Customer Reviews

More Than Human

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Theodore Sturgeon's More Than Human is, quite simply, one of the best and most original science fiction novels of all time; it is also one of the more neglected classics in the field. This magnificent example of literary science fiction belongs on the same shelf as Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land and Alfred Bester's first two novels. I was already a Sturgeon fan before reading More Than Human, but even I almost scoffed at comparisons of this novel with the work of William Faulkner (my literary hero). Much to my surprise, though, there is indeed a Faulknerian aspect to this novel. The narrative radiates traces of stream of consciousness and moves quietly back and forth in time from place to place as it approaches the essence of a philosophical revelation from multiple levels. For this reason, you will most likely either love or hate the book, for its greatest strength is very likely, to some readers, its greatest weakness.

More Than Human is such a unique novel that some individuals may not consider it science fiction at all; the science wrapped into these pages is of the most abstract and philosophical sort, centering on the question of the future evolution of the human race. The novel is broken up into three very distinct sections, each division marked by a shift in both emphasis and viewpoint. Initially, it can be a little difficult to get your bearings after one of these jumps, but all of the pieces of this giant puzzle come together in the end; I would qualify this by saying that the ultimate resolution happens in the reader's mind and is not necessarily spelled out by the author on the final page. The novel features some rather surprising plot twists along the way, and sometimes the reader may think Sturgeon has wandered far off the beaten track. In a sense he has because More Than Human marks the birth of a new kind of science fiction; rest assured that Sturgeon knows exactly where he is going from page one.

The novel opens with a self-described and self-acknowledged idiot living the only life he has ever known, one of utter loneliness and nothingness. His one gift is an ability to make people do things for him by looking at them in a certain way. His encounter with a unique, incredibly over sheltered little girl in the woods leads to an early scene of great tragedy and a turning point in the young man's life. Lone, as he manages to name himself, is taken in by a farming couple and introduced to the life he had never known. Elsewhere, a young girl named Janie lives a life of unhappiness under the roof of her unfit mother. She has her own special gift, the ability to move things with her mind, and one day she comes to know a pair of black children who can disappear and reappear at will. All of these characters somehow find each other and begin to see themselves as something more than human after a mongoloid baby is added to the strange little family. Taken together, they are one person: Lone is the head, Janie and the twins are the legs and arms, and Baby is the brilliant thinker that only Janie can communicate with telepathically. What forms out of these interconnected lives is a new type of human being: Human Gestalt. Individual weakness is subsumed by group superhuman strength, but this new type of human is lonely and prone to make mistakes as it struggles to understand itself.

The three sections are all remarkably different, yet they work together in much the same fashion as the children to become something incredibly powerful. In broad terms, the first section describes the birth of Human Gestalt, the second section describes its search for a purpose in life and a reason for being, and the third and most important section addresses the ethical and moral ramifications of such a new type of superhuman. The novel is told with such subtle power and mind-numbing beauty that any description I attempt to make will not do it justice. This is thought-provoking science fiction at its best.

Okay, how many science fiction novels from the 50's have REALLY stood the test of time? `More Than Human' is devoid of slimy aliens, ray-guns, faster than light travel, time machines, robots, or any of the other "stereotypes" non-sf people associate with 50's science fiction. Well, what DOES it have going for it? How about:

GREAT WRITING
Sturgeon was a thinker with a tremendous imagination. I caught myself grinning often at several of his lines, at how he avoided clichés and gave fresh ideas to simple scenes and concepts. In the first section, "The Idiot," I was reminded of the opening of Faulkner's `The Sound and the Fury.' (Yes, comparing Sturgeon to Faulkner is NOT a stretch!) The way Sturgeon gets inside Lone's head and lives there is amazing. Wonderful writing that still reads with freshness 50 years later.

GREAT IDEAS
Six misfit outcasts, each with a unique gift, form a new step in man's evolution, a gestalt of unbelievable power. I won't go into the social, political, and moral implications of such an idea (Read the book), but the concept by itself is interesting. What Sturgeon does with it is fascinating.

GREAT STORYTELLING
I have not researched Sturgeon very much, but from what I have gathered, he was somewhat of a rogue who loved to examine the dark side of the human psyche. This and his inability to be confined to a nice neat label come across in the writing to present a story that is exciting, awe-inspiring, and most important, honest.

If you've only read a few sf writers from the 50's (such as Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, Bester, Simak, etc.), expand your horizons with Sturgeon. You won't be sorry.

233 pages

Imagine the X-Men with superpowers confined to extrasensory gymnastics--no storm-summoning, no fire-throwing, and no metal claws--and you'll have an idea of the team that makes up the leading cast of this tale. (I note that other readers have seen the resemblance to the X-Men; the comparison is apt in many ways.)

We are first introduced to Lone, an intellectually incapacitated young man with the ability to hypnotize telepathically. After witnessing a murder and escaping death himself, he lives untamed in the forest, gathering other social outcasts who gravitate toward his cave. There's Janie, with a seemingly unlimited faculty for telekinesis; Bonnie and Beanie, two toddlers who have learned how to teleport themselves; and Baby, a mute whose body is stunted but whose brain is structured like computer. (Sturgeon's insistence on incorporating different races and both sexes as equal partners living together as a new evolutionary species was, in 1953, years ahead of its time.)

This history of this team--the newly evolved Gestalt species--is recounted in three extraordinarily different stories. Even the prose style varies: the opening section has the feel of a Gothic horror story combined with a Jack London tale; the middle is written entirely as teasing banter between a new member of the Gestalt squad and his shrink; and the final chapter could be a Depression-era tale by Steinbeck (or, more precisely, an episode of HBO's "Carnivale").

The book's shortcoming--and it's not insignificant--is Sturgeon's tendency to hammer home the import of his stories. Each of the three endings abandons subtleness and representation for bluntness and pontification; it sometimes seems that the author presents each resolution in the same manner he would reveal a mathematical proof. Thus (and I'll phrase my criticisms without exposing the book's secrets), the group of misfits discerns how they can work together as a team; thus, the team learns how they are a cohesive whole; thus, the totality endeavors to develop their own morality. Nothing is left for the reader to interpret or even to imagine.

In spite of its overly meticulous endings, "More Than Human" has much to say about human society and ethics. Part adventure story, part psychological novel, part realist saga, the whole of its parts--like the species it portrays--is unlike anything else you'll find in science fiction.

A very good tale. According to Sturgeon ,the next step in human evolution is not only about having mental powers ,but also functioning on a sinergetic level.

That is ,a number of psychics ,all with different powers such as teleportation ,telekinesis ,hypnotic-telepathy and human-cumputer abilities (idiot-savant etc') ,all becoming one entity who looks upon itself as Homo-gestalt ,and upon the rest of humanity as a herd of sheep.

the book is divided into three parts. The first depicting the Homo-gestalt's forming ,the second ,the replacment of it's "head" ,the individual who makes everyone be one ,and the third- how and why that man becomes moral though no human rules aply to him. He is superior ,not only in his own mind but truly in every aspect. why should he obey our rules? if you were all alone would you conform to the social rules and mores of mice?

But there is something ,and the few last paragraphs turn the whole story into really wide-scale ,optimistic and exciting science fiction.

Very modern concepts there ,by the way ,on mental powers ,such as I would not expect from a 1953 book. recommended.

This book is deserving of the absolute highest praise. The Washington Post said that More than Human "marked a quantum leap in the development of science fiction as an art," and they are absolutely correct. This book, as well as all of Sturgeon's works, has a strong, involved plot which alone is enough to read the book. However, also true of all of Sturgeon's works, the focus of this story is on the characters. Deep, sensitive, intelligent, hurt, scarred, wonderful characters which you will without a doubt see some part of yourself in. This is not a great science-fiction novel, it is one of the most powerful novels of this century.

I was so excited about this book. A unanimous five star rating! This is unlike most science fiction books in that it is not set in the future, thus there is no futuristic technology (except for one item), and the science fiction deals purely with the evolution of the mind. That's interesting enough and the story is a good one. It is the manner in which the story is told that bothered me after a while. Sturgeon has a way of dragging you through page after page, without giving a clue to what in the world is going on until the very end of each section. Sort of like a more sadistic Steinbeck. It's constant through the book that way and I found it agonizing. This book would be complex enough without the mysterious literary style. That aside, the concept is great and the characters are interesting.

"More Than Human" by Theodore Sturgeon is a ground-breaking novel and the winner of the International Fantasy award in 1954 for fiction. It was also recognized by the fans in 1956 when it tied for 3rd on the Astounding/Analog All-Time Poll, and in 1966 when it was rated 19th on the same poll. It ranked 9th on the Locus All-Time Poll in 1975 for All Time Novels, 12th in 1987 for All Time SF Novels, and 13th in 1998 for SF Novels before 1990. It was also nominated for the Retro Hugo in 2004 for works published in 1953.

Sturgeon tells his story by using three shorter works. They tell the story of the next step in the evolution of man, which is named "Homo Gestalt". As separate people, Lone, Janie, Bonnie, Beanie, and Baby do not fit into society, but when they are together, they are a fully functional being. There are some tells in my description of the three parts of the story, so skip the rest if you don't want to risk any spoilers. The three parts of the story are:

"The Fabulous Idiot" is a novelette which was first published in this book. It is the story of the creation of `Homo Gestalt'. It focuses largely on the story of Lone, who is the `idiot' from the title. For most of his life, he is largely ignored, although he does have telepathy and mind control powers that he uses, unknowingly, to get people to casually give him food or money so that he can survive. We also learn about of Janie (telekinesis), and the twins, Bonnie and Beanie (teleportation), and Baby (super-intelligent). This story jumps around from group to group, giving the reader the back-story for the characters, and eventually brings them together, and at the end they learn their roles in `Homo Gestalt'.

"Baby Is Three" is a novella which was originally published in "Galaxy" in October of 1952. This story takes place a few years in the future, from the viewpoint of Gerry, who is seeking help from a psychiatrist to help him understand who he is. While exploring his past, we learn that Lone brought Gerry into the group and that when Lone died, the group stayed together seeking help from an old acquaintance of Lone, whom we met briefly in the first section. As Gerry gains understanding and recovers memories, we ultimately find that he is Lone's replacement in `Homo Gestalt', and while Lone's simplicity was a handicap for the group before, Gerry's lack of morals is the new challenge to their survival.

"Morality" is a novelette which was originally published in this book. This part of the story follows Hip Barrows, who is desperately trying to recover his lost memories. Somewhat similar in style to the previous section, it takes place a few years farther in the future, and it is a character reconstructing the past. Hip is aided in his attempts to reconstruct his past by Janie. We learn that Gerry decided to destroy Hip's life and that even while trying to remember, they are being pursued by Gerry and the rest of `Homo Gestalt'. Hip's only chance for survival is if he can make Gerry understand the need for an ethic for the new species.

I was told off by my English teacher for reading this, 'trash' she said. I thought it was terrific but was young and kept quiet. I can't remember what she recommended but I am willing to bet a sizeable amount that it is not in print over 40 years later. I recently found it again and re-read it and it is even better written than I thought. Sad, funny and poetic. Remember Ted Sturgeon.

Havine read the much-anthologized "Baby Is Three" multiple times, I've just read this entire "novel." Coming right on the heels of a very impressive revisit with Bradbury's _Martian Chronicles_, this book's dark and violent tone is very striking and well-crafted. Within the first 40 pages or so, there's incest and child abuse, S&M, suicide, telepathic idiots, child geniuses, and a young telekinetic girl. Set in what I take to be the 1950s, the book strikes me as what the X-Men would have been like if created by William Faulkner .... perhaps channeled many years later by David Lynch. This isn't typical science fiction of ANY era, much less the 1950s, when the genre was struggling against its pulp-action tendencies. Rather, this excellent book should appeal to readers of horror, gothic, and quality literature of the Burroughs and Bowles sort.

This early-50s SF classic from Theodore Sturgeon somewhat resembles "Childhood's End" by Arthur C. Clarke, in that seemingly weird kids actually herald the next step in human evolution. However, Sturgeon uses this concept for much more chilling and disturbing ends. Here, kids with psychic powers have been rejected by society and their parents and are branded as troublemakers and halfwits, when they are actually searching for others who can complement their powers and make them feel complete. The strange youngsters of the story have suffered their way through neglect and hatred until finally finding each other, and proceed to merge their psychic powers and become a mental superbeing that surpasses current humanity. But since they're just kids, they don't realize what they're doing or that they're different. They also lack morals and ethics, and use their powers unwisely until realizing that they still need that crucial connection with regular people. This thematic backdrop results in a very melancholy and disturbing atmosphere to the story. Note that this book is put together in a fashion common for golden age SF, in the form of interconnected short stories that were originally serialized in fan magazines. This makes the flow of the overall story a bit fragmented and disjointed, while believable character development takes a back seat to exercises in plot and theme construction. But Sturgeon still delivered a decidedly haunting treatise on what it truly means to be human - or more than human. [~doomsdayer520~]