This is an amazing collection. It consists of one longer piece (the title piece) and five shorter stories. Sturgeon’s writing is simply fabulous, ranging from swashbuckling to almost prose poetry with incredibly vivid imagery. Sturgeon was one of the first people to bring literature to SF in an unashamed way, and this collection just shows how good a writer he was.
Some of his recurring themes turn up again in this collection — post-humanism and co-operation as cornerstones of survival — and it’s interesting to see how they’ve developed through his work. It’s never more than subtle though, and never gets in the way of the story. Highly, highly recommended.
