Theodore Sturgeon (February 26, 1918 – May 8, 1985) was an American science fiction author. He was born Edward Hamilton Waldo in Staten Island, New York. In 1929, after a divorce, his mother married William Sturgeon, and Edward changed his name to Theodore the better to match his nickname, "Ted".
He sold his first story in 1938 to the newspaper McClure's Syndicate which bought much of his early work (non-fantastic); his first genre appearance was a year later. At first he wrote mainly short stories, primarily for the science fiction magazines such as Astounding Science Fiction and Unknown, but also for general-interest publications such as Argosy Magazine. He is known to have used the pen name "E. Waldo Hunter" when two of his stories ran in the same issue of Astounding. He once ghosted an Ellery Queen novel, The Player on the Other Side (Random House, 1963).
Although Sturgeon is well known among readers of classic science-fiction anthologies (at the height of his popularity in the 1950s he was the most anthologized author alive) and much respected by critics (John Clute writes in the Science Fiction Encyclopedia: "His influence upon writers like Harlan Ellison and Samuel R. Delany was seminal, and in his life and work he was a powerful and generally liberating influence in post-WWII US sf"), he is not much known among the general public and won comparatively few awards (though it must be noted that his best work was published before the establishment and consolidation of the leading genre awards, while his later production was scarcer and weaker). He was listed as a primary influence of the much more famous Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.. Kurt Vonnegut has stated that his character Kilgore Trout was based on Theodore Sturgeon.
Sturgeon's Law is: "Nothing is always absolutely so". This author has been recommended by 9 other readers. | |
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