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is a giant brain. The hive, moreover, does something the force-beams could not: it links all its members together through telepathic understanding. |
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More Than Human, The Cosmic Rape, and others of Sturgeon's works involving telepathic union may have had their genesis in a wish to answer a question evoked by "Bianca's Hands," written in the earliest days of Sturgeon's career. That story had told of a young man, Ran, who was destroyed by the very union he desired. The question the story evoked was: Can total union (such as Ran desired) have any end other than dissolution? |
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In pursuing an answer to this question, Sturgeon postulated and then examined many different types of union. These ranged from loose, subliminal associations to unbreakable bonds. (. . .) |
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The union portrayed in The Cosmic Rape combines the most desirable elements of the other telepathic fusions considered in his fiction. Within the Human-Medusa hive, individuals are free to follow their own bents. They have the use of the knowledge of others in the hive, and are protected by the hive. More, they are aware of the hive and are aware of, and in mental communication with, every other individual in the hive. There is no threat of dissolution to hive members. Instead, individuality is supported and nurtured. |
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The all-embracing concept of the Human-Medusa hive seems to be Sturgeon's definitive statement on the subject of union. His final answer to the question evoked by "Bianca's Hands" is unequivocal: yesunion can be both total and safe. |
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With this answer, the subject of unions, telepathic or otherwise, vanished from Sturgeon's fiction for decades. |
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Sturgeon was, nevertheless, far from finished with his examination of the potentials and problems of mankind. In subsequent works, however, he would refocus from the cosmic panorama to more earthly and earthy subjects. |
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Lucy Menger, Theodore Sturgeon (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1981), pp. 8485 |
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Sturgeon's emphasis on psychology instead of blasters prepared the way for such modern masters of the genre as Robert Silverberg, Gregory Benford, John Varley, Kate Wilhelm. When science fiction made its crucial shift from pulp action to a careful consideration of |
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