2006 books

81) Theodore Sturgeon, Thunder and Roses, 1997
Volume 4 of the 'Complete Stories' series which covers 1946-48, a time when Sturgeon's popularity began to flower a little beyond his core of SF fans. I've been dipping into this for most of the year, and among the fifteen stories here are many notable ones: the novella Maturity, the excellent 'Tiny and the Monster' and the rather classically pulp 'The Sky Was Full of Ships' and 'There Is No Defense'. The best and least-dated story is the final one, 'A Way Home', which is brief and memorable. Sturgeon knew better than most how to realise his characters fully though it didn't always work out, such as in 'Hurricane Trio', which despite a substantial later rewrite is still overworked in the telling of a rather simple plot. But these stories were mostly written after a long stretch of writer's block (and there's a complete alternate second half of Maturity included as an appendix), so I suspect around this time Sturgeon may well have agreed with James Joyce's attributed quote, "If it reads easy, that's because it wrote hard."

skiffy word of the day
ristkron (n.): a wrist chronograph or wristwatch.   ['Memory', Thrilling Wonder Stories, August 1948]