Theodore Sturgeon
See first quotes from Theodore Sturgeon
45 Quotations from Theodore Sturgeon
| antigrav n. | 1941 Artnan Process in Astounding Science-Fiction June 56/2 The ship settled down gently, her antigrav plates moaning. |
| astrogational adj. | 1950 Stars Are the Styx in Galaxy Oct. 80/1 I showed him the casing of the intricate beam-power apparatus that contained the whole reason for the project, and gave him a preliminary look at the astrogational and manual maneuvering equipment and controls. |
| astrogator n. | 1942 Medusa in Astounding Science-Fiction Feb. 80/2 Your job is to tend the control machinery, and to act as assistant astrogator no matter what happens. |
| blaster n. | 1941 Artnan Process in Astounding Science Fiction June 68/2 He reached casually into his pocket and pulled out a blued-steel automatic blaster. |
| cold fusion n. | 1957 The Pod in the Barrier in Galaxy Science Fiction Sept. 17/1 Knowledge—the knowledge that put cold-fusion power plants on all the Earth planets, in all the factories. |
| empathy n. | [ 1945 Killdozer! 230 Places with Typewriters: we are writing stories about the future about machines that think creatively…about empathy, second-order space, contra-terrene matter, levitation, astral separation, telepathy, the intuitive mutation, universal synthesis, time-travel, silicon life, and the evolution of intelligence in rats. ] |
| ET n. | 1957 Bulkhead in Thunder & Roses 189 The xenologists and e-t mineralogists who were crazy enough to work out there. |
| fanac n. | 1964 Introduction to Wages of Synergy in Sturgeon in Orbit 36 Into the strange cosmos of Golden Age science fiction—where first the plural of ‘fans’ was ‘fen’ and a letters' section in the magazine became a ‘lettercol’ and the activities of fen were ‘fanac’, and a fugghead was a ‘fugghead’—came Samuel Mines, from whence, fen never knew and, after a few issues, to where, few found out. |
| faster than light adv. | 1941 Artnan Process in Astounding Science-Fiction June 61/2 Got that old-style ether-cloud steering for hyper-space travel, though—you know—the one that builds etheric resistance on one bow or the other to turn the ship when she’s traveling faster than light? |
| fugghead n. | 1964 Introduction to Wages of Synergy in Sturgeon in Orbit 36 Into the strange cosmos of Golden Age science fiction—where first the plural of ‘fans’ was ‘fen’ and a letters' section in the magazine became a ‘lettercol’ and the activities of fen were ‘fanac’, and a fugghead was a ‘fugghead’—came Samuel Mines, from whence, fen never knew and, after a few issues, to where, few found out. |
| gravitics n. 1 | 1953 More Than Human 206 Seems that gravitics is the key to everything. It would lead to the addition of one more item to the Unified Field—what we now call psychic energy, or ‘psionics’. |
| homeworld n. | 1967 If All Men were Brothers (1968) 118 So Charli went back, and saw (after a due delay) the Archive Master, and learned what he learned, and came out and looked about him at his home world and, through that, at all the worlds like it; and then he went to the secret place where the Vexveltian ship was moored, and it opened to him. Tyng was there, Tamba, and Vorhidin. Charli said, ‘Take me home.’ |
| hyperdrive n. | 1950 Stars are the Styx in Galaxy Oct. 79/2 By the time you’re clear of Curbstone’s gravitic field and slip into hyper-drive, the new ship’ll be waiting for passengers. |
| hyperspace n. | 1941 Artnan Process in Astounding Science Fiction June 66/2 As soon as he was out of the planet’s effective space warp, he slipped into hyperspace and traveled toward Procyon and its dark companion at many times the speed of light. |
| lifeboat n. | 1941 Completely Automatic in Astounding Science-Fiction Feb. 86/1 They said that spaceships should no more take off without chem supers than they should without lifeboats. The fact that no one within the memory of living man had ever used a lifeboat for anything but joy-riding didn’t faze them. |
| Luna n. | 1942 Medusa in Astounding Science-Fiction Feb. 88/1 Xantippe was a strangely dull planet, even this close to its star. She shone dead silver, like a moonlit corpse’s flesh. She was wrinkled and patched, and—perhaps it was an etheric disturbance—she seemed to pulsate slowly from pole to pole. She wasn’t quite round; more nearly an ovoid, with the smaller end toward Betelgeuse! She was between two and three times the size of Luna. |
| mag- prefix | 1948 There Is No Defense in Astounding Science Fiction Feb. 30/1 Maneuvering was accomplished by variations in field strength by inductance-coupling of the mag-flux coils. |
| null-grav adj. | 1957 The Pod in the Barrier in Galaxy Science Fiction Sept. 13/1 We'd taken off with a null-grav tug and slipped into second-order matrix within six hours—all very fast and painless, thanks to the Luanae. |
| planetfall n. | 1949 Farewell to Eden in O. Welles Invasion from Mars 178 They made their planetfall with Gowry at the manual controls. |
| psionics n. | 1953 More Than Human 206 Seems that gravitics is the key to everything. It would lead to the addition of one more item to the Unified Field—what we now call psychic energy, or ‘psionics’. |
| reaction drive n. | 1949 Minority Report in Astounding Science Fiction June 137/1 They fired up the reaction drive and began to move toward the sun. |
| shuttle n. | 1950 The Stars Are the Styx in Galaxy Science Fiction Oct. 74/2 I was waiting in the entry bell when Judson arrived on Curbstone. Judson had nothing to do with that. I didn’t even know he was on that particular shuttle. It’s just that, aside from the fact that I happen to be Senior Release Officer on Curbstone, I like to meet the shuttles. |
| space-going adj. | 1942 Medusa in Astounding Science-Fiction Feb. 84/1 I shook myself and snapped out of it. I was dreaming myself into a case of the purple willies. If I couldn’t keep my head on my shoulders aboard this spacegoing padded cell, then who would? Who else could? |
| spacehound n. | 1951 Last Laugh in Other Worlds Mar. 7/2 I'm just an old space-hound, but I know what I'm talking about. |
| space pilot n. | 1941 The Purple Light in Astounding Science Fiction June 121/1 I shouldn’t, being a mere space pilot, have tried to think I was an atomic physicist. |
| space warp n. | 1941 Artnan Process in Astounding Science Fiction June 66/2 As soon as he was out of the planet’s effective space warp, he slipped into hyperspace and traveled toward Procyon and its dark companion at many times the speed of light. |
| Sturgeon’s Law n. | [ 1957 On Hand: A Book in Venture Science Fiction Magazine Sept. 78 Sturgeon had a revelation. For twenty years he has been defending s f against its lay critics, especially those who buy on the open market anything which calls itself s f, sieve it with a warp and a woof, and dish up the cruddiest bits to the Saturday Review or the New Yorker with the smarmy comment that This Is Science Fiction. It isn’t as easy as one might think to argue with these people, primarily because they really do take their horrible examples out of the s f field, a field which is, they inform the world, ninety-percent crud. And on that hangs Sturgeon’s revelation. It came to him that s f is indeed ninety-percent crud, but that also—Eureka!—ninety-percent of everything is crud. All things—cars, books, cheeses, hairstyles, people and pins are, to the expert and discerning eye, crud, except for the acceptable tithe which we each happen to like. ] |
| Sturgeon’s Law n. | [1957 in Venture Science Fiction July 78 There’s Malcolm Jameson on ‘Space War Tactics’, a discussion on ‘Fuel for the Future’—the machine to be fueled happens to be human—by the articulate Jack Hatcher; a fine bit of tongue-in-cheek on the sad state of the copyright laws in the days of interstellar intercourse, by Donald F. Reines; and then there’s your reviewer’s personal favorite, as must needs be for one who has reduced the cosmos to Sturgeon’s Law: Nothing Is Always Absolutely So from a lifelong search for something you can really count on—it’s Frederik Pohl’s ‘How to Count on Your Fingers’. ] |
| Sturgeon’s Law n. | [ 1958 in Venture Science Fiction Mar. 66/2 It is in this vein that I repeat Sturgeon’s Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against the attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of s f is crud. The Revelation: Ninety percent of everything is crud. Corollary 1: The existence of immense quantities of trash in science fiction is admitted and it is regrettable; but it is no more unnatural than the existence of trash anywhere. Corollary 2: The best science fiction is as good as the best fiction in any field. ] |
| super-weapon n. | 1951 Traveling Crag in Fantastic Adventures July 110/2 Now, a cargo ship was travelling between galaxies on hyperspatial drive. In a crazy, billion-to-one odds accident, it emerged into normal space smack in the middle of a planetoid. It wasn’t a big one; the ship wasn’t atomized—just wrecked. It was carrying one of these super-weapons. |
| telekineticist n. | 1952 Baby Is Three in Galaxy Science Fiction Oct. 58/1 I'll tell you. I'm the central ganglion of a complex organism which is composed of Baby, a computer; Bonnie and Beanie, teleports; Jane, telekineticist; and myself, telepath and central control. |
| teleport n. 1 | 1952 Baby is Three in Galaxy Science Fiction Oct. 58/1 I’ll tell you. I'm the central ganglion of a complex organism which is composed of Baby, a computer; Bonnie and Beanie, teleports; Jane, telekineticist; and myself, telepath and central control. |
| teleport n. 2 | 1952 Baby Is Three in Galaxy Science Fiction Oct. 58/1 I'll tell you. I'm the central ganglion of a complex organism which is composed of Baby, a computer; Bonnie and Beanie, teleports; Jane, telekineticist; and myself, telepath and central control. |
| teleport v. 2 | 1953 More than Human iii. 204 Bonnie and Beanie can’t carry so much as a toothpick with them when they teleport, let alone clothes. |
| teleportation n. | 1943 The Bones in Unknown Worlds Aug. 110/1 ‘Are you telling me you felt things in those pictures?’ Farrel nodded soberly. ‘Donzey, I was in those pictures.’ Donzey thought, What have I got here? Transmigration? Teleportation? Clairvoyance? Why, there’s ten billion in it! |
| thought wave n. | 1973 Helix the Cat in Astounding: John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology 277 ‘How can I hear you?’ ‘Direct telepathic contact. I am not speaking to you, specifically, but to your soul. [...]’ ‘Then—why doesn’t Helix get the same messages?’ ‘Because he is on a different—er—wavelength. That’s one way of putting it, though thoughtwaves are not electrical.’ |
| tractor beam n. | 1948 There Is No Defense in Astounding Science Fiction Feb. 10/2 It captures three different scanner-scouts, holding them with some sort of a tractor beam, whirling them around like a stone on a string, and letting them go straight at the nearest planet. |
| trideo n. | 1953 Mr. Costello, Hero in Galaxy Science Fiction Dec. 69/2 Actually, I suppose there’s really only one—though, of course, there'll be someone else in the studio at the time.…But on trideo it looks like four Lucilles, all speaking at once, sort of in chorus. |
| trideo n. | 1953 Mr. Costello, Hero in Galaxy Science Fiction Dec. 74/1 Mr Costello rapped the trideo screen in front of him. He said, ‘Make it a real good one, Lucille, real good. I'll be watching.’ |
| trideo n. | 1958 The Comedian’s Children in Venture Science Fiction Magazine May 96/1 At the same time she recalled his advice to get some sleep, not to watch the telethon; and in a sudden, almost childish burst of rebellion she slapped the arm of the divan and brought the trideo to life. The opposite wall of the room, twelve feet high, thirty feet long, seemed to turn to smoke, which cleared to reveal an apparent extension of the floor of the room, back and further back, to Heri Gonza’s great grey backdrop. All around were the sounds, the smells, the pressure of the presence of thousands of massed, rapt people. |
| viewport n. | 1955 Who? in Galaxy Science Fiction Mar. 100/1 You just don’t look through viewports very often. |
| visiscreen n. | 1941 Completely Automatic in Astounding Science Fiction Feb. 93/1 I went over to what looked to me more like a visiscreen than anything else in the place. There was a switch beside it. I threw it. Nothing happened. ‘Where’s the receiver and transmitter?’ I growled. |
| warp v. | 1949 Minority Report in Astounding Science Fiction June 133/1 Englehart himself made no calls, but the pioneers did, and Earth was ready for him when he warped in. He was welcomed as a hero, as a conquistador, a demigod. |
| xenologist n. | 1955 Who? in Galaxy Science Fiction Mar. 116/1 His passengers in coldpacks and a cargo of serums, refractories, machine tools and food concentrate for the xenologists and mineralogists who were crazy enough to work out there. |
| xenology n. | 1957 It Opens the Sky in Venture Science Fiction Nov. 16/1 You have every rotten plague and dangerous plant pest known to xenology, right here in your hand. |