Godbody

Extract: I read Theodore Sturgeon's "More Than Human" in college. I was at a supermarket browsing the paperbacks and that one jumped out at me. I hadn't heard of him, but the cover touted that it was a classic by one of the masters of SF. I had two bucks burning a hole in my pocket (those were the days!), so I bought it. It blew me over. The concept, the prose, I thought it was genius. A year later, I was taking a one-time only Fantasy Lit class and our professor scored Sturgeon as a guest lecturer.

I don't remember much about his talk. It was over 30 years ago. I remember he oscillated between kindly grandfather and dirty old man. He took a lot of questions. One person asked him extreme details about his time and place of birth, which he interrupted by describing his complete astrological profile. He frustrated the person but made the class roar. At the end, he read one of his short stories. That I remember. It was about a toilet that pleasured the sitter and the prudish woman who out of necessity was forced to use it. Again, the class roared. I did too, but I couldn't help wondering how this could be the same person who wrote "More Than Human". So when I found I could use one of his novels for the Second Best challenge, I decided it was about time to pick him up again…