A gem here and there: exemplifying Sturgeon's Law

kw: book reviews, science fiction, anthologies

Rebounding from the familiar "The Pen is Mightier than the Sword," I sometimes speak under the title, "The Tongue is Mightier than the Pen." Yet something underlies them all, something without which the tongue is silent, the pen dries up, and the H-bomb is impotent, nay, does not exist: The IDEA.

I read because of ideas. I may read several books before encountering an idea worth remembering. Sometimes I find a gem.

Theodore Sturgeon (a famed SF writer) once took a friend to a conference on SF. After one talk, the friend turned to him to say, "This is 90% junk!" Sturgeon replied, "Ninety percent of everything is junk." Even the best ore yields only an ounce or two of gold to the ton.

So I wade through a lot of junk. Every reader does. I nearly didn't wade through The Cuckoo's Boys. Robert Reed's first story is an ugly, distasteful piece of crap about a guy getting away with murder. Yes, one could say I read it, but I really skimmed through, rather briskly! The rest of the collection, though rough around the edges, was at least tolerable.

In the tenth story of the twelve, a character muses on religion. The character, probably speaking in the author's voice, sees that people mostly get religious when they are in a lot of trouble: "Foxhole conversions". People don't take time to build seaworthy craft, but lash together any kind of raft to ride out a storm. Then she goes on to ask, "What would a genuinely seaworthy god look like, and sound like, and give back to true believers?"

Now that is a question worth considering. Of all I might say in response, I have one foundational thought: a real god exists independently—is not created by us—and would take the initiative to begin a relationship. Think your own thoughts on this...I'll be back.