Visions and Venturers
by Theodore Sturgeon
Reviewed by Aaron DeWeese
This was my first Theodore Sturgeon experience, and what an experience! I can't wait to get my hands on a full size novel of his, which I thought I had the other day, but it turned out it was missing the first forty-five pages... He's one of those rare golden authors whose works you just don't see around in used book stores.
This book was intact and contained eight excellent shorts.
"The Hag Seleen" I found to be a bit disturbing. Who is creepier—the evil hag or the little girl with mystical understanding and violent nature?
"The Martian and the Moron" was really enjoyable. The dad and his radio engineering, the son's misadventure, and the tying of the two together by Martian transmissions and a ditzy though well endowed receiver. Note the mother is present in the beginning of the story, though absent in the ending. I suspected death, but later learned Sturgeon's parents divorced. And, hey—at least that girl knew enough to try to feign intelligence.
"The Nail and the Oracle" was pretty neat, in a retro-tech sort of way. The lesson? Leave "I" out of the equation. Psh... Nobody's going to do that, especially in politics.
"Won't You Walk—" was really awesome. I let my mom read it and she concurred. It led somewhere completely unexpected. I thought in the beginning it was going to be a spy story. Turns out the recruiter was a pretty good 'ole capitalist feller. The machine, or the illusion of the machine is still needed.
"Talent" was the one story I didn't care too much for.
"One Foot and the Grave" was really cool. Just really cool.
"The Touch of Your Hand" blew my mind. Major synchronicity on a personal level took place while I was reading it, concerning Ed Walters of Gulf Breeze fame, and Andrew Pang of Star Trek origami fame. My mouth dropped when the dots were connected. It's like the story jumped out and grabbed me, at exactly the time it knew it should; which sort of is scary. The nonhuman telepathic race in the story are the future. Their logic exists today. I wonder what influence it has had on our world. I believe, it is only right, that I choose to be a child-like non-Marxist Osser. They will wipe all of him out, you know.
"The Moving Crag" was brilliant, until the end. I felt a bit let down then, just like Joe Fritch in a few stories back.
Now knowing a bit about Sturgeon from his writings here, and his wiki, I must say that if I ever become so inebriated that I would be delusional enough to think getting a tattoo would be a good idea, I think it would be a "Q--->".
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