And Now the News

by Theodore Sturgeon

  Theodore Sturgeon, in his office/workshop in Woodstock, New York. This picture, taken circa 1962, was for a glue advertisement in Scientific American. The rocket is the International Fantasy Award, received for More Than Human in 1954.

  Copyright © 2003 the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust. Previously published materials copyright © 1955, 1956, 1957, 1999 by Theodore Sturgeon and the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust, except “The Waiting Thing Inside” and “The Deadly Innocent,” which are copyright © 1956 by Don Ward and Theodore Sturgeon and the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without written permission of the publisher.

  Published by

  North Atlantic Books

  P.O. Box 12327

  Berkeley, California 94712

  Cover photograph of an ophicleide by Grant D. Green

  Cover design by Paula Morrison

  And Now the News… is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

  North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:

  Sturgeon, Theodore.

  And now the news— / by Theodore Sturgeon ; edited by Paul Williams ; foreword by David G. Hartwell.

  p. cm. — (The complete stories of Theodore Sturgeon ; v. 9)

  eISBN: 978-1-58394-753-1

  1. Science fiction, American. I. Williams, Paul, 1948– II. Title.

  PS3569.T875 A6 1994 vol. 9

  813′.54—dc21

  2003013883

  v3.1

  EDITOR’S NOTE

  THEODORE HAMILTON STURGEON was born February 26, 1918, and died May 8, 1985. This is the ninth of a series of volumes that will collect all of his short fiction of all types and all lengths shorter than a novel. The volumes and the stories within the volumes are organized chronologically by order of composition (insofar as it can be determined). This ninth volume contains stories written in 1955, 1956, and 1957. Five have never before appeared in a Sturgeon collection.

  Preparation of each of these volumes would not be possible without the hard work and invaluable participation of Noël Sturgeon, Debbie Notkin, and our publishers, Lindy Hough and Richard Grossinger. I would also like to thank, for their significant assistance with this volume, David G. Hartwell, the Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust, Kim Charnovsky, Robin Sturgeon, Marion Sturgeon, Jayne Williams, Ralph Vicinanza, Paula Morrison, Dixon Chandler, Cindy Lee Berryhill, T. V. Reed, and all of you who have expressed your interest and support.

  BOOKS BY THEODORE STURGEON

  Without Sorcery (1948)

  The Dreaming Jewels [aka The Synthetic Man] (1950)

  More Than Human (1953)

  E Pluribus Unicorn (1953)

  Caviar (1955)

  A Way Home (1955)

  The King and Four Queens (1956)

  I, Libertine (1956)

  A Touch of Strange (1958)

  The Cosmic Rape [aka To Marry Medusa] (1958)

  Aliens 4 (1959)

  Venus Plus X (1960)

  Beyond (1960)

  Some of Your Blood (1961)

  Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)

  The Player on the Other Side (1963)

  Sturgeon in Orbit (1964)

  Starshine (1966)

  The Rare Breed (1966)

  Sturgeon Is Alive and Well … (1971)

  The Worlds of Theodore Sturgeon (1972)

  Sturgeon’s West (with Don Ward) (1973)

  Case and the Dreamer (1974)

  Visions and Venturers (1978)

  Maturity (1979)

  The Stars Are the Styx (1979)

  The Golden Helix (1979)

  Alien Cargo (1984)

  Godbody (1986)

  A Touch of Sturgeon (1987)

  The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff (1989)

  Argyll (1993)

  Star Trek, The Joy Machine (with James Gunn) (1996)

  THE COMPLETE STORIES SERIES

  1. The Ultimate Egoist (1994)

  2. Microcosmic God (1995)

  3. Killdozer! (1996)

  4. Thunder and Roses (1997)

  5. The Perfect Host (1998)

  6. Baby Is Three (1999)

  7. A Saucer of Loneliness (2000)

  8. Bright Segment (2002)

  9. And Now the News … (2003)

  10. The Man Who Lost the Sea (2005)

  11. The Nail and the Oracle (2007)

  12. Slow Sculpture (2009)

  13. Case and the Dreamer (2010)

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Editor’s Note

  Other Books by This Author

  Foreword by David G. Hartwell

  “Won’t You Walk …?”

  New York Vignette

  The Half-Way Tree Murder

  The Skills of Xanadu

  The Claustrophile

  Dead Dames Don’t Dial

  Fear Is a Business

  The Other Man

  The Waiting Thing Inside (with Don Ward)

  The Deadly Innocent (with Don Ward)

  And Now the News …

  The Girl Had Guts

  The Other Celia

  Affair with a Green Monkey

  The Pod in the Barrier

  Story Notes by Paul Williams

  Foreword

  By David G. Hartwell

  I became a dedicated reader and collector of science fiction and fantasy, and supernatural horror fiction, in the 1950s. At the end of the decade in 1959 I went to college and won a book collection prize there, with only a hundred hardcovers. Among the ornaments of that collection were the Sturgeon books, including first editions of Without Sorcery, his first book, and More Than Human, his most ambitious novel. Part of winning the prize involved explaining something of the significance of the books.

  Four decades later, I do not recall what I wrote then, but I do know that I had been introduced to Sturgeon’s short fiction in the sixth grade and looked forward to everything by him from then on. And still vivid in my memory is the Saturday afternoon in late 1953 or early 1954 when I walked into a news store in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, where I had bought a few SF magazines before, and was pointed to the paperback rack by the proprietor. There I found and bought my first two SF paperbacks, Sturgeon’s More than Human and Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End. That was the first year I bought and owned books, and these were treasures. I read them with intense concentration and delight. Nearly ten years later, after studying William Faulkner’s novels, I re-read More Than Human and liked it and admired it even more.

  Somehow very early in my reading I came to think of Sturgeon as the best writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. I would read anything he published, follow him beyond my normal comfort zones because of the rewards of reading his stories, not something I would do for many writers (such was my loyalty to SF at the time). I also recall my delight when he became a book reviewer for Venture SF in the late 50s and published his famous column explaining Sturgeon’s Law for the general readership; it had first been revealed in a 1953 Philcon speech later reprinted in a fanzine. He was o
ne of Ray Bradbury’s mentors (and Bradbury was at his peak then, publishing knockout stories and books). He was admired by Damon Knight, my favorite reviewer. Other writers and editors mentioned him in reverent tones in print. I thought he was a great writer. I still do.

  As the years passed, I began to attend SF conventions, read fanzines, and hear gossip about Sturgeon, mainly about his writing blocks, his nudism, and his love life. He was famous for all three. I finally met him for the first time in 1972 at the Clarion writing workshop in East Lansing, Michigan, where he borrowed $200.00 through me to make a payment that was pressing. Fred Pohl laughed at me the next week and said I would never get it back, but it was repaid shortly thereafter. I was so pleased that I would gladly have given up the money to know Sturgeon. At Clarion I was privileged to listen to his Monday morning lecture to the writing students, which was full of sophisticated and useful advice and ideas, so full that I could tell that the students were not getting much from it. But I still remember a lot of it and use it in my own teaching. There exist tapes of Sturgeon teaching a writer’s workshop late in his life that may someday become commercially available. And I arranged to interview Sturgeon at the 1972 World SF Convention in Los Angeles a month or so later for Crawdaddy magazine, in which I then had a science fiction column. It’s a long interview filled with lots of Sturgeon’s personal ideas and perceptions of books, stories about his life and friends, interesting stuff that I recommend to all interested parties.

  For instance:

  I skipped two and a half years of my primary schooling. I left the fifth grade and took eight weeks in summer school and went to high school at not quite twelve years old.… And I was very underweight and undersized and a natural target for everyone around me. And I was pretty well brutalized by that whole thing. We didn’t have school buses in those days and we lived three miles away and we used to have these six miles to walk every day through all kinds of neighborhoods. I had to figure out different ways to go each day, because kids would lay for me on the way. I had curly golden hair and I was very thin and kind of whey-faced and pretty. And I was just an absolute target. When I was in high school I discovered apparatus gymnastics, and that became my total preoccupation. In a year and a half or so I gained four inches and sixty pounds, and I became captain and manager of my gym team, which is literally a transfiguration. I was totally born again. And the very kids that used to bully me used to follow me around and carry my books and it was a really incredible difference.

  And:

  Well, somebody brought me a volume 1, number 1 of Unknown, and said, boy, this is what you should be writing.… I was absolutely thrilled with the magazine. And somebody suggested that I go up and see Campbell [the editor]. Well, you know, I was overawed, and so I wrote a little story and took it up to him, and he pointed out to me how that wasn’t a story at all—it didn’t have the structure of a story—but he told me to come back and see him again, and so I wrote a story called “Ether Breather,” and that was my first sale to him.… I produced just enormously in those eighteen months, two years or so, I produced dozens of stories.

  (The full interview was published in The New York Review of Science Fiction, #7 and #8, March and April 1989.)

  I was also then a consulting editor for New American Library and as a result of the conversations surrounding that interview I bought a collection of three novellas from him (it was my idea, because I wanted to have his last great novella, When You Care, When You Love, reprinted in book form) that was published in paperback a year later. I knew him for the rest of his life, not as a close friend but as a fellow professional. Whenever we met he would launch into a sincere monologue on his current obsession for a few minutes, but would also frequently tell a joke or two. He had a reedy, nasal voice, but told jokes well.

  Here’s an example of his humor:

  A young couple are in love, in bed, engaged in passionate foreplay, really beginning to work up a sweat.

  She says: “Oh, god, this is so wonderful. It’s like I am Queen Elizabeth and you are Sir Walter Raleigh,” and with that she reaches orgasm, moaning and gasping with delight.

  The young man is still pumping away energetically.

  Minutes pass.

  Suddenly in a frenzy, he has his orgasm.

  Exhausted, in a fond embrace, he says: “Gee, sorry. It took me a few minutes to think of someone.”

  I also recall him telling me that it used to bother Harlan Ellison, when Sturgeon was living in his house in the late 1960s, that nudist Ted would answer the door without any clothes on. Ted liked to tell Ellison stories too.

  He was known for singing and playing guitar at conventions in the 1950s. I only heard him do so once in the 1970s, when he was out of practice, but he was still good. I felt that way about his stories of the 1980s too, still good, but not at the top of his form—although I have not reread them in fifteen or more years now, and reserve the right to do so and perhaps change my mind.

  For most of the 1970s and 1980s, Paul Williams, Chip Delany, and I became a Sturgeon admiration society. Each of us was always ready to write about Sturgeon, recommend Sturgeon, discuss Surgeon, bring his works to the attention of more readers. And he needed this, because for a really bright and talented man, he was just terrible at making money. I arranged to reprint some of his works in hardcover for the first time in the Gregg Press series in the late 1970s, and commissioned introductions from Chip and Paul. Paul helped put together new Sturgeon collections for Dell in the 1970s, and later Blue Jay in the 1980s. Chip Delany’s enormous prestige as a critic maintained and enhanced Sturgeon’s reputation in years when no fiction was published and powerful younger writers entered the limelight. You are fortunate to hold in your hands a collection of Sturgeon stories from the 1950s, his greatest decade as a writer. As far as I am concerned, his major works of that decade were investigations and dramatizations of human psychology, driven by a syzygy of idea and character. The two stories that mean the most to me in this volume are “And Now the News …” and “Affair with a Green Monkey.”

  The first is not by any useful definition science fiction (but see Paul Williams’s story notes at the end of the book for Sturgeon’s opinion), though it did appear in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. It is simply one of the finest American stories of the twentieth century. It was written by a science fiction writer, and is a penetrating prophecy of what was going to happen too often in the next four decades, so often we now have a colloquial phrase involving the postal service for a certain kind of insanity. I read it when the issue was published, it worried me, and I tried to reject it for several years. I think back to it frequently when the real world recapitulates it another time.

  And (again see the story note) it was based on a core idea and detailed plot given to Sturgeon by Robert A. Heinlein, also at the peak of his reputation, who had been asked by Sturgeon to suggest ideas for stories. Heinlein also said, “I must say that I am flattered at the request. To have the incomparable and always scintillating Sturgeon ask for ideas is like having the Pacific Ocean ask one to pee in it.” (The entire letter was published in The New York Review of Science Fiction, #84, August 1995.) I get the idea from everyone I have spoken to over the years that nearly every SF writer in those days considered Sturgeon in some way the best. “Affair with a Green Monkey” is both horrifying and funny, sort of like the joke I repeated above. It is also a clever and economical psychological portrait. And it really is science fiction.

  There are other fine stories here (particularly “The Other Celia” and “The Skills of Xanadu”), and some only with fine moments, but all are worth reading, if only because they are the work of the SF writer of the 1940s to the 1980s who was at the same time writing in genre and successfully and consciously aspiring to art in his writing. He is one of the primary models.

  On later generations, after Bradbury (who was influenced by Sturgeon’s stories in Astounding and Unknown between 1939 and 1944, not the work of later decades), Sturgeon’s ficti
on of the 1950s is clearly influential at the start of the careers of Samuel R. Delany and Roger Zelazny in the 1960s. The intent was not only to entertain but also to create art in fantasy and SF: the use of telling and carefully observed detail to underpin characterization; a deep and complex understanding of, and portrayal of, human psychology; not only a fearless portrayal of sentiment, but—particularly in Delany—a fascination with love, sex, gender roles; and a constantly surprising but consistent evocation of cultures unlike our own—that then reflect back upon our own in pleasant or disturbing ways. This is the core of what I meant above when I referred to a syzygy, a complete blending, of idea and character as the driving force of his fiction.

  If Sturgeon’s influence had only extended this far, it would have been crucial to the evolution of contemporary SF, horror, and fantasy. But it extends much farther. There are more volumes in this series to come, including more of his very best.

  “Won’t You Walk …?”

  JOE FRITCH WALKED under the moon, and behind the bridge of his nose something rose and stung him. When he was a little boy, which was better than thirty years ago, this exact sensation was the prelude to tears. There had been no tears for a long time, but the sting came to him, on its occasions, quite unchanged. There was another goad to plague him too, as demanding and insistent as the sting, but at the moment it was absent. They were mutually exclusive.

  His mind was a jumble of half-curses, half-wishes, not weak or pale ones by any means, but just unfinished. He need not finish them, any of them; his curses and his wishes were his personal clichés, and required only a code, a syllable for each. “He who hesitates—” people say, and that’s enough. “Too many cooks—” they say wisely. “What’s sauce for the goose—.” Valid sagacities, every one, classic as the Parthenon and as widely known.

  Such were the damnations and the prayers in the microcosm called Joe Fritch. “Oh, I wish—” he would say to himself, and “If only—” and “Some day, by God—”; and for each of these there was a wish, detailed and dramatic, so thought-out, touched-up, policed and maintained that it had everything but reality to make it real. And in the other area, the curses, the code words expressed wide meticulous matrices: “That Barnes—” dealt not only with his employer, a snide, selfish, sarcastic sadist with a presence like itching powder, but with every social circumstance which produced and permitted a way of life wherein a man like Joe Fritch could work for a man like Barnes. “Lutie—” was his wife’s name, but as a code word it was dowdy breakfasts and “I-can’t-afford” and the finger in her ear, the hand beginning to waggle rapidly when she was annoyed; “Lutie—” said as the overture to this massive curse was that which was wanted and lost (“Joe?” “What, li’l Lutie?” “Nothing, Joe. Just … Joe—”) and that which was unwanted and owned, like the mortgage which would be paid off in only eighteen more years, and the single setting of expensive flowery sterling which they would never, never be able to add to.