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STURGEON

Ah, a Theodore Sturgeon fan.  There is still hope for the net.
And the world.

There's a story called "To Here and The Easel" that I need to
re-read ever few years in order to remain sane.  It's about an
artist named Giles, who is blocked and needs to learn why.
The story oscillates between his manic, streaming consciousness
and a medieval fantasy world (which may be a hallucination)
about a knight distracted from his quest by a blind Christian
girl with a faith so pure it's painful.

There's a novel called _Some of Your Blood_, which is
unfortunately rare possibly because it's so difficult to
classify, but possibly because people are afraid of it... 
I refuse to say much more about it except that it's brilliant, 
and that I hope you enjoy searching many used book stores,
because that's what you'll need to do to find a copy.  
It's funny: I don't really believe in spoiler warnings as a
rule (a mystery novel that's not worth reading just because
you know who did it would be a very poor mystery novel), but
in this case I believe everyone deserves the experience of
a first, fresh, reading.
                                                         
The story "If All Men Were Brothers, Would You Let One Marry
Your Sister?" appeared in the _Dangerous Visions_ anthology,
and was one of the few stories worthy of the theme.  Sturgeon
decided to attack the incest taboo with logic that's close to
unassailable.  And along the way he comes up with a narrative
trick that's so elegant in retrospect it seems obvious: the
story is told as a dialog with an official personage, but the
narrator repeatedly interrupts himself, and thinks to himself
all the things that can't be said.                       
                                                         
And what other authors should a Sturgeon fan try?  That's a
tough one.  Maybe these aren't too far off:              
                                                         
Cordwainer Smith (such as "The Lady Who Sailed The Soul").
R.A. Lafferty (say, the collection, _Nine Thousand Grandmothers_).
Samuel R. Delany's "The Star Pit".  
Alan Garner's _Redshift_.  
Zelazny's "A Rose for Ecclesiastes".
Alfred Bester's "5,271,009"
Kim Stanly Robinson's "A Short, Sharp Shock"


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