Thunder and Roses

This fourth volume of Theodore Sturgeon's Complete Stories publishes the work of 1946-1948, wen Sturgeon's early popularity among science fiction readers crystallized into a lasting reputation among a wider group of readers. " Maturity" and " Thunder and Roses" are the best-known of the stories in this period. " It Wasn't Syzygy" display's Sturgeon's interest in psychological themes. " The Professor's Teddy Bear" is an early prototype of the modern " horror story" as practiced by Clive Baker, Stephen King and many others. In these years Sturgeon was recovering from the failure of his first marriage and a severe case of " writer's block". In March 1947 his luck turned around: a story he had failed to sell earlier won a short story contest sponsored by the prominent British magazine, Argosy, with the then-enormous prize of $1000. Later Sturgeon credited this event for restoring his faith in himself as a writer. The same year " Maturity" and " Thunder and Roses" were received with tremendous enthusiasm by his peers. Ray Bradbury, a few years short of his own success, wrote to Sturgeon in February 1947: " Ted, I hate you!... MATURITY... is a damned nice story. Your sense of humour, sir, is incredible. I don't believe you've written a bad story yet; I don't think you ever will. This is not log-rolling, by God; I only speak the truth. I predict you'll be selling at least six stories a year to Collier's and The Post before long. You have the touch." A month later, the day he learned he'd won the contest, Sturgeon wrote to his ex-wife, " It's more than a thousand dollars. The curse is off with me. My faith in [the story's] quality and my own is restored, and I don't think that I shall ever again experience that mystic diffidence and childish astonishment when one of my stories sells or is anthologized. I know now why they do, and I'm proud of it, and I know how to use it." This fourth volume also features a major " undiscovered" story, " Wham Bop!", from an obscure youth magazine in 1947. It may be one of the finest fictional portraits of a 1940s jazz band in American letters. Additional delicacies awaiting the Sturgeon fan in Thunder and Roses are his first Western Story, " Well Spiced", and a UFO saga, " The Sky Was Full of Ships", written in 1947 and set in the Southwest. It could well be the true story of the Roswell incident.