Customer Reviews

A Saucer of Loneliness: Volume VII, The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon

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It is hard to believe that this is the SEVENTH volume of Ted Sturgeon's collected stories and they are only up to 1953. Why would you want to own such a voluminous set? And why this particular one?

Simply: Sturgeon is one of the most provocative, innovative and beautiful writers in the English language and the title story of this volume alone is worth the price of the book. But once you're beyond one of the arguably greatest stories of the last 51 years, you'll find that Sturgeon has many more wonders in every volume of this series. For example, "Mr Cosell, Hero" is the most thorough demolition of the 1950's Red Scare (and it is set in outer space!). "The Clinic" predates classics like Flowers for Algernon, and gives us an alien perspective to boot.

Sturgeon's writing, as noted in many places, is about love as much as it is about anything. With each new volume, he inspires his readers to share that feeling. You may not end up with the full shelf of his work, but "A Saucer of Loneliness" is one you'll certainly want, need, desire and lust after.

"A Saucer of Loneliness" is one of two stories most important in making SF considered a "serious" field (the other being RAH's "Stranger"). Of the two, this certainly isn't the better, but it had more of an effect on me, personally. The end notes in this book note that it talked Spider Robinson, one current major SF writer, out of suicide, and it has more of an emotional effect that that could explain.
The rest of the book is still amazing. The second story has an interesting idea, but sloppy execution. The following, "The World Well Lost," literally made me fall out of my chair laughing, and includes the RS drive, which might be the most creative invention I've seen in years. Much farther on, with "The Clinic," you see the same type of emotional depth as you did in "Saucer," presented almost as well. Any one of those stories alone is worth the price of the novel.
For continuing fun after you've read it two or three times, I occasionally repeat parts of the "Koala" conversation out of "Wages of Synergy" without context. It makes my day to break up a serious revelation with "Koala..." "What does that mean?" "It means a great deal..."

I first read Saucer of Loneliness in Sturgeon's E. Pleribus Unicorn. It instantly became my favorite and still is in this new book. Its always a pleasure to read his works.