Re: Hello from the outer reaches of Sci Fi fandom, my name's CyborgDreamst8
Welcome! I wanted to suggest an excellent SF writer from my era (I’m a pretty old dude) that a lot of today’s SF fans may not have heard of. His name is Theodore Sturgeon, and he was a prolific writer back in what I like to call the “Pulp” era: the early days of modern SF when most of it appeared in monthly “little” magazines that paid almost nothing and were printed on cheap, newsprint-like paper.
One reason I wanted to mention Sturgeon to you (beside the fact that he was a great pioneer SF writer) was that he is often credited as having deliberately put homosexual subtext in his work, usually disguised as alien cultural practices and behavior. And this was at a time when such writing could be extremely damaging to a writer’s career.
Sturgeon wrote screenplays for Star Trek episodes in the ‘60s and ‘70s, and was known for his invention of the Vulcan mating ritual, the first use of the sentence "Live long and prosper," and the first use of the Vulcan hand symbol. He is also known for coining what became known as Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety percent of SF is crud, but then, ninety percent of everything is crud."
Though his forte was short stories, he did write a few novels, the most famous of which are probably “More Than Human” and “The Cosmic Rape.” I love almost all his work, but my favorite of his short stories is an incredibly original and unique SF saga called “Case And The Dreamer,” published in 1974 in a slim volume by that name containing three stories.
Anyway, I hope I haven’t wasted your time telling you things you already knew, but if by chance you haven’t yet read any of Sturgeon’s work, I highly recommend that you look him up.
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