In Space No One Can Hear You Scream

Theodore Sturgeon

The ship was crewed with men who had been deliberately, painstakingly driven insane, except for one man. They had told him that he wasn’t insane—but then, they might have been lying to him. Then they sent them to a place in space from which ships did not return. The mission was insane in every meaning of the word . . .

Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985) was one of the great writers of science fiction’s “golden age” in the 1940s, and by the 1950s was renowned for his three-dimensional characters and his highly individual style. His early works, of which “Medusa” is an example, were elegantly constructed, fast-paced stories told by a wisecracking narrator, but he soon developed a fluent prose poetry of style that accomplished wonders. Another notable prose poet, Ray Bradbury, admitted the strong influence Sturgeon’s writing had on his own work in the introduction he wrote for Without Sorcery, Sturgeon’s first story collection. His now-classic novel, More Than Human, won the International Fantasy Award, the first of a number of awards (though there should have been many more). The distinguished editor and reviewer Groff Conklin once wrote, “You don’t read [Sturgeon’s] stories. They happen to you.” (Nailed it, Mr. Conklin!) Two Star Trek episodes were scripted by him, and one of them, “The Amok Time,” was a high point of that program. He wrote over 200 short stories, all of which have now been collected in thirteen volumes published by North Atlantic Books. (Many thanks to the late Paul Williams and Noël Sturgeon for bringing this miracle to pass.) He was also the author of unforgettable horror stories, such as “It!,” “The Professor’s Teddy Bear,” “Farewell to Eden,” and, of course, “Bianca’s Hands.” Not to mention the story which follows . . .