We’re living in a truly splendid era for fantasy fans. Fantasy films and TV shows routinely top box office charts and Nielsen ratings, fantasy novels crowd bestseller lists, and Gandalf, Harry Potter, and Tyrion Lannister are all household names. Believe it or not, there was a time when girls did not find you cool for talking about Wolverine or Captain America, or for being able to rattle off the names all 13 dwarves who accompanied Bilbo into the Misty Mountains. Hard to comprehend, I know.

Even those of us who cherish the history of the genre have a lot to celebrate. Many of the great fantasy books of the 20th Century are still in print, or at least available inexpensively online. Let’s face it — if you’re a fantasy fan, the world is your oyster.

Unless you’re a fan of short story collections, of course. In which case, you’re out of luck.

For most 20th Century fantasy writers, this has been a regrettable literary development, but not catastrophic. Most didn’t have short story collections anyway. But for some — like the great Theodore Sturgeon, who produced much of his best work at short length — it means that the 21st Century is rapidly forgetting them.

And that’s a tragedy. Yes, Sturgeon did leave behind a handful of novels, some of which — like More Than Human, The Dreaming Jewels, and Venus Plus X — are still in print today (in attractive trade paperback editions from Vintage Books actually; check ’em out.) But for decades before his death in 1985, he was justly renowned as one of the finest short story writers the field had ever seen.

Sturgeon wrote more than 200 SF and fantasy short stories, including “It!” (1940), the brilliant “Microcosmic God” (1941); “Killdozer!” (1944), “Baby Is Three” (1952), and “Slow Sculpture” (1970), winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Award. During his lifetime, they were gathered in no less than 16 paperback collections (and an additional six reprint collections).

They are all long out of print. The last, The Golden Helix, appeared 35 years ago, in 1979.

North Atlantic Books published a beautiful 13-volume set of The Complete Short Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, edited by Paul Williams and with intros by Harlan Ellison, Samuel R. Delany, Kurt Vonnegut, Gene Wolfe, Connie Willis, Jonathan Lethem, and many others. But these were expensive, poorly distributed, and aimed squarely at the collector’s market. The Complete Theodore Sturgeon was a godsend to his existing fans, but it didn’t do much to win over new ones.

Which means it’s essentially down to us to keep the memory of Theodore Sturgeon alive. (By us, I mostly mean you. I’m just the idea guy.)

Fortunately, we’re ably assisted in this noble endeavor by small bookshops and online booksellers, most of which have one or two (or maybe 15, who knows?) Theodore Sturgeon volumes hidden away somewhere in their inventory. So your assignment is pretty simple: train yourself to spot, acquire, and promptly read and share these treasures whenever and wherever you find them. Sorta like those monks in A Canticle for Leibowitz, except you’re encouraged to get a better haircut.

As always, we’re here to help. And today we’ll start your training with Sturgeon’s 1979 collection The Stars Are the Styx. Partly because it’s a solid collection, but mostly because I love Rowena’s cover, and it’s dead easy to spot even in the back of a poorly-lit bookstore.

Here’s the back cover blurb:

Let Sturgeon the Enchanter move, chill, and entertain you with:

TANDY’S STORY: Lots of little girls build houses for their dolls — but a working factory…?

THE EDUCATION OF DRUSILLA STRANGE: Condemned to exile and torture, she rejected her only hope of release.

RULE OF THREE: “Two’s Company” is a tradition that could destroy mankind!

THE STARS ARE THE STYX: Outbound is a one-way trip — 6,000 years long.

Plus six other top-notch Sturgeon stories by an old master writing at his unmatchable peak.

The Stars Are the Styx contains two complete novellas — “The Other Man” and “Granny Won’t Knit” — and a total of 10 stories, virtually all of them originally published in Galaxy. Here’s the complete Table of Contents:

Introduction by Theodore Sturgeon
“Tandy’s Story” (Galaxy Magazine, April 1961)
“Rule of Three” (Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1951)
“The Education of Drusilla Strange” (Galaxy Science Fiction, March 1954)
“Granny Won’t Knit” (Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1954)
“When You’re Smiling” (Galaxy Science Fiction, January 1955)
“The Claustrophile” (Galaxy Science Fiction, August 1956)
“The Other Man” (Galaxy Science Fiction, September 1956)
“The Stars Are the Styx” (Galaxy Science Fiction, October 1950)
“Occam’s Scalpel” (If, July-August 1971)
“Dazed” (Galaxy Magazine, September-October 1971)

Dell published five additional Sturgeon volumes at around the same time and they’re all beautiful: the novels Venus Plus X (1979) and The Dreaming Jewels (1980), and the collections Visions and Venturers (1978), The Golden Helix (1979), and a 1980 reprint of Beyond (originally published in 1960).

Bluejay Books did permanent hardcover editions shortly after the Dell paperbacks appeared, all with Rowena covers — and even published an additional one, Alien Cargo (see them all here).

Our most recent coverage of Theodore Sturgeon includes:

A Touch of Strange (1958)
Not Without Sorcery (1961)
Sturgeon in Orbit (1964)
Starshine (1966)
Sturgeon is Alive and Well… (1971)
To Here and the Easel (1973)
The Stars Are the Styx (1979)

The Stars Are the Styx was published by Dell in October 1979. It is 384 pages in paperback, priced at $2.25. The cover is by Rowena Morrill. I acquired my copy in the collection of Mary Dechene. It has been out of print for over 30 years, and there is no digital edition.

See all of our recent Vintage Treasures here.