Tue 22 Oct 2019
Pulp SF-Fantasy Stories I’m Reading: THEODORE STURGEON “The Ultimate Egoist.”
Posted by Steve under Science Fiction & Fantasy , Stories I'm Reading[4] Comments
THEODORE STURGEON “The Ultimate Egoist.” Short story. First published in Unknown, February 1941. Collected in Without Sorcery (Prime Press, hardcover, 1949) and The Golden Helix (Dell, paperback, 1980; Carroll & Graf, paperback, 1989), among others. Reprinted in Human?, edited by Judith Merrill (Lion #205, paperback, 1954).
I suppose everyone, at one time or another, has had the following fantasy: that the world you see, and the objects in it, could disappear if you simply decided that they no longer existed. That the facade of life revolves around you and you only. You don’t even have to admit it. I know you have.
And such is the basis of this early story by master SF author Theodore Sturgeon. I think his work in the short story form was almost uniformly superb; in fact I think most of his readers would agree that his short fiction was a step above the relatively few novels he wrote in his lifetime (1918-1985). The only question is, from this basic premise, where does he go from here? The answer, the only way it could.
I think this story is a small gem, not a perfect one — later in his writing career, Sturgeon would have polished it up to even better effect — but even as is, it’s clever, alive, and a lot of fun to read. What more could you ask from a short tale that’s not far from everyone’s dreams?
October 23rd, 2019 at 4:14 pm
Sturgeon in short form was at his best though a few of his novels (SOME OF YOUR BLOOD) are outstanding. Ironically he also penned good novelizations of the movies VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA and THE KING AND FOUR QUEENS, and his one outing under the Ellery Queen byline, PLAYER ON THE OTHER SIDE, that I think is one of the best of the later Queen works.
October 23rd, 2019 at 7:57 pm
I’d quite forgotten THE PLAYER ON THE OTHER SIDE. I remember reading the book as soon as it arrived from the Dollar Mystery Guild and thinking to myself, well, that was different!
In a good way!!
October 25th, 2019 at 5:20 pm
Notable to the degree to which “The Ultimate Egoist” has been plagiarized … if not quite to the same degree as Bloch’s “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper”, and in its turn Connell’s “The Most Dangerous Game.” Sturgeon’s “It” is almost perfectly written, by me, from not too much later.
October 25th, 2019 at 7:44 pm
“It!” actually came shortly before “Egoist,” being published in UNKNOWN in August 1940, the latter in February 1941. The concept of a plant-based swamp monster has been a staple in horror fiction. especially comic books, ever since.