Theodore Sturgeon
dduane
Here’s what he looked like (this photo’s by Marc Zicree). There are other pics via his Wikipedia page, which has much more about him for those of you who might be interested. And you can hear a brief interview with him here.
His Star Trek script for “Amok Time” has already been getting some discussion… which is as it should be, as I don’t think there’s any ranking system that wouldn’t put it at least among the top ten ST:TOS episodes. For that episode Ted created the Vulcan “Live long and prosper” greeting (to which Leonard Nimoy added the now-famous hand gesture, adapted from one that originated in Jewish ritual tradition).
Sturgeon also wrote ST:TOS s1e15, “Shore Leave,” which is completely different in feel from “Amok Time”, but in which you can still clearly hear the grace of Ted’s writing even when he’s being (for the circumstances) really funny. But that was always one of his gifts – for being serious without necessarily being at all somber. (Disclosure: Ted was a fixture in Los Angeles SF fandom in the late 70s, when I moved there, and so I was lucky enough to run into him pretty often at conventions and other functions of the local fannish circles. He was kindly and funny, one of those people who could critique someone’s writing both gently and incisively… which is a real gift.)
His TV work was a grace note to a long and distinguished writing career that started in the pulps and quickly surpassed much of their other content. As Neil says, Sturgeon’s writing about love and relationships was unparalleled, and unquestionably far ahead of its time in terms of LGBTQ-friendliness.
His work is worth getting to know. My advice to everybody is: go find some, and experience one of the great voices of our field.
writergeekrhw
“Ninety percent of [science fiction] is crud, but then, ninety percent of everything is crud.”
Theodore Sturgeon
