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Human, they all received more praise than criticism and remain touchstones for the science fiction field. The most significant are The Cosmic Rape (1958) and Venus Plus X (1960). |
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Sturgeon also wrote a significant body of work in other fields. Among his celebrated works of horror are the novelette "It" (1940; issued separately in 1948) and the nonsupernatural vampire novel Some of Your Blood (1961). He also wrote Westerns (The King and Four Queens, 1956) and detective stories (The Player on the Other Side [1963], written under the name Ellery Queen). |
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During the 1960s Sturgeon wrote little fiction, although he reviewed science fiction voluminously for the National Review between 1961 and 1973; in 1971, however, a collection of short stories, Sturgeon Is Alive and Well, appeared. Several more retrospective collections followed, culminating in Alien Cargo (1984). In his last decade he wrote little except for the Star Trek novel Amok Time (1978) and book reviews for Twilight Zone magazine. |
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As one of the first writers of science fiction to place more emphasis on character development and stylistic concerns than on plot, and as one of the earliest to deal with controversial sexual themes, Sturgeon's permanent place in the field is assured. He was married four times and had eight children. After a long illness Sturgeon died on May 8, 1985, in Eugene, Oregon. A short novel, Godbody, appeared posthumously in 1986, the same year he was posthumously awarded the life achievement award by the World Fantasy Convention. Two collections of stories appeared subsequently, To Marry Medusa (1987) and A Touch of Sturgeon (1988). |
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I think what I have been trying to do all these years is to investigate this matter of love, sexual and asexual. I investigate it by writing about it because (. . .) I don't know what the hell I think until I tell somebody about it. And I work so assiduously at it because of a conviction that if one could understand it completely, one would have the key to cooperation itself: to creative inspiration: to self-sacrifice and that rare but real anomaly, altruism: in short, to the marvelous orchestration which enables us to keep ahead of our own destructiveness. |
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