Case and the Dreamer

Theodore Sturgeon, circa 1980 to 1983, wearing the “Q” with an arrow that symbolized his credo: “Ask the next question.”

Theodore Hamilton Sturgeon was born February 26, 1918, and died May 8, 1985. This is the thirteenth and last in a series that features all of his short fiction. The stories within the volumes are, with some exceptions, arranged chronologically by order of composition (insofar as that can be determined). With one exception (“Tuesdays are Worse,” 1960), this volume contains stories written between 1973 and 1983, the date of Sturgeon’s last published story. Three of the stories, “The Mysterium,” “Seasoning,” and “Black Moccasins,” are previously unpublished. This volume also contains a biographical essay written by Paul Williams, editor of
The Complete Stories
, and an index to all thirteen volumes.

As this is the last volume of
The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon
, it requires special acknowledgements. First and foremost, my deepest thanks to Paul Williams. To have
all
of Sturgeon’s stories published was Paul’s personal vision, and his gentle persistence, hard work, and encyclopedic knowledge of Sturgeon made it possible. He started this project in 1991, and stayed with it until Alzheimer’s from a brain injury made it impossible for him to continue. Though he could not contribute to this final volume, I would like to dedicate it to him. My attempt at replicating his excellent story notes is sure to fall short of his stellar example. Those who wish to give back to him for his lifetime of important work (for the science fiction community in particular) should visit
www.paulwillams.com
in order to help Paul and his family support his full-time care. Preparation of each of these volumes would not have been possible without the hard work and invaluable participation of Debbie Notkin (above and beyond the heartfelt foreword she contributed to this volume), and our publishers, Lindy Hough and Richard Grossinger. Thanks, Lindy and Richard, for keeping the faith. I would also like to thank those that originally supported the idea of this project and opened doors to make it happen: Robert Silverberg, David Hartwell, Samuel R. “Chip” Delany, Jonathan Lethem, and Harlan Ellison. Thanks to all those who contributed forewords or afterwords: Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, Samuel R. Delany, Gene Wolfe, Robert Silverberg, Robert Heinlein, James Gunn, Larry McCaffery, David Crosby, Kurt Vonnegut, Phil Klass (William Tenn), David G. Hartwell, Jonathan Lethem, Harlan Ellison, Connie Willis, Spider Robinson, Peter S. Beagle, and Debbie Notkin. Thanks also to James Gunn, Kij Johnson, and Chris McKitterick for their support for Sturgeon’s work.

For their significant assistance in preparing this thirteenth volume, I would like to thank Jayne Williams, Debbie Notkin, Tina Krauss, Elizabeth Kennedy, Paula Morrison, Eric Weeks, William F. Seabrook, Charles Holloway, Tandy Sturgeon, Hart Sturgeon-Reed, T.V. Reed, Cindy Lee Berryhill, Chris Lotts of Ralph Vicinanza, Ltd., Vince Gerardis of CreatedBy, Bob Greene of Bookpeople in Moscow, and all of you who have expressed your support and interest.

Noël Sturgeon

Trustee, Theodore Sturgeon Literary Trust

http://www.theodoresturgeontrust.com/

Peter S. Beagle

I honestly don’t know whether he ever read it or not. We met for the first time after
The Last Unicorn
was published, but if he ever spoke of it to me, I don’t remember at this remove. What I
do
know is that it almost didn’t get written because of him.

There are certain books that I won’t ever write, because they’ve already been done. I’ve never been tempted, for instance, to try my hand at a pseudo-Tolkien high-fantasy, elves-and-Armageddon epic, because
The Lord of the Rings
was a one-shot deal, unique and inimitable, as those endless factory-produced trilogies keep proving. More recently, Barry Hughart’s Master Li novels put paid to my notion of writing a book based on a particular Chinese legend from the time of the three-quarters mythical Yellow Emperor; and Ariana Franklin’s
Mistress of the Art of Death
and
The Serpent’s Tale
completely did in my dream of setting a novel in twelfth-century England, featuring Henry II, my favorite king. Forget it. Absolutely no point to it.
Damn
.

And then there’s “The Silken-Swift”….

Oh, lord, “The Silken-Swift.” I read it in
Fantasy & Science Fiction
—the class of the field then, as now—in 1953, when I was fourteen years old. To this day, I can still quote sections of the story by heart, and I could quote a lot more when I was twenty-seven, taking my second shot at getting
The Last Unicorn
right. I was so intensely aware of that bloody classic of Ted’s, and trying so hard not to imitate it in any way, that I wouldn’t even use the word
silken
anywhere in my novel. In fact, I didn’t use it at all for the next thirty years, until the very last lines of my story “Professor Gottesman and
the Indian Rhinoceros.” I was just as conscious of it then, but in a different way, as a sort of wave and wink to Ted—a joke between the two of us, though he was long gone by then. I liked the notion of sharing a joke with Theodore Sturgeon.

I didn’t know him, not as my dear friends Edgar and Mary Pangborn knew him, in the old days in Bearsville, New York, or as did Betty and Ian Ballantine, who lived practically next door. I can only recall meeting him three times: first, through my playwright friend, Irv Bauer, who introduced us, then when I visited him and his family in Woodland Hills, in Southern California. On the third occasion, he stayed overnight with my family and me in Corralitos, and my memory is that we actually played a few tunes together on our guitars. I may have dates and circumstances wrong, but I’ve been immensely vain for more than thirty years about having jammed with Ted Sturgeon.