent." But while their circumstances and their determinations were briefly similar, the men were really not, and their lives became very different indeed. Fowler had nothing after that but what most folks would consider bad luck...but most folks are not all folks, and that is part of the point of the story.

"Largo" is a story of the world's greatest violinist/composer, his grasping manager, and the woman who becomes the manager's wife, with whom the violinist fell in love at first sight...but at first sight only. When I was about twelve years old, I thought this was quite wonderful. Now I think that it is preposterous - but still, in some ways, wonderful.

My comments about "Hurricane Trio"
are quoted, with some minor changes, from my earlier review of the April, 1955 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction, in which it was originally published:

Theodore Sturgeon stated that "Hurricane Trio" had been written and originally marketed as a non-genre story with no science fiction elements. When it did not sell that way, he revised it as a science fiction tale. A married couple on a vacation meet a single woman. The husband is powerfully attracted to her, but takes no action. Some time later, on another vacation, they happen to meet again. The couple and the other woman are forced by circumstances to share a bedroom, with the couple in one bed and the other woman in the other. The wife, aware of the attraction, leaves her husband alone with the other woman, saying that she is going into another room to read a very long book. What will happen?

That is the essential story. The tacked-on science fiction tells of an earlier automobile accident in which the husband was killed crashing into a spaceship. The aliens in the ship had repaired him so that he was better than new, not a superbeing but a man with unusual mental acuity. This plays very little part in the story.

As with much of his fiction, there is some very fine prose here. I like the story but I do not think it is Sturgeon at his best; I believe that the earlier version might well have been better.

"It Wasn't Syzygy" is a very tricky tale about a man and woman who meet, each believing that the other is the perfectly matched person that they have waited for all their lives. They are correct, but for a reason that they (or the reader) could not have known. This is funny, moving, and utterly unexpected.


"Thunder and Roses" is a story with a moral, that being that "America First" can be a pernicious doctrine, and that the world and humankind should be valued more than any one group. This takes place after a nuclear war when the Western Hemisphere is doomed but humanity might continue in other locations, if they are not wiped out as well. I have read this story many times and keep switching my opinion between this being maudlin or being tremendously moving. At the moment, I am leaning toward the latter.

I think that "Thunder and Roses" is a fine title. I believe that it was original with Sturgeon, which would mean that the two later-written novels with the same title and a third book titled Of Thunder and Roses: A Historical Romantic Drama set in the Pioneer Days all have titles that either were arrived at by a remarkable coincidence or else that they were "borrowed" from Sturgeon.

My comments about "Tiny and the Monster" are also quoted with minor changes from an earlier review of mine, this one a review of the May, 1947 issue of Astounding Science Fiction:

"Tiny and the Monster" is the story of an alien who needs help to repair a spaceship. The alien enlists the aid of Tiny, a Great Dane, and three people, Tiny's male owner from St. Croix, a female metallurgist, and the metallurgist's mother. This story was known for having an alien who looks too strange to let him/her/itself be seen but is benevolent. This is an excellent and well-known story.

Once again my comments about one of the stories come, somewhat changed, from an earlier review. The story is "Maturity", and my earlier review was of the book Maturity: Three Stories:

In the introduction to Maturity: Three Stories, Sturgeon explains that this story first appeared in Astounding Science Fiction (in the February, 1947 issue), that he was "profoundly dissatisfied" with it, and rewrote it when it appeared in a collection of his stories. And he should have been dissatisfied; that first version starts very well and then falls apart. That earlier version, as well as the rewritten one, appear in The Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume IV: Thunder and Roses.

"Maturity" has three main characters. The central one is Robin English, a brilliant, sparkling manchild, unable to concentrate on any one thing for long. He writes, invents, paints and sculpts, plays a variety of musical instruments; but what could he do, what could he be, if he truly worked at something?

He has aroused the interest of two physicians. Margaretta Wendell, sometimes known as "Peg," is an endocrinologist, whose interest in Robin has become love.

The other physician is Mel Warfield, who has a plan to adjust Robin's glandular levels chemically. This will shrink his thymus and change him from a "static precocity" to maturity. Mel is in love with Peg.

Much of the story is concerned with what maturity is, for animals and for people. This material is fascinating, even when presented in a long, unbelievable conversation of strangers meeting in a bar, two of them being Robin and Peg. Traveling salesmen and showgirls simply don't, I think, normally act this way and certainly don't use terms like "ontogenetic peak." This conversation has nothing to do with the plot, but everything to do with the story as a whole.

There are quite wonderful things in the story. Robin begins as someone who almost compulsively makes puns, and many of them are really funny.

And, as with most of Sturgeon's stories, there is some lovely prose.

The first version of this story, the one that appeared in Astounding, had Robin battling against a "Napoleon of crime" figure. The notes in Thunder and Roses quote two famous fellow-writers of Sturgeon's, Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein, as praising the first version in letters to Sturgeon, and another author, Clifford Simak, decrying the ending in another letter. I think that Simak was clearly right.

"In 1952," Sturgeon wrote later, "I became father of my firstborn son, and so I named him Robin, after the protagonist of this story."

And one more comment about this story; I have never understood the last sentence.

I had hoped to include some of my favorite passages from the book, but Goodreads won't spare the space.

There are only a handful of stories in this book that I would include on my list of Absolutely Indispensable Sturgeon. Those are "The Professor's Teddy Bear," "A Way Home," "Thunder and Roses," "Tiny and the Monster," and "Maturity." "Largo" and "It Wasn't Syzygy" are also recommended.

[Klay Kubiak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great sci-fi

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing selection of stories, written when Sturgeon was emerging as a master of science fiction, in the late 1940s. Among my favorites are "Maturity" (a poignant tale of what might really happen if a man became a superman), "Thunder and Roses" (after we suffer a nuclear attack, our country's reaction is not what anyone might expect), "The Sky Was Full of Ships" (an ancient aliens story -- but an amazingly good one), "The Professor's Teddy Bear" (an original and wonderfully twisted horror story), "It Wasn't Syzgy" (which is kind of like an episode of "The Twilight Zone" on steroids), and there is even an offbeat Western story ("Well Spiced") in which the unlikely hero is an immigrant Greek cook! Wonderful stuff!

[Raja99 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note: My hardcover copy has different cover art; according to one website, the art on my hardcover copy is by Paula Morrison. I don't know if this means there was more than one hardcover edition. For what it's worth, my just-purchased Kindle edition does have this art.

[Fynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maturity – 4/5 – Story about a guy with ADHD getting cured of his ADHD. Felt personally called out. Moral of the story: Don't let therapists bully the freak out of you.

Tiny and the Monster – 5/5 – The characters in this one are great. That includes the dog. The author's notes about this say that the story got kind of away from Sturgeon when he added the mom character because she just took over the plot development and narrating and yeah, I believe that. Wonderful, though, 100% Sturgeon-esque weirdos, especially the women.

The Sky Was Full of Ships – 4/5 – Nice twist. Is that a twist? Takes place in Switchpath, AZ, which isn't a real place but sounds like it should be.

Largo – 4/5 – Story about a guy with autism getting so lost in his autism that he misses an entire war. Lots of music.

Thunder and Roses – 5/5 and then some – Jesus. That's the darkest Sturgeon story I've read so far, but it's so, so good. What the fuck. Takes place in a country that's been reduced to rubble and flames by atomic bombs and everyone who hasn't died yet is just waiting to drop. (Mentions some tech very similar to DVDs, which is interesting.)

It Wasn't Syzygy – 5/5 – Written by a man falling out of love. Incredibly insight into Sturgeon's worldview and his favourite topic of how love ties individuals together, if they want it or not.

The Blue Letter – 4/5 – This one's like three pages long. It's interesting. Apparently Sturgeon wanted to rework it into something bigger with aliens but never did. You can tell he was halfway through a divorce when he wrote this.

Wham Bop! – 3/5 – One with cool cats playing drums.

Well Spiced – 4/5 – One with cowboys. I wonder what he wrote this for because it's not typical Sturgeon material at all. Just a story with a beginning, a middle and an end with no horror and no aliens in sight. But it's fun.

Hurricane Trio – 5/5 – A story about a man and his wife and the consequences of growing and learning and loving, and aliens. Again, there was a divorce happening when this was written. It's like Theodore Sturgeon wrote Theodore Sturgeon RPF fix-its.

That Low – 4/5 – Short story about a guy with bad luck and a happy ending.

Memory – 2/5 – Plastics, Mars colonies, a woman with green hair: stuff of the future. Sexist as hell, though. Someone was getting a divorce whilst writing this. And I feel like I've been advertised to even though I don't even have use for compact plastic pipes.

There is no Defense – 4/5 – Classic space adventure about pacifism and nuclear bombs, complete with insectoid alien species and laser blasters. Would have made a fantastic Star Trek TOS episode.

The Professor's Teddy Bear – 5/5 – Horror story with a creepy plushie. Fuck. That. Seriously.

A Way Home – 2.5/5 – Something something about a boy coming home, running away from home, and timey wimey fuckery. I read this a while ago and can't really remember what it was about. So it can't have been good nor bad, I guess.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Exemplar Sturgeon in short story “Maturity” whose tie to science fiction is young man experimented on, becoming, emotionally and cognitively, mature. His rate of growth is exponential and he becomes less human; interesting, his altruism develops, the more he matures. Love how Sturgeon takes soft science fiction premise and logically extends, seeing implications. He does not concern himself with gadgetry; more how we think and feel. He has heart.