Subject: Retrograde Reviews--Theodore Sturgeon:E Pluribus Unicorn

From: [email-masked] (Humphrey Aaron V)
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 1994 15:50:29 GMT

Theodore Sturgeon:E Pluribus Unicorn

A Retrograde Review by Aaron V. Humphrey

Theodore Sturgeon was one of the great SF short story
writers.  (I use the past tense because he's dead, not
because his stories have ceased to be good.) E Pluribus
Unicorn is a collection of stories from the late 40's and
early 50's, a fact I find amazing on reading, because they
seem timeless.  Or, rather,they seem to have something
which some other early stories are lacking--a frank
understanding of all kinds of human nature.

Some of the stories are definite classics--"Bianca's Hands",
for instance: the story of a dull-witted girl whose beautiful
hands have an intelligence of their own, and of the man who was
entrapped by them.  Or "Die, Maestro, Die", about a man who
despised Lutch Crawford, the bandleader he worked for, and
was eventually driven to destroy him and his music.  Or
"Cellmate", a story of the most bizarre pair of Siamese
twins you've ever seen, and what happened when they went to
jail.

But those short summaries can't convey the style and voice of
the stories.  In each case the voice is completely genuine--
both the viewpoint characters and the rest, even the minor
characters, ring true.  The choice of stories for this book
is perhaps unfortunate, because you can see some ideas used
more than once, the most notable being "syzygy"(apparently,
a biological term for the sharing of genetic material
between parthenogenetically reproducing creatures, or
something like that), as well as Siamese twins.  But,
goddamnit, the people are real.

Sturgeon is always good.  This book is no different.

%A Sturgeon, Theodore
%T E Pluribus Unicorn
%I Pocket
%C New York
%D Copyright 1953
%G ISBN 0-671-50223-9
%P 211 pp.
%O Paperback, US$2.95

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