Synopsis
Perfect Host is the fifth volume of The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, a highly acclaimed series that gathers together all of the work of one of the finest science fiction and fantasy short story writers of this century. The seventeen stories in this volume include such major works as 'Die Maestro Die!' and 'One Foot and the Grave'. Detailed story notes in the back of the book by series editor Paul Williams offer new information about the circumstances of the stories' publication.
From the Publisher
Volume FiveThis fifth volume of the Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon includes stories written between 1947 and 1949, a time when Sturgeon and science fiction were finding new respectability and larger audiences. Included here, along with such science fiction and fantasy classics as "The Perfect Host," Unite and Conquer," and "The Hurkle Is a Happy Beast" are his finest western story, "Scars," the crime story "Till Death do Us Join" and one of Sturgeon's best-loved and remembered stories, "Die Maestro, Die!" Readers wondering why Samuel R. Delany calls Sturgeon "the American short story writer" and Hames Blish called him "the finest conscious artist science fiction ever had," can find the answers in the volume. In 1947-49, Theodore Sturgeon's first book, the collection Without Sorcery, was published, and he wrote his first novel, The Dreaming of Jewels. But financial problems related to trying to make a living as a genre writer ("he was making a fraction of a penny a word, and not about to write anything else but stuff for Amazing Stories and so forth," says Kurt Vonnegut, explaining why Sturgeon was the model for his character Kilgore Trout) forced him to repeatedly postpone his marriage to beautiful singer Mary Mair. In 1949 he took a job writing promotional copy for Time, Inc. Devotees of Sturgeon's writing will be pleased to find in this volume seven stories that have never before appeared in a Sturgeon collection, and two published here for the first time,including an astonishing discovery, "Quietly." This previously unknown 1947 story seems to be an early start on what would six years later become Sturgeon's greatest novel, More than Human.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.