Some of Your Blood [Hardcover]

Theodore Sturgeon (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Ballantine Books, Inc. (2000)
• ASIN: B001213332
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Customer Reviews

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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unconventional horror . . ., June 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Some of Your Blood (Paperback)

There's something delightfully seductive about being invited to poke through another person's private life - and in the opening of "Some Of Your Blood," that's exactly what Theodore Sturgeon does. Here, says the author, showing you the desk drawer full of file folders, look through these a while. Not that one, not that one . . . there, try that one. Sit back, relax, enjoy yourself . . . It's tempting; and of course you, me, The Reader, we succumb, open the file folder, and begin to read. The novel itself comes in the form of a case history: letters, memos, transcriptions, all detailing the life history and psychological study of a young man known as George Smith. It's not a conventional horror story, particularly not for the time in which it was written: nothing jumps out at you in the dark, no supernatural happenings take place, there are no curses, no ghosts, no monsters . . . well, maybe there's a monster. Maybe not. Shuffle through the desk drawer of Dr. Phillip Outerbridge and decide for yourself. Only watch out: with traditional flair, Theodore Sturgeon will have you believing one thing and realizing another, right up until the final pages. The ending of the book is a stunner. Not for the blood or the body count; something much subtler than that. Just be prepared to walk around feeling very chilled afterward. It's worth it, though. It really is. "Some Of Your Blood" was the first book by Theodore Sturgeon I ever read, and from the moment I closed the book - carefully, because the copy was quite literally falling to pieces - I was a Sturgeon addict. It's rare to find a book that is both heartbreakingly sweet and truly terrifying at once, but I think this might be such a book. It's probably not to everyone's taste; it may even offend some people, for the suggestions it makes and the conclusions it draws; but it definitely deserves to be read. So read it . . . You have the key. You know the way. And it is your privilege.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow., December 22, 2003

By 

Robert P. Beveridge "xterminal" (Lakewood, OH) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: SOME OF YOUR BLOOD (Mass Market Paperback)

Theodore Sturgeon, Some of Your Blood (Carroll and Graf, 1961)

In the world of what we shall call "psychological fiction," for lack of a better term (to wit: that fiction that deals with a person being psychoanalyzed, psychologized, and/or psychiatrized), Theodore Sturgeon's short novel Some of Your Blood occupies a very odd position. It s recognized by the Horror Writers' Association as one of the Top 40 horror novels of all time (despite it being more of a novella) despite not really being a horror novel. Yet it is largely unknown to the larger mass of horror fans (look at the number of reviews written at Amazon. A backlist tile from Stephen King may have five to seven hundred customer reviews (The Stand seems to be the king, with seven hundred fifty-five); Some of Your Blood has six. What's up with that?

Maybe it's all about the presentation. Some of Your Blood is about a guy who hits a superios officer during his army days, and gets sent to a psychiatric facility for observation. On the surface, he seems to be perfectly all right; his doctor's CO wants him out, they need the bed. His doctor, on the other hand, senses something deeply wrong with the prisoner's autobiography.

The autobiography takes up the first seventy pages (short the beginning frame setting everything up) of the novella, and it alone is an amazing piece of writing, with a gentle wit about it and a naïve, but subtle, eagerness to please. Once we are out of the autobiography, and into the doctor's notes and correspondence with his superior officer, things get even more interesting. The prisoner is not all he seems...

This is a stunning little tale, neatly wrapped, waiting for the masses to discover it. Please, do so at your earliest opportunity. **** ½

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beauty unexpected, by fermed, May 16, 2000

By 

Fernando Melendez "fermed" (San Diego, California USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Some of Your Blood (Paperback)

The author of this book, Theodore Sturgeon, makes frequent appearances in K. Vonnegut's novels. He is (in Vonnegut's works) the genius science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, whose magnificent writing talent is unrecognized and forever relegated to appearing only in trashy paperbacks. This book is a Sturgeon-Trout masterpiece.

"Some of Your Blood" contains one of the most exquisitely beautiful love stories ever told. Like a perfect flower growing out of a concrete wall, part of its beauty is the improbability of its very existence. The lovers, George and Anna, are surrounded by physical and emotional squalor, and having each other is the only thing of consequence and beauty in their lives. The story is told as a psychiatric case history in the correspondence between an enlisted psychologists, an officer psychiatrist, and a brilliant nurse case-worker. It is an exciting, quick paced, splendidly crafted novel. This is not a horror story...it is a gem.