"Theodore Sturgeon - Ether Breather" - читать интересную книгу автора (Sturgeon Theodore)

ETHER BREATHER
Astounding Science Fiction, September by Theodore Sturgeon (1918тАФ )

Until the early seventies, Theodore Sturgeon (Edward H. Waldo) was the most heavi
reprinted writer in the science fiction universe. This was a richly deserved honor, for he ha
produced a long line of outstanding, well-crafted stories featuring memorable character
Working within the fantasy and science fiction genres, he excelled at both, and influenced a
entire generation of writers, includ-ing Ray Bradbury.
Here is his first published storyтАФone that exhib-its all of the talent he would develop an
nurture in succeeding years.
(Good Heavens! I've known Ted Sturgeon for forty years and never knew till now that th
wasn't his real name. Are you sure, Marty? Anyway, an editor said to me once, "If you had
publish a collection of stories by Theodore Sturgeon, what would you call it?" I thought for
while and said, "Caviar!" The editor said triumphantly to someone else who was in the offic
"See!!!" and that was indeed the name of the collection. IA)
Yes, Isaac, I'm sure. He legally changed his name to Sturgeon when his mother remarried.

It was "The Seashell." It would have to be "The Seashell." I wrote it first as a short story, and
was turned down. Then I made a novelette nut of if and then a novel. Then a short short. Then
three-line gag. And it still wouldn't sell. It got to be a fetish with me, rewriting that "Seashell." Aft
a while editors got so used to it that they turned it down on sight. I had enough rejection sli
from that number alone to paper every room in the house of tomorrow. So when it soldтАФwell,
was like the death of a friend. It hit me. I hated to see it go.
It was a play by that time, but I hadn't changed it much. Still the same pastel, froo-froo o
"Seashell" story, about two children who grew up and met each other only three times as the yea
went on, and a little seashell that changed hands each time they met. The plot, if any, doesn
matter. The dia-logue wasтАФwell, pastel. Naive. Unsophisticated. Very pretty, and practical
salesproof. But it just happened to ring the bell with an earnest, young reader for Associate
Television, Inc., who was looking for something about that length that could be dubbed "artistic
something that would not require too much cerebration on the part of an audience, so that sa
audience could relax and appreciate the new polychrome technique of television transmissio
You know; pastel.
As I leaned back in my old relic of an armchair that night, and watched the streamlined versio
of my slow-moving brainchild, I had to admire the way they put it over. In spots it was almo
good, that "Seashell." Well suited for the occa-sion, too. It was a full-hour program given free to
perfume house by Associated, to try out the new color transmission as an advertising medium
liked the first two acts, if I do say so as shouldn't. It was at the half-hour mark that I got my fir
kick on the chin. It was a two-minute skit for the adver-tising plug.
A tall and elegant couple were seen standing on marble steps in an elaborate theater lobby. Sa
she to he:
"And how do you like the play, Mr. Robinson?"
Says he to she: "It stinks."
Just like that. Like any radio-television listener, I was used to paying little, if any, attention to
plug. That certainly snapped me up in my chair. After all, it was my play, even if it was "T
Seashell." They couldn't do that to me.
But the girl smiling archly out of my television set didn't seem to mind. She said sweetly,
think so, too."
He was looking slushily down into her eyes. He said: "That goes for you, too, my dear. What
that perfume you are using? "
"Berbelot's Doux Reves. What do you think of it?"