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Without Sorcery
- GenresHorrorScience Fiction
355 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1948
12 people want to read
About the author
Theodore Sturgeon
725 books773 followersTheodore 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.
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.
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June 30, 2016Sturgeon's first book. Thirteen Tales.
August 26, 2024
Without Sorcery was Sturgeon's first short fiction collection, as well as his first book. It was published in 1948 by Prime Press, one of the great small genre companies that kept science fiction and fantasy alive in book format before Doubleday (and the SFBC) discovered the field in the 1950s. Each of the thirteen stories has a nice illustration by L. Robert Tschirky, some brief but pithy introductory comments from the author, and the book has an introduction by some nice kid named Ray Bradbury. It's 355 pages of golden age goodness, with a price of $3.00 on the flyleaf.... (Ballantine printed a very abridged edition in 1961 which was re-released periodically with the amusing title Not Without Sorcery, which you have to read two ways!) All of the stories were initially bought by John W. Campbell and published in his Astounding Science Fiction, Unknown, or Unknown Worlds magazines. Among my favorites are It (generally recognized as being the inspiration for Swamp Thing and Man Thing from the comics), Shottle Bop, and Microcosmic God, one of the truly iconic stories of the time.
November 17, 2019
CONTENTS
"Introduction" - Ray Bradbury
"Preface" - Theodore Sturgeon
Fiction:
"The Ultimate Egoist"
"It"
"Poker Face"
"Shottle Bop"
"Artnan Process"
"Memorial"
"Ether Breather"
"Butyl and the Breather"
"Brat"
"Two Percent Inspiration"
"Cargo"
"Maturity"
"Microscopic God"
This 1948 volume was the first collection of short fiction by Theodore Sturgeon. The stories all originally appeared in the years 1939-1947. The fantasies are, in my opinion, generally more successful than the science fiction stories.
In his introduction to the tale "Artnan Process," Sturgeon calls the story "sheer 'spaced-opera.'" Earth is under the dominance of Mars, which the people of Earth have accepted in return for an unlimited source of power, broadcast energy derived from uranium. Most of the Earth people accepted the situation; some, however, wanted Earth to control its own power. Knowing that the Martians get their uranium from the planet Artna, two men from Earth go there to discover the process by which the Artnans change U-238 into U-235. However, hostile Martians are already on Artna when they arrive. This is a story that could have been written by any 1940s science fiction author; it is not very good.
"Memorial," which I believe is usually well regarded, is another story that I think is poor. This is a story with a message, but I am not sure what that message is. A scientist, fearing the possibility of atomic war, decides that the best way to deter this is by causing a nuclear explosion so terrible that it will serve as a warning for all mankind for millenia to come. Things do not go as planned. I should note that "Memorial" has been chosen for a number of anthologies, including The Great Science Fiction Stories Volume 8, 1946, edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg.
Sturgeon's introduction to the story "Two Percent Inspiration" says, "I am proud of one thing in it: Satan Strong, Scourge of the Spaceways, Supporter of the Serialized Short Story, and Specialist in Science on the Spot." He shouldn't have been proud. "Two Percent Perspiration" is another very routine story; this one has some humor though.
Ray Bradbury mentions that "Poker Face" is one of his favorite stories in this collection. It isn't a bad story, but there have been similar stories since then which have lessened the effect of this one. A man at a poker game reveals that he is a time traveler in pursuit of another man from the future.
"Ether Breather" was Sturgeon's first published science fiction tale. It first appeared in the September, 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. At some time in the future (when antigravity is already used commercially), color television finally becomes a reality. The new method of color broadcasting creates a contact with an intelligence from another dimension, a childlike being that delights in playing tricks, not all of which seem funny to those who are involved. They dub this creature the "Ether Breather." This is amusing, even if it is not something that would immediately proclaim a great new talent.
Sturgeon's story does begin well:
It was "The Seashell." It would have to be "The Seashell." I wrote it first as a short story, and it was turned down. Then I made a novelette out of it, and then a novel. Then a short short. Then a three-line gag. And it still wouldn't sell.
"Butyl and the Breather" is a sequel to "Ether Breather," appearing the following year. The creature that lives in the ether was scolded for its mischievous behavior and then vanished in the earlier story. The two people who had been in contact with the being before want to reestablish that contact. They need a way to get the Ether Breather's attention and one of them, a perfume manufacturer, finds a method of sending odors into the Breather's realm. They send an extraordinarily noxious scent based on butyl mercaptan into the Breather's world. That proves more effective than they anticipated - and so is the Breather's reaction.
This is a somewhat better, more inventive story than "Ether Breather." Much of the dialogue is the kind of joky, artificial speech common in science fiction of the period, though. Here is a conversation between the narrator, one of the men trying to contact the Ether Breather, and the Breather itself:
"None of your lip, pantywaist," I told the Breather, "or I'll come out there and plaster your shadow with substance."
"Wise guy, huh? Why, you insignificant nematode!"
"You etheric regurgitation!"
"You little quadridimensional stinkpot!"
"You faceless, formless, fightless phantasm!" I was beginning to enjoy this.
"Listen, mug, if you don't stop that business of smelling up my environment I'll strain you through a sheet of plate glass."
"None of your lip, pantywaist" is not exactly brilliant - or realistic - writing.
"Microcosmic God" is not only better than the other stories I have discussed so far, it is good enough that it was chosen by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the first stories included in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and appeared in the anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 in 1970. It has also been chosen for a number of other anthologies including The Great Science Fiction Stories Volume 3, 1941, edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. What makes this outstanding is not the writing, which is good but not memorable, but the concept. Kidder, a brilliant scientist, buys an island and develops a race of little beings he calls "Neoterics." They live immensely speeded-up lives compared to humans and are able to make huge scientific advances. A later story using a rather similar situation to the Neoteric civilization is "The Short Ones" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction March, 1955) by Raymond E. Banks.
"Maturity" is an even better story, one of the best and most acclaimed science fiction stories of the 1940s. This has a fascinating history. The original version appeared in the February, 1947 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Sturgeon realized that the story was deeply flawed and substantially rewrote it. It is the revised version that appears in Without Sorcery.
Robin English, a brilliant man who is unable to concentrate on any one thing for long, is found to have a thymus gland which has not shrunk as he aged, leaving him in a state of "static precocity." 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? Two physicians, one a woman who has fallen in love with English, attempt to change his endocrine system and thus make him more mature.
The first version of this story, the one that appeared in Astounding, had Robin battling against a "Napoleon of crime" figure. All that material is gone in the story as it appears here.
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 English and the physician who loves him. Traveling salesmen and showgirls simply don't normally act this way, I think, 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 many of Sturgeon's stories, there is some lovely prose.
The story "It" is part science fiction and part fantasy, but both are subsumed in the category of "horror." Sturgeon didn't write many horror stories but some of the ones he did write were memorable. "It" is about a being that grows in the woods and turns into a powerful monster. That monster was the progenitor of a number of others, especially the comic book characters "The Heap" and "Swamp Thing." The ending of this tale is genuinely disquieting.
"Brat" is a comic fantasy about a "pro tem changeling," a creature that appears to be a baby but is far from really being one. A young married couple will gain an inheritance if they prove that they can take care of a baby for a month, on the supposition that "those who can take care of a baby can take care of money." They and the baby would stay with the husband's aunt for those thirty days. And then a "baby" falls (literally) into their lives, Percival, who prefers to be known as Butch. Butch, a professional changeling working under the aegis of Fairyland, agrees to pass as a baby for them in return for a steak a day.
"Cargo" is a World War II story combining war and other inhabitants of Fairyland and related realms. Someone from those magical lands makes a deal with the captain of the Dawnlight, an aging oil tanker, who refuses to let most of his crew know anything about this. They take on crowds of invisible passengers: "ghosts and pixies, goblins and brownies, and dervishes and fairies and nymphs and peris and dryads and naiads and kelpies and sprites; gnomes and imps and elves and dwarves and nixies and ghouls and pigwidgeons, and the legion of the leprechauns, and many another."
And why are they traveling? "There's hell to pay in Europe now... You can't expect a self-respectin' pixie to hide in a shell hole and watch a baby torn to shreds. They're sickened of it..."
This is a very good story, with a convincing narration by the third mate of the Dawnlight. It has only appeared in one anthology; I can't think why.
"The Ultimate Egoist" presents as fine a portrait of solipsism as one is likely to see. The narrator comes to realize that he created the universe and everything in it. He can also...well, not destroy...uncreate it, piece by piece, or all at once. What he can not do is restore anything that he has uncreated. This might be a tale of someone sinking into madness, but I think it is more likely to be just what it appears to be. It is funny and horrifying, with an especially funny/horrifying section about an improbable character called "Drip."
There are types of stories that I usually dislike and "Shottle Bop" is almost one of them, except that this story, unlike most of that ilk, does not cheat. The narrator tells that his girlfriend had broken up with him because he is a "constitutional psychopathic incompetent." Soon afterwards, he passes a store with a sign saying "The Shottle Bop," with another sign in the window saying:
WE SELL BOTTLES
With things in them.
The narrator goes in and is greeted by an old tiny man, who describes the bottles in a "piping chant" that begins:
`For half a buck, a vial of luck
Or a bottle of nifty breaks
Or a flask of joy, or Myrna Loy
For luncheon with sirloin steaks."
After an unpleasant conversation, the old man says that he can provide the narrator with a cure for his ailment:
" You are a constitutional unemployable, a downright sociophagus. I don't like you. Nobody likes you."
[So both the old shopkeeper and the former girlfriend are agreed that the narrator is something "constitutional."]
The shopkeeper gives him a bottle, saying, "As long as you use what it gives you for your self-improvement, you will thrive. Use it for self-gratification, as a basis for boasting, or for revenge, and you will suffer in the extreme."
Once the narrator drinks the contents of the bottle, he becomes aware of a new, enchanted world. He can see and speak to ghosts, which are everywhere; the ghosts can not see him, however. He performs unmotivated kindnesses for two ghosts, a little girl named Ginny and a lost man from Staten Island. Then he uses his powers for gain and gloating, and that changes everything. A separate issue I have with the story is that the heel the narrator is shown to be probably would not have helped the two ghosts earlier in the story.
Ray Bradbury's Introduction states entertainingly that he is jealous of Sturgeon's talent.
There is one illustration for each story, all by L. Robert Tschirky. They range from poor to quite good. The uncredited dust jacket is ugly.
This is, on the whole, quite a good collection. I especially like "The Ultimate Egoist," "It," "Shottle Bop," "Cargo," and "Maturity."
"Introduction" - Ray Bradbury
"Preface" - Theodore Sturgeon
Fiction:
"The Ultimate Egoist"
"It"
"Poker Face"
"Shottle Bop"
"Artnan Process"
"Memorial"
"Ether Breather"
"Butyl and the Breather"
"Brat"
"Two Percent Inspiration"
"Cargo"
"Maturity"
"Microscopic God"
This 1948 volume was the first collection of short fiction by Theodore Sturgeon. The stories all originally appeared in the years 1939-1947. The fantasies are, in my opinion, generally more successful than the science fiction stories.
In his introduction to the tale "Artnan Process," Sturgeon calls the story "sheer 'spaced-opera.'" Earth is under the dominance of Mars, which the people of Earth have accepted in return for an unlimited source of power, broadcast energy derived from uranium. Most of the Earth people accepted the situation; some, however, wanted Earth to control its own power. Knowing that the Martians get their uranium from the planet Artna, two men from Earth go there to discover the process by which the Artnans change U-238 into U-235. However, hostile Martians are already on Artna when they arrive. This is a story that could have been written by any 1940s science fiction author; it is not very good.
"Memorial," which I believe is usually well regarded, is another story that I think is poor. This is a story with a message, but I am not sure what that message is. A scientist, fearing the possibility of atomic war, decides that the best way to deter this is by causing a nuclear explosion so terrible that it will serve as a warning for all mankind for millenia to come. Things do not go as planned. I should note that "Memorial" has been chosen for a number of anthologies, including The Great Science Fiction Stories Volume 8, 1946, edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg.
Sturgeon's introduction to the story "Two Percent Inspiration" says, "I am proud of one thing in it: Satan Strong, Scourge of the Spaceways, Supporter of the Serialized Short Story, and Specialist in Science on the Spot." He shouldn't have been proud. "Two Percent Perspiration" is another very routine story; this one has some humor though.
Ray Bradbury mentions that "Poker Face" is one of his favorite stories in this collection. It isn't a bad story, but there have been similar stories since then which have lessened the effect of this one. A man at a poker game reveals that he is a time traveler in pursuit of another man from the future.
"Ether Breather" was Sturgeon's first published science fiction tale. It first appeared in the September, 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. At some time in the future (when antigravity is already used commercially), color television finally becomes a reality. The new method of color broadcasting creates a contact with an intelligence from another dimension, a childlike being that delights in playing tricks, not all of which seem funny to those who are involved. They dub this creature the "Ether Breather." This is amusing, even if it is not something that would immediately proclaim a great new talent.
Sturgeon's story does begin well:
It was "The Seashell." It would have to be "The Seashell." I wrote it first as a short story, and it was turned down. Then I made a novelette out of it, and then a novel. Then a short short. Then a three-line gag. And it still wouldn't sell.
"Butyl and the Breather" is a sequel to "Ether Breather," appearing the following year. The creature that lives in the ether was scolded for its mischievous behavior and then vanished in the earlier story. The two people who had been in contact with the being before want to reestablish that contact. They need a way to get the Ether Breather's attention and one of them, a perfume manufacturer, finds a method of sending odors into the Breather's realm. They send an extraordinarily noxious scent based on butyl mercaptan into the Breather's world. That proves more effective than they anticipated - and so is the Breather's reaction.
This is a somewhat better, more inventive story than "Ether Breather." Much of the dialogue is the kind of joky, artificial speech common in science fiction of the period, though. Here is a conversation between the narrator, one of the men trying to contact the Ether Breather, and the Breather itself:
"None of your lip, pantywaist," I told the Breather, "or I'll come out there and plaster your shadow with substance."
"Wise guy, huh? Why, you insignificant nematode!"
"You etheric regurgitation!"
"You little quadridimensional stinkpot!"
"You faceless, formless, fightless phantasm!" I was beginning to enjoy this.
"Listen, mug, if you don't stop that business of smelling up my environment I'll strain you through a sheet of plate glass."
"None of your lip, pantywaist" is not exactly brilliant - or realistic - writing.
"Microcosmic God" is not only better than the other stories I have discussed so far, it is good enough that it was chosen by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the first stories included in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and appeared in the anthology The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, 1929–1964 in 1970. It has also been chosen for a number of other anthologies including The Great Science Fiction Stories Volume 3, 1941, edited by Isaac Asimov and Martin H. Greenberg. What makes this outstanding is not the writing, which is good but not memorable, but the concept. Kidder, a brilliant scientist, buys an island and develops a race of little beings he calls "Neoterics." They live immensely speeded-up lives compared to humans and are able to make huge scientific advances. A later story using a rather similar situation to the Neoteric civilization is "The Short Ones" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction March, 1955) by Raymond E. Banks.
"Maturity" is an even better story, one of the best and most acclaimed science fiction stories of the 1940s. This has a fascinating history. The original version appeared in the February, 1947 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Sturgeon realized that the story was deeply flawed and substantially rewrote it. It is the revised version that appears in Without Sorcery.
Robin English, a brilliant man who is unable to concentrate on any one thing for long, is found to have a thymus gland which has not shrunk as he aged, leaving him in a state of "static precocity." 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? Two physicians, one a woman who has fallen in love with English, attempt to change his endocrine system and thus make him more mature.
The first version of this story, the one that appeared in Astounding, had Robin battling against a "Napoleon of crime" figure. All that material is gone in the story as it appears here.
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 English and the physician who loves him. Traveling salesmen and showgirls simply don't normally act this way, I think, 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 many of Sturgeon's stories, there is some lovely prose.
The story "It" is part science fiction and part fantasy, but both are subsumed in the category of "horror." Sturgeon didn't write many horror stories but some of the ones he did write were memorable. "It" is about a being that grows in the woods and turns into a powerful monster. That monster was the progenitor of a number of others, especially the comic book characters "The Heap" and "Swamp Thing." The ending of this tale is genuinely disquieting.
"Brat" is a comic fantasy about a "pro tem changeling," a creature that appears to be a baby but is far from really being one. A young married couple will gain an inheritance if they prove that they can take care of a baby for a month, on the supposition that "those who can take care of a baby can take care of money." They and the baby would stay with the husband's aunt for those thirty days. And then a "baby" falls (literally) into their lives, Percival, who prefers to be known as Butch. Butch, a professional changeling working under the aegis of Fairyland, agrees to pass as a baby for them in return for a steak a day.
"Cargo" is a World War II story combining war and other inhabitants of Fairyland and related realms. Someone from those magical lands makes a deal with the captain of the Dawnlight, an aging oil tanker, who refuses to let most of his crew know anything about this. They take on crowds of invisible passengers: "ghosts and pixies, goblins and brownies, and dervishes and fairies and nymphs and peris and dryads and naiads and kelpies and sprites; gnomes and imps and elves and dwarves and nixies and ghouls and pigwidgeons, and the legion of the leprechauns, and many another."
And why are they traveling? "There's hell to pay in Europe now... You can't expect a self-respectin' pixie to hide in a shell hole and watch a baby torn to shreds. They're sickened of it..."
This is a very good story, with a convincing narration by the third mate of the Dawnlight. It has only appeared in one anthology; I can't think why.
"The Ultimate Egoist" presents as fine a portrait of solipsism as one is likely to see. The narrator comes to realize that he created the universe and everything in it. He can also...well, not destroy...uncreate it, piece by piece, or all at once. What he can not do is restore anything that he has uncreated. This might be a tale of someone sinking into madness, but I think it is more likely to be just what it appears to be. It is funny and horrifying, with an especially funny/horrifying section about an improbable character called "Drip."
There are types of stories that I usually dislike and "Shottle Bop" is almost one of them, except that this story, unlike most of that ilk, does not cheat. The narrator tells that his girlfriend had broken up with him because he is a "constitutional psychopathic incompetent." Soon afterwards, he passes a store with a sign saying "The Shottle Bop," with another sign in the window saying:
WE SELL BOTTLES
With things in them.
The narrator goes in and is greeted by an old tiny man, who describes the bottles in a "piping chant" that begins:
`For half a buck, a vial of luck
Or a bottle of nifty breaks
Or a flask of joy, or Myrna Loy
For luncheon with sirloin steaks."
After an unpleasant conversation, the old man says that he can provide the narrator with a cure for his ailment:
" You are a constitutional unemployable, a downright sociophagus. I don't like you. Nobody likes you."
[So both the old shopkeeper and the former girlfriend are agreed that the narrator is something "constitutional."]
The shopkeeper gives him a bottle, saying, "As long as you use what it gives you for your self-improvement, you will thrive. Use it for self-gratification, as a basis for boasting, or for revenge, and you will suffer in the extreme."
Once the narrator drinks the contents of the bottle, he becomes aware of a new, enchanted world. He can see and speak to ghosts, which are everywhere; the ghosts can not see him, however. He performs unmotivated kindnesses for two ghosts, a little girl named Ginny and a lost man from Staten Island. Then he uses his powers for gain and gloating, and that changes everything. A separate issue I have with the story is that the heel the narrator is shown to be probably would not have helped the two ghosts earlier in the story.
Ray Bradbury's Introduction states entertainingly that he is jealous of Sturgeon's talent.
There is one illustration for each story, all by L. Robert Tschirky. They range from poor to quite good. The uncredited dust jacket is ugly.
This is, on the whole, quite a good collection. I especially like "The Ultimate Egoist," "It," "Shottle Bop," "Cargo," and "Maturity."
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