Recently, I’ve been rereading a lot of old favourite books, both genre and non-genre; partly because I liked them when I last read them, and partly to see if they still hold up—many of them being more than 50 years old. (Hey, I’m more than 50 years old, and still more or less holding up.) One of my favourite genre books—which I first read as a novella called “Baby is Three,” though I forget exactly where or when I first read it—was and still is, Theodore Sturgeon’s More Than Human. I think I read “Baby” in an anthology when I was still a pre-teen (the story first came out in 1952, but I must have been 10 or 11 in ’57 or ’58). The novel came out in 1953, but I don’t think I read it till my teens. The novel is basically the same as “Baby” with an equal part added before and after.
If you’ve never read either story or novel, it’s (they’re) an exploration, using PSI, or extrasensory powers, of the next possible step in human evolution to a kind of Homo Superior. We’ll get into specifics later in this column.
There have always been stories and/or legends of people with various mental powers, but in the 1950s and 1960s, science fiction—mostly because of Professor J.B.Rhine at Duke University’s experiments—took on the fictional exploration of human “psychic” powers. The PSI in psionics, is derived from “psychic,” though science fiction writers attempted to make it sound more psientific (sorry). Psionic powers include telepathy, telekinesis (also called psychokinesis), teleportation, remote viewing, etc.; since you’re here, I doubt I need to explain those any further.
John W. Campbell, editor of Astounding (later called Analog) magazine, was a big proponent of psionics and, as he was a very influential person in the field, many stories were written expounding these powers. Many books—science fiction, not fantasy (as far as anyone knew)—were written involving all these and more; they include Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination (aka Tiger! Tiger!) and The Demolished Man; Gordon Dickson’s Necromancer; A.E. Van Vogt’s The World of Null-A and Slan; Roger Zelazny’s Creatures of Light and Darkness; James Blish’s Jack of Eagles; George O. Smith’s Highways in Hiding (aka The Space Plague); and James H. Schmitz‘s “Telzey Amberdon” stories; and there were many more novels as well as stories. Campbell wasn’t the only one—I devoured each one of the foregoing as soon as I found them. Unfortunately, though esp, as it’s now called generically, has never been proven to exist.
So. More Than Human: in some ways, it’s a typically 1950s book; there’s some pretty obvious stereotyping of Blacks, but I think no more so than most white-written books; young people today may not understand the morés and customs of the 1950s, or may find them ridiculous. But as will all of Sturgeon’s writing, the characters are powerfully written, and that for me makes up for any deficiency in the writing.
Theodore Sturgeon, born Edward Hamilton Waldo in 1918, wrote a number of works in several fields (including Westerns), as well as at least one episode of Star Trek: TOS (“Shore Leave”). He won Hugo and Nebula awards, and was a member of the long-gone LA-area writing group “The Green Hand,” which numbered Sturgeon, my late friend Jerry Sohl, Richard Matheson, Charles Beaumont, William F. Nolan and Ray Bradbury among its members. (“The Green Hand” was a takeoff from the Mafia’s “Black Hand.”)
The novel (yes, we’re still talking about the novel) concerns a number of disparate characters, each with a singular talent. The talents include telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation and (a group effort) “bleshing,” a portmanteau word from “blending” and “meshing” that in effect, creates a singular parahuman from its various elements. (Some events are shortened, simplified and changed a bit in this summary.) The first third of the book, entitled “The Fabulous Idiot,” tells of a man, “Lone,” who was thought to be an idiot, but was really a man who had not yet engaged with the world; he was basically a mental fetus, though physically adult. Living like an animal in the woods, he receives a telepathic shout from Evelyn Kew, a woman raised in near-solitude—locked behind a metal fence—by an insane father who, like Carrie’s mother, believed in odd Biblical ideas of original sin. In all innocence, Evelyn (alone in a corner of the fenced forest) dances naked in the sun and Lone receives her telepathic shout of joy. Finding a way under the fence, Lone goes to her and they are found by Evelyn’s father, who kills her and then himself, leaving Lone injured but awakening mentally. Lone escapes and is found by a middle-aged farming couple, the Prodds, who have been waiting for years for Mrs. Prodd to have a baby, but she doesn’t seem to conceive. They are sure that “Jack,” as they will call the baby, will arrive sometime, but keep Lone in Jack’s room as he recovers and becomes their general helper. This is practically Lone’s first life experience as a real person.
Mrs. Prodd finally does, near the end of her fertility, become pregnant and Lone, telepathically, senses he’s unwanted, so pretends he has to leave so they can deal with their “blessed event,” and goes back into the forest to live. He finds a natural cave and enlarges it, making it into a primitive home.
Lone is joined in the forest by three young runaway girls: Janie, who is a telekinetic wonder and telepathic with the twin pre-teen Black girls, Bonnie and Beanie, who are teleports. (The only thing they can teleport is themselves, so they always arrive sans clothing.)
The girls make themselves at home with a slightly surly Lone, who really wanted to be alone; until one day he goes to see how the Prodds are doing and discovers all is not well. As sometimes happens with women at the end of their fertile years, Mrs. Prodd delivered a “Mongoloid” baby (what we would call a “Down Syndrome” child; in the early 1950s, such children were usually warehoused, hidden away.) Mrs. Prodd has died, and Mr. Prodd is unable to care for the child; Lone uses his telepathy to make Mr. Prodd think she’s gone looking for “Jack,” and takes the baby back to the forest. The Homo gestaltus has been born; baby is the computer brain, Lone is the coordinator brain, Janie and Bonnie and Beanie are the arms and legs. They blesh for the first time.
Part two is based on “Baby is Three”—Lone has died, leaving the children in care of Evelyn Kew’s slightly offbase sister, who lives in town. Before he died, a young man named Gerry joined them in the forest, but he wasn’t really part of the gestalt. Miss Kew has social beliefs that codified/solidified some time ago, and tries to first, separate Bonnie and Beanie from the group (“We don’t socialize with little colored girls,” she says, making the twins eat in the kitchen with the “colored” maid Miriam. Janie uses some telekinetic tricks to force Miss Kew to allow the children to all eat together. Later, Miss Kew sends Baby to a facility which deals with “that kind of unfortunate child. He’ll never be like you and me,” but Gerry begins taking on Lone’s place as the coordinator of the gestalt, and they force her to bring Baby back. Miss Kew manages to rationalize every telekinetic trick Janie used on her; under her tutelage, the children were not able to blesh; but now they are a gestalt again.
The third part of the book is called “Morality.” When, after the birth of Baby, Mr. Prodd had been unable to work the farm—he was mentally affected by that and the death of his wife—Lone had, using Baby’s computer-like brain, created an antigravity device that he attached to Prodd’s pickup to keep it from getting bogged down. When Prodd had wandered off after Lone took Baby, the truck was left to rust at the farm. Now, years later, that antigravity device is causing problems at a nearby Air Force shelling range. Lt. Hip Barrows is sent to investigate, and a grown-up Gerry, posing as a common soldier (he can make people think what he wants them to think—his telepathy is much stronger than Lone’s was)—beats Hip to the device and launches it into outer space. Baby has told Gerry that knowledge of antigravity could cause World War III or a world-wide economic collapse. So Gerry blanks Hip’s memory and basically drives him crazy; he is sent to an insane asylum. Later, Janie and Hip join forces, and he recovers his memory. He joins them at the Kew home where the gestalt has been living,
and when Gerry attempts to drive him mad again, he becomes the last part of the gestalt—its conscience. Homo gestaltus is complete.
As a pre-teen and a teenager, this book affected my entire lookout on life; it was full of all sorts of emotions I’d never experienced—I rejoiced with Evelyn Kew when she first felt sunlight on her naked skin; I was nearly overwhelmed with sorrow when the Prodds’ child was born “Mongoloid.” (Remember, this was 1953…) It taught me a lot about human emotion I’d never experienced, and reading it again left me wishing that psi powers actually existed and Homo gestaltus would someday be born.
While the book remains a favourite of mine, I’m sorry to report that, despite the wishes of millions of would-be “psychics,” “mediums,” and so on, there is no concrete evidence that any paranormal abilities exist. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you check it out. It’s available. I only got to meet Ted Sturgeon once at a Westercon, but he’s still in my heart thanks to this and other writings.
Comments? Anyone? Please comment—here or on Facebook, or even by email (stevefah at hotmail dot com). All comments are welcome if they’re polite. My opinion is, as always, my own, and doesn’t necessarily reflect the views of Amazing Stories or its owner, editor, publisher or other columnists. See you next time!
