“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” wrote Charles Caleb Colton. I’ve admired Bill Crider’s Friday feature of reviewing a “Forgotten Book” for Patti Abbott’s Friday’s Forgotten Books each week. My first candidate is Theodore Sturgeon’s The Dreaming Jewels. The edition I recommend is the Bluejay Books edition with the creepy cover by Rowena Morrill and more Rowena interior artwork. Like all of Sturgeon’s work, there’s a blending of reality. In this case, a young boy, a circus, and bizarre extraterrestrials produce a mind-bending plot. As Bill Crider pointed out in his review of John D. MacDonald’s The Brass Cupcake it seems incredible that a great writer like JDM could be out-of-print and nearly forgotten. I feel the same way about Theodore Sturgeon. If you haven’t read Sturgeon, or haven’t read him in awhile, The Dreaming Jewels is the perfect place to start. GRADE: A
This had no replies back then, George? Pity…
Surgeon keeps being rediscovered by publishers and always retains at least some readership…now I’m thinking of the loss of some of his champions, such as Paul Williams and David Hartwell, both via accidents, in fairly recent years.
Sturgeon was one of the most influential writers of fantastica there has been, and this one of his best novels (his short fiction averaged Even Better). Bradbury and Stephen King have been among his students, for example.
Todd, I have no explanation for the Disappearance of Theodore Sturgeon. In fact, Sturgeon brought out a collection called I’M ALIVE AND WELL or something like that.
Just wanted to second Todd’s sentiment. Sturgeon was a wonderful talent and it is tragic how little currency he seems to have these days. He was, for my money, the true titan of his day and we REALLY could use more like him these days. Hard to believe this was written in 2009 which seems both so far away and yet like yesterday. I hope you have many more posts to come. Best wishes.
Byron, with you and Todd and the other commentators finding my posts interesting, I’ll continue and try to do better, too!