The Evolution of Science Fiction discussion

This is to discuss April's group read - More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon

It's been a long time since I last read this. I need to see if it is in audio format. I've still got my old PB from the 70s which I've read twice.

I read it in a few days. I guess this is not my type of book. Some parts I liked, but not the book as a whole. It is not really SF and what the story is about did not interest me a lot.
I also read a collection of short stories of Sturgeon, including The Man Who Lost the Sea, which I liked much better.

I just bought the audio version narrated by Stephen Rudnicki & Harlan Ellison. I'll try to get to it soon.

I just read this a couple months ago. I really liked it.

I'm on a waiting list for this one at my public library.

I've got my copy and just started it this morning.

I'm into the second part now. The first part was narrated by Stephen Rudnicki, the second by Harlan Ellison. It's a good choice since Ellison does anger very well. Along with his raspy voice, he fits Jerry very well.

Apparently, "Baby is Three" was originally published as a stand-alone, and Sturgeon added the rest later to make it novel-length.

Thanks, Phil. That's interesting. "Baby Is Three" is the second of the 3 parts, the one I'm reading now. It does seem to encompass the first part well.

I think three words are crucial to appreciating Sturgeon's work in this novel: nineteen fifty three.
Eisenhower was in his first term. PTSD was not a diagnosis at the time. Soldiers had returned from war to a world they were not prepared for, and which was not prepared to accept the ravages done to them. Women had been forced out of work to give the jobs back to men, and subjugate themselves into happy motherhood. America was forcefully, definitely segregated. Hordes of people were sublimating or repressing powerful emotions in order to "fit in." Popularized Freudian analysis was having a heyday.
And along comes Sturgeon, with a novel about five extreme misfits with (what was then) magical, mystical powers, along with severe disabilities, who can somehow harness their hopes and fears, become a unique merge, and in a wildly improbable setting, become near gods, while of course, making some terrible mistakes. That he managed to make this fairy tale of a story believable is a tribute to his mastery of the language.

That's a good point, Charles. 1953.

Given that this group is about the "evolution of science fiction," we probably ought to think about where More than Human falls in the development of psychological sci fi. It obviously predates Flowers for Algernon and Gateway. What came before it?

I can think of a couple fantasy/horror titles- Darker Than You Think and Conjure Wife- that had a psychological edge, but nothing that tried to combine scifi with Freudianism or any other psych concept.

Parapsychology was still a big deal at the time, too. I mention that in my 4 star review.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I forgot to mention some other things that were pretty radical at the time like the color barrier. There isn't one for homo gestalt, but there was for the rest of the US, as Charles mentioned.

Nudity is OK & he hints at some sexual & bodily freedom that was pretty far out for the time, too. Sturgeon belonged to the same nudist society as Heinlein. About 15 years later, he wrote "If All Men Were Brothers", a story that blew a lot of minds. My grandfather was absolutely horrified by it even being published when I mentioned it to him. He couldn't even discuss it rationally.

Phil wrote: "That's a good point, Charles. 1953.
Given that this group is about the "evolution of science fiction," we probably ought to think about where More than Human falls in the development of psychologi..."

You might want to include one of my all-time favorites, A.E.
Van Vogt's Slan, from 1946 as a precursor, for its telepathy, mind-reading and mob psychology. And a good friend of mine, who studied Golden Age Sci Fi tells me the little known, Olaf Stapledon’s Odd John from 1935. would be in that list. Mutant "supernormal" Odd John, leads a group of highly evolved misfits to form a colony where they experiment with telepathy, free love, and "intelligent worship."

And JIm, I really liked your review of More Than Human

Thanks, Charles.

Charles wrote: "You might want to include one of my all-time favorites, A.E. Van Vogt's "Slan", from 1946 as a precursor."

I hope to read that someday. It is definitely one of the early examples of the genre of "supermen" living in hiding among ordinary people. The idea is still alive today in Astonishing X-Men and They're Not Like Us, etc.

"Slan" was also an important step in the development of Sci-Fi conventions and fandom. Some of the readers felt to some extent different (or better) for liking SF books, but were treated as outsiders or weirdos by the "mundanes". Some rallied around the slogan Fans are Slans.

I didn't care for Slan. IMO, he tried to cover too much territory in too short a time. From evolution to revolution, racism, mob psychology, fantastic science, & even a love story all wrapped up in a coming of age story. It started out pretty well, but there was just so much going on by the end that none of it worked well. The great reveals weren't & some just sucked. Everything else was too convenient & magically solved to make the hero out to be wonderful, while much of his reasoning was ridiculous.

He tackles something similar in The Silkie & I liked it much better. Like The Voyage of the Space Beagle, it's 3 short stories married into a novel. There's still a fair amount of convenience, but it works better in the shorter settings.

Jim wrote: "I didn't care for Slan. IMO, he tried to cover too much territory in too short a time. From evolution to revolution, racism, mob psychology, fantastic science, & even a love story all..."

A.E. van Vogt is reputedly one of the great progenitors of SF. I've read three of his books, Slan, The Voyage of the Space Beagle, and Null-A. Of these I like Slan the best, I think, but van Vogt is not among my favorite authors.

I read More than Human earlier. It's the only Sturgeon I've got under my belt. I hadn't thought of comparing it to Slan. And now both have faded too much for me to compare them.

I read Null-A, Weapon Shops 1&2, and War Against the Rull. Overall, I like his creativity, but not necessarily his "big ideas." Null-A in particular was kind of pointless.

Yeah, I read Null-A and I struggled to finish it. It felt so outdated and the prose didn't redeem it.

I've read some of van Vogt's weapon shop stories, but it's been too long for me to remember much except they were OK. IIRC, I liked one because it was a tie-in with Fritz Leiber Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series.

Here is the brief review I wrote of More than Human when I read it four years ago:

Strangely told from inside minds that are not like ours, the story sometimes starts on tangents from out of nowhere, but we read on, confident that the story line will converge with what we already have followed. The book ends with a philosophy of morality and ethos, but after that there is a kind of epilogue that I felt was unsatisfying and also unnecessary - it added nothing, but Sturgeon apparently felt that it was needed to wrap things up. I think he should have simply left it unsaid. Other than that, the book is a good read.

Buck wrote: "Here is the brief review I wrote of More than Human when I read it four years ago:

Strangely told from inside minds that are not like ours, the story sometimes starts on tangents from out of nowhe..."

I pretty much agree, Buck. The ending was my least favorite part. It just didn't feel necessary.

This article gives a good summary of the development of parapsychology in sci-fi

http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/esp

I've got side tracked with this one but i'm hoping to resume reading it next week....

In case anybody is still thinking about reading this one, my daily email from Bookbub says that it is reduced to $1.99 (kindle) on amazon.com - not sure if it's just for the day as I see a different price for my region.

Thanks for that! I can verify the price appears as $1.99 in US. But I may still skip it as I'm eager to move on to Solaris.

Phil wrote: "Buck wrote: "Here is the brief review I wrote of More than Human when I read it four years ago:

Strangely told from inside minds that are not like ours, the story sometimes starts on tangents from..."

I have to admit, I thought the last chapter made an important statement that rounded up the story pretty well i.e. that a sense of morality and ethics is a necessary aspect of human psychology, without which, we risk becoming brutal and self-interested.

I also wonder if Sturgeon was thinking of Nietzsche's 'superman' when devising the human gestalt in More Than Human . Again, a sense of morality would impose a necessary control to prevent such a being from destroying itself and everything around it (in this respect, Sturgeon might have been considering the effect Nietzschean philosophy had on Hitler and the Nazi army). The suggestion is that ethics counters nihilism.

Catching up on my reading and i've finally finished. Writing and ideas ok just not for me. The characters were just too extreme and not particularly likeable so it lost my interest.