He began his career writing stories of the macabre and the weird type with a strong psychological interest, for he was from the beginning more interested in inner than outer space. Even his space operas emphasize character over action and the power of love and understanding over that of rocket drives and blasters. He was one of the science-fiction writers responsible for extending the boundaries of the genre into the soft sciences. Although he has written many important and controversial stories of social analysis and criticism, he has done little social satire. Sturgeon's targets for criticism are most often the powerful and influential who are insensitive to the needs of those dependent on them. Some of his special interests include alien-human contact, the cosmic mind, the growth of group or racial consciousness, alienation and unification, and stories that stress the need for men, especially, to learn the meaning of love.
Theodore Hamilton Sturgeon was born Edward Hamilton Waldo in the New York City borough of Richmond--Staten Island--in 1918, the year the Great War ended. It is fitting that this writer should be born on an island: loneliness and alienation are two persistent themes in his writing.
