More Than Human

Pros: parts 2 & 3 are brilliantly written with an interesting message, very diverse cast of characters

Cons: part 1 has several purposely obscure but important pieces of information, 1950s racial situations/terminology

Normally I write my own synopsis for books I review, but this book's quite complex so I've decided to grab one from the Indigo website instead:

From one of the greatest practitioners of science fiction comes a genre-bending novel that is as affectingly humane as it is speculatively daring.
There's Lone, who can make a man blow his own brains out just by looking at him. There's Janie, who moves things without touching them, and the unique power of the teleporting twins. There's Baby, who invented an antigravity engine while still in the cradle, and Gerry, who has everything it takes to run the world – except for a conscience. Separately, they are talented freaks. Together they compose a single organism that may represent the next step in evolution. As the protagonist of More Than Human struggle to find out whether they are meant to help humanity or destroy it, Theodore Sturgeon explores the questions of power and morality, individuality and belonging, with sophistication and lyricism rarely seen in science fiction.

This is the kind of book that makes me question my ‘if I'm not enjoying it, stop reading it' policy. The book is split into 3 parts, and I actively disliked part 1 while finding parts 2 and 3 brilliant. Had this not been a review book, I would have stopped reading in part 1, which would have been a shame. Part 1 introduces the decently large cast of very diverse characters including a mentally handicapped man, a baby that won't grow, two black girls, etc. It does this by jumping from person to person, often giving descriptions via characters who see the world... differently. Lone, for example, is mentally challenged and only towards the end of the section does he develop speech and anything close to a ‘normal' understanding of events. But his scenes are still written in an understandable way.

The author, however, purposefully obscured certain events in this part of the book making the reader guess what's going on. By the time you understand the situation, you have to go back and reevaluate what's happened. For example, there's a father who has secluded himself and his two daughters on a piece of land. It's easy to assume from things in the text that he's sexually abusing his oldest daughter. Or maybe he's just beating her to drive out her sexual awakening. Or maybe nothing abusive is happening at all besides the girls being locked up. Even after finishing the book I'm not sure which it was, though later events make me assume it's the second scenario.

The first section is set-up for the rest of the book, and the characters the author spends so much time introducing aren't as active in the other two parts (they're mentioned and shown in flashbacks in part 2 and only one of them shows up for any length of time in part 3, with the others having bit parts).

Modern readers will find a few scenes uncomfortable as 1950s racial prejudice is portrayed, including period terminology.

Parts 2 and 3 have a lot more suspense and drive behind them. While I felt like putting part 1 down and not picking it back up, parts 2 and 3 had me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next. The writing was clear, linear and the author tantilized you with bits of the answer at a time.

The ending was great and worth pushing through the first section to get to.

This is a book in three distinct parts. The first two parts are powerful, impressive, and rather shocking; at least by the standards of the early 1950s. It's shaping up to be a great classic.

The third part is still good in its way, it's not a failure, but I find it less convincing; it seems rather eerily to anticipate the mindset of the 1960s.

The story dramatizes the evolution of a new form of humanity: homo gestalt. We see it coming together uncertainly in its early stages and fumbling towards viability. The three parts of the book show successive stages of the process, all richly imagined with many details and individual personalities.

The third part is broadly correct in its theme, but there were many possible ways of handling it, and I don't think Sturgeon picked one of the better ways. So I give the book as a whole four stars rather than the five it might have had.

The gestalt described in the story is not at all plausible, but that's not the point. I don't think Sturgeon was saying, “This is going to happen!”; he was saying, “Wouldn't it be amazing if this happened!”. The book is more fantasy than science fiction, but it's written like science fiction and so the reader tends to assume that's what it is.

Sturgeon also seems to be trying to suggest that some people who become useless failures in our society may have hidden talents that they're unaware of or don't know how to use (though probably not the talents described in this book!).

More generally, I suppose that most people fail to live up to their potential, because it's hard to find out what their potential is, where their true talents lie, what would be the ideal jobs for them.

A thought provoking work on humanity

Theodore Sturgeon at his best. What is humanity and how will it evolve? Written in the early 50s, this story is much less race and gender biased than many others written at this time. While the author projects his moral and ethical values, he shows a thoughtful and considered view of what might be and manages to spin a remarkably entertaining tale at the same time.

“You don't need morals. No set of morals can apply to you. You can obey no rules set down by your kind because there are no more of your kind. And you are not an ordinary man, so the morals of ordinary men would do you no better than the morals of an anthill would do me.”

My first Sturgeon. This is a fix-up novel of three linked novellas, the first and third written around “Baby Is Three” (Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1952). If I was to read “Baby Is Three” as a standalone story, it would have been a four-star rating, hands down.

I must confess I'm not fond of his poetic writing style, I had a hard time following the story and had to go back and reread some paragraphs. I felt disoriented at times but somehow I think this was intended, you have to keep going and try to make sense out of it, live it through the character. Which leads to the characters: very solid ones. Overall the story is acceptable, it didn't feel too dated considering the overwhelming amount of superhuman plots you see nowadays. It occurs to me that the psychic powers could have been better exploited... what do I know? The concluding part explores the nuances of power, ethics and morality. That was okay. The concept of the Homo Gestalt didn't quite fit for me, it's a little awkward if you ask me.

More sturgeon is on its way as I write all this nonsense. So we'll see.

A very invigorating tale of some very odd people - people who make up a new being. By themselves, each piece of the being is special, and has some sort of power, yet together they are capable of anything.

I really enjoyed this book. It starts out really oddly, and it's hard to keep track of all the characters and the time changes (the story spans 20 years or so). Most of the book keeps you on the edge of your seat. The entire last section is a mystery, as you watch a previously insane man regain his memory.