Case and the Dreamer (50 page)

From 1969 onwards, Sturgeon had begun to publish both stories and book reviews in a market new for him: “men’s” magazines (
Knight, Adam, Chic, Hustler
, and
Penthouse
). Sturgeon had frequently expressed frustration that straitlaced rules in publishing prevented him from writing explicitly about sex; now he had that freedom. Since the early 1960s, he had been writing a novel,
Godbody
, which told a tale of a Jesus-like figure who saw sex as a combination of love and worship. It contained several explicit sex scenes, and he felt unable to publish it (or indeed finish it) as a result. In the middle 1970s, he began working again on the novel, and it was published posthumously in 1986 (despite a persistent rumor, the posthumous work was not rewritten by Robert Heinlein; however, the similarities between
Godbody
and Heinlein’s
Stranger in a Strange Land
are noticeable, and not too surprising given that the writing of both stems from the early 1960s). Whether or not this new freedom to write explicitly about sex produced better work is for the reader to judge; several stories written for this market can be found in this volume.

Around 1975, after his relationship with Wina ended, Sturgeon met Jayne Tannehill Englehart, a teacher and aspiring writer, at a science-fiction convention. As they became partners and began living together, Jayne changed her last name to Sturgeon; to others, Ted always called her “Lady Jayne.” Jayne’s exceptional organizing talents and financial know-how were of crucial assistance to Sturgeon in overcoming crushing accumulated debt, disarray in his business affairs, and unmet obligations to his Woodstock and Los Angeles families. His inability to manage his business affairs effectively had been a longstanding frustration for him; while contemporaries such as Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, and Ray Bradbury became relatively wealthy, Sturgeon had always struggled financially. In 1977, in a letter to his lawyer; his domestic, film and international agents; a new business manager; and Paul Williams (who managed his copyrights), he says:

His relationship with Jayne began an extremely happy and productive stage of Sturgeon’s life during which, though he wrote few stories, he became deeply involved in teaching writing and presenting at science-fiction conventions around the country. He loved to work with students, especially young writers, a role well suited to him as a charismatic legend with a message (as former students such as Octavia Butler have fondly recalled). He taught summer courses for several years at the Intensive English Institute on the Teaching of Science Fiction, run by James Gunn and hosted by the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. (Gunn later helped establish the annual Sturgeon Short Story Award in 1987, one of the most prestigious awards in science fiction.) Sturgeon also taught short writing courses at other colleges and made public presentations around the U.S. and in Europe, particularly France, Ireland, and England. His dizzying travel schedule for the last years of his life was thoroughly organized by Jayne, and not incidentally, began to pay his debts. In 1982, a French TV series,
De bien estranges,
aired
an episode, “L’amour qui tue,” based on the short story, “The Wages of Synergy” (Volume Seven). The organization of his papers by Jayne made possible the publication of four new collections of Sturgeon stories:
Visions and Venturers
(1978),
The Stars Are the Styx
(1979),
The Golden Helix
(1979), and
Alien Cargo
(1984); the latter three collections were inspired and edited by Paul Williams, and can be seen as an early attempt by Paul to find a way to republish many of Sturgeon’s difficult-to-find short stories, which culminated in
The Complete Stories
project.

From 1976 to 1985, after a brief period of living in San Diego, Jayne and Ted shuttled regularly between Los Angeles (where his son Andros lived) and Springfield, Oregon. Diagnosed in 1976 as suffering from idiopathic diffuse interstitial fibrosis of the lungs, by 1984, Sturgeon found it harder and harder to breathe and engage in regular activities. In January of 1985, he went alone to Maui to try an alternative healing regimen. When it was apparent that the regimen was failing, he returned to Springfield, very ill. He died in the hospital in Eugene on May 8, 1985. Present were Jayne; two family friends, Charles Holloway and Rennie Cantine; six of his seven children (Patricia, Robin, Tandy, Noël, Timothy, and Andros); and his third wife, Marion. He was 67. With a strange prescience, one of his most famous and beloved stories, “The Man Who Lost the Sea” (Volume 10), contains a detailed description of how it feels to die from lack of air.

After Sturgeon’s death, obituaries in
The New York Times
, many regional papers,
Locus Magazine
and other science fiction outlets recognized his stature as a writer, and his significant influence on the field of science fiction as well as the broader culture. Two
Twilight Zone
episodes were aired in 1986, “A Saucer of Loneliness” (Sturgeon claimed that Mama Cass of the pop group Mamas and the Papas was a special fan of “A Saucer of Loneliness” [Volume Seven], and when approached about filming it, he recommended that she play the part of the female protagonist. The
Twilight Zone
episode, written by David Gerrold, had Shelley Duvall in the main role), and “A Matter of Minutes” (based on his story “Yesterday Was Monday” [Volume 2] and written by Harlan Ellison
^®
and Rockne S. O’Bannon). In 2000, he was awarded the Gaylactica Spectrum Award for his ground-breaking 1953 story about homosexuality, “The World Well Lost” (Volume 7). Also, in 2000, Sturgeon was elected to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, now based in the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, which displays several Sturgeon-related objects, including the portrait
of Sturgeon painted by Ed Emshwiller which was used as the cover for the collection
E Pluribus Unicorn
(1953) as well as Volume 7 of this series, a letter from Heinlein to Sturgeon suggesting story ideas, and a copy of the Pioneer 10 plaque from the Apollo mission signed to Ted by Carl Sagan, one of its designers. (The Pioneer 10 and 11 unmanned space missions were the first to travel past the solar system into deep space, and the plaques were designed to communicate our location and physique to alien intelligences. A few of the plaques were given to artists, writers and musicians who in Sagan’s judgment were influential representatives of human cultural production; Sturgeon was one of them.) In 2005, a play based on his story, “The Graveyard Reader” (Volume Ten), ran as part of the Theater Phantastique at the Wooden-O Theater in Los Angeles. In 2005, Jon Knautz directed a short film from the short story “The Other Celia” (Volume Nine); it aired on the Canadian Broadcasting Company in January 2008. Consistently appearing on numerous “best of sf” lists,
More Than Human
has been in print since it was published in 1953, and Sturgeon’s fiction continues to be sold around the world.

“Tuesdays are Worse”
(
Chatelaine: The Canadian Home Journal
, vol 33, no 1, January 1960). Teaser: “Les lived with a fear he could not talk about. It followed him home, to be borne though not understood by Angela and their child … until that night. A story no married couple should miss.” The abusive behavior of the father in this story recalls Sturgeon’s description of his treatment as a child by his stepfather, found in the autobiographical essay
Argyll
(1993). My thanks to William F. Seabrook, Sturgeon bibliographer extraordinaire, for finding this story in time to include it.

“Case and the Dreamer”
(
Galaxy
, January 1973) Reprinted in
Case and the Dreamer
(Doubleday 1974), which also contained the novellas “If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister?” and “When You Care, When You Love” (both in Volume Eleven). “Case” was written originally as a pilot for NBC. The dedication to the Doubleday volume reads: “For Herb Solow, without whom Case would never have been written.” Herb Solow was an agent, TV producer and at one time head of MGM Studios. He met Sturgeon when he worked for Desilu Studios, which produced
Star Trek
. “Case and the Dreamer” was never completed as a pilot.

“Agnes, Accent and Access”
(
Galaxy
, April 1973) Teaser: “The computer knew the answer to everything—except Agnes!” Written many years before desktop or laptop computers were invented, this detailed imagination of such a device reads more and more over time like the machines we use today. Perhaps subvocalization of voice-directed typing programs is one step away. Sturgeon’s third wife, Marion, grew up in the Bronx, and though she did not usually have a noticeable accent, it could be brought out under times of stress, an effect her children delighted in producing. (An irony is that many of the stories in these last two volumes were put into electronic form through the use of MacSpeech Dictate, a voice-directed program that consistently mishears my New York-inflected pronunciation of “orange” as “are range.”)

“Ingenious Aylmer”
(
Harper’s
, December 1973) This is one of two very short stories featuring the character Ejler Edgar Aylmer, an eccentric genius who works in his basement.

“The Sheriff of Chayute”
(
Sturgeon’s West
, Doubleday 1973). The series of western stories of which “Sheriff” is one were credited “with Don Ward,” but as made clear for the earlier stories published in Volumes 10 and 11, they were written solely by Sturgeon, sometimes from ideas bounced off his friend Ward, the editor of
Zane Grey’s Western Magazine
.

“The Mysterium”
(Circa 1974–1976. Previously unpublished.) The original manuscript is typed on the letterhead with two unicorns most commonly used during the period in the middle 1970s when Sturgeon lived in the small apartment on Vendome Street in Los Angeles. Though he kept this apartment after 1976, when he began his relationship with Jayne Williams and began to spend time in San Diego and then in Eugene, Oregon, it is likely that this story was written earlier than that time. Sturgeon’s invention of a noun “woodstocker,” and verb “woodstocking” as describing making a living from music festivals is interesting, because of his time spent living in Woodstock, NY in the early and middle 1960s. It is possible that this story is unfinished.

“ ‘I Love Maple Walnut’ ”
(
Harper’s
, May 1974) This is the second very short story written about the inventor Ejler Edgar Aylmer. William F. Seabrook provides the following note of interest about the
Harper’s
stories:
“They appeared in a section of the magazine called ‘Wraparound,’ a series of pieces relating to a common theme. One month the theme was Love, and along with [Sturgeon’s] short-short story [‘ “I Love Maple Walnut” ’], they published ‘The Irish Girl’s Lament’; as this was also included in, and gave the title for, [the Sturgeon story] ‘And My Fear Is Great,’ [Volume Seven] surely this must have been at his suggestion.” (Seabrook, personal communication) Sturgeon indeed constantly promoted “The Irish Girl’s Lament” as one of the most beautiful statements written about love, in his opinion, and it is quoted in full in the story “And My Fear Is Great.” The poem was collected by W.B. Yeats, and is used in the movie version of James Joyce’s “The Dead,” directed by John Huston.

“Blue Butter”
(
Fantasy and Science Fiction
, October 1974) Teaser: “From the one writer in this issue whose name also appeared on the front cover of Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 1949, a small story with a huge theme, about the day in which a computer reads out the Final Extrapolation. Ladies and Gentlemen, Theodore Sturgeon …” In an incident that mirrors the one in the story, in 1968, Sturgeon’s fourteen-year old daughter Tandy accidentally ran through a plate glass door and suffered multiple wounds and extensive bleeding. Sturgeon was present and administered first aid, possibly saving her life.

“The Singsong of Cecily Snow”
(
Heavy Metal
, October 1977) An example of Sturgeon’s lyrical fantasy writing, reminiscent of his “unicorn story,” “The Silken-Swift,” (Volume 7) which is discussed by Peter S. Beagle in his introduction to this volume.

“Harry’s Note”
(
Chrysalis
, Roy Torgeson, ed., Zebra 1977) Another example of Sturgeon’s belief that empathy (or love) is a key to human evolution and survival, but in a very pessimistic rendering. Did Sturgeon really meet Leary, Metzner, and Alpert in Woodstock? There was indeed a Café Espresso in the town, and Leary, and possibly the others, were often at Millbrook, just across the Hudson River from the Woodstock area. As Sturgeon was fond of saying after recounting an improbable version of what had actually happened, “it could have been.” The evocation of the Golden Rule with the phrase: “do as you would be done by” echoes of one of Sturgeon’s favorite children’s books,
The Water Babies
, by Charles Kingsley (1862–63), which featured a good fairy, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby and a bad fairy,
Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid. The phrase “Thou art God,” of course, evokes the famous Robert A. Heinlein novel,
Strangers in a Strange Land
(1961). Sturgeon and Heinlein were good friends, and though they disagreed politically (particularly about the economy and about the necessity of war), they shared an interest in challenging social strictures on nudity and sex, and a strong distaste for organized religion. Heinlein named his fictional character “Waldo” and the manipulative devices Waldo invents “waldoes” in honor of Sturgeon’s birthname (Sturgeon was born Edward Hamilton Waldo). The term “waldoes” took and is still in use in scientific laboratories today. Sturgeon named a character in his story “The Other Man” (Volume 9) “Anson,” Heinlein’s middle name, in gratitude for Heinlein’s suggesting the story idea to him. Resonances of this long relationship, and the close parallels between Sturgeon’s novel
Godbody
, and Heinlein’s
Stranger
, are also apparent in two stories in this volume: “The Country of Afterward,” and “The Trick,” below. Heinlein died three years to the day after Sturgeon, on May 8, 1988.