More Than Human

Ted Sturgeon - and through him, science fiction - came into my life when I was 11 years old babysitting for a very cool couple with twin baby boys in Pasadena, California in 1962. I was a voracious reader who spent most of my free time in libraries or upside down in a butterfly chair reading book after book. I also read dictionaries and encyclopedias cover to cover and lived in the world of the mind because, frankly, my flesh and blood world was beyond bearing (interracial female child in the 50's - not a great combo in the US at that time - and a father who was a diagnosed but untreated schizophrenic who was paranoid and manipulative - and worse). I lived a fairy tale childhood in the literal sense and I'm very happy to have survived it. I even fancy myself as having survived it sanely. ;) That said, Sturgeon was my introduction to science fiction and a welcome one. His compassionate but unblinkered view of the world and how it molds us gave me an anchor in the tumultuous ocean I was being battered by as well as hope for a future in which I could come out of the horrors I lived with healed, if not unscathed. This is even more true of another of his books I love called The Dreaming Jewels (or The Synthetic Man). More Than Human is a wonder of a novel in that it is told from many points of view which eventually come together to form a fantastic whole. The story, itself, was unique and brilliant for the era it was written in, not least because it included non-white characters and women in lead roles as well as white males and there is an overall attitude of universality in Sturgeon's thinking which bled into this novel particularly well. I highly recommend this book to anyone but, especially to smart but brutalized (inner) children who could use a little balm for their wounds along with their intellectual stimulation.