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Tor Double #9: Isaac Asimov’s The Ugly LIttle Boy and Theodore Sturgeon’s The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff

Tor Double #9: Isaac Asimov’s The Ugly LIttle Boy and Theodore Sturgeon’s The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff

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Cover for The Ugly Little Boy by Alan Gutierrez
Cover for The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff by Carol Russo
The ninth Tor Double collects novellas by Isaac Asimov and Theodore Sturgeon, the only entries by either author. The Asimov’s story is The Ugly Little Boy and Sturgeon offers the oddly titled The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff. This volume is the first to include two stories that did not win, or even receive a nomination, for any awards. Leigh Brackett’s story in the previous volume wound up winning the 2020 Retro Hugo Award.

Theodore Sturgeon’s The [Widget], the [Wadget], and Boff was originally published in F&SF in November, 1955. The strange title is entirely fitting for the strange story Sturgeon has to tell. Just as two of the words in the title are framed by brackets, the story has a science fictional device framing it, in the form of a report by two aliens visiting Earth. In their report, which partly looks at whether or not “Synapse Beta sub Sixteen” exists in humans (and whether the species can survive without it), but also serves as an indictment of one of aliens by the other, the aliens set words in brackets when there is no exact English equivalent for what they are attempting to say.

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Birthday Reviews: Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Girl Had Guts”

Birthday Reviews: Theodore Sturgeon’s “The Girl Had Guts”

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Venture Science Fiction January 1957-small Venture Science Fiction January 1957-back-small

Cover by Ed Emshwiller

Theodore Sturgeon was born on February 26, 1918 (Happy Centennial Theodore!) and died on May 8, 1985. Sturgeon won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his story “Slow Sculpture,” possibly the only time a story has won the Novelette Nebula and the Short Story Hugo.

His novel More Than Human received the International Fantasy Award. A translation of “And Now the News…” received a Seiun Award while “The World Well Lost” received a Gaylactic Spectrum Hall of Fame Award. Sturgeon himself received the Forry Award from LASFS in 1971 and a Life Achievement World Fantasy Award shortly after his death. In 2000 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. He’s remembered today mostly for his short stories, including “Killdozer,” “A Saucer of Loneliness,” and “If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry Your Sister,” but he also wrote the novels More Than Human, Venus Plus X, and The Dreaming Jewels. Kurt Vonnegut’s recurring character Kilgore Trout is believed to have been named for him.

Sturgeon wrote the classic Star Trek episode “Amok Time,” which introduced the Vulcan salute and the phrase “Live long and prosper.” His short fiction has been collected into a thirteen volume set by North Atlantic Press. The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, presented annually for short stories by the Gunn Center at the University of Kansas, is named in his honor.

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