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From: donn@utah-gr.UUCP (Donn Seeley)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Group mind (actually about Anthony Boucher anthology)
Message-ID: <1376@utah-gr.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Mar-85 05:43:51 EST
Article-I.D.: utah-gr.1376
Posted: Tue Mar 12 05:43:51 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Mar-85 03:34:49 EST
References: <203@zaphod.UUCP> <781@topaz.ARPA> <4130@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Organization: University of Utah CS Dept
Lines: 37

Bob Dalgleish wonders what was the name of the gigantic anthology
edited by Anthony Boucher some time ago.  I believe it is called THE
TREASURY OF SCIENCE FICTION and while I don't have a copy of my own to
verify this, I remember it vividly from having read it in the school
library in junior high (in Hong Kong, of all places).  It had some
wonderful things collected in it -- whole novels, not just stories.
Pieces like BRAIN WAVE by Poul Anderson (where it is discovered that
stupidity is an artifact of some strange cosmic radiation, which
vanishes and leaves everyone normal); THE [WIDGET], THE [WADGET], AND
BOFF by Theodore Sturgeon (a very funny and very sentimental story,
classic Sturgeon); RE-BIRTH by John Wyndham (his best novel, in my
opinion -- published in England as THE CHRYSALIDS); 'Mimsy Were the
Borogoves' by 'Lewis Padgett' (another classic); 'Gomez' by Cyril
Kornbluth; and (I think) A. E. Van Vogt's THE WEAPON SHOPS OF ISHER.
(Well, how many of these did I get right?) These two volumes were
primarily responsible for my getting lured into science fiction...
If you're unfamiliar with these classics, you really are deprived.

The book Scott Turner is asking about is surely Sturgeon's MORE THAN
HUMAN.  A superlative book -- Sturgeon's best novel, I think.  While
typing the preceding paragraph I was trying to remember the names of
all three novellas in it and for some reason could come up with only
two: 'And Baby Is Three' (almost certainly the story you remember) and
'Morality'.  These present a much more interesting portrait of 'homo
superior' than is found in a book debated over here recently, EMERGENCE
by David R. Palmer.  To say that MORE THAN HUMAN is Sturgeon's best
novel is a bit discriminatory against his other novels such as THE
DREAMING JEWELS, VENUS PLUS X, [WIDGET] and others, which are mostly
excellent as well.  One of my favorite Sturgeon novels is very hard to
find and is (I think) amazingly good in spite of its obscurity; it's
called SOME OF YOUR BLOOD and makes the recent rash of vampire novels
which rationalize the existence of such creatures look rather silly.

Now I'll have to go home and dig these books out,

Donn Seeley    University of Utah CS Dept    donn@utah-cs.arpa
40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W    (801) 581-5668    decvax!utah-cs!donn