Briefly summarized, some of Sturgeon's best stories may sound trite or sentimental. But his best stories are told with a mastery of language and structure that makes them impressive works of art. "Slow Sculpture," for instance, succeeds in large measure because of the controlling metaphor of the bonsai tree. The inventor has been lovingly and patiently shaping a tree for half his life. He knows that "the shaping of a bonsai is ... always a compromise and always a cooperation.

A man cannot create bonsai, nor can a tree; it takes both." In the midst of his despair over society's unwillingness to make proper use of his inventions, the woman he has cured reminds him that his failure derives in part from his own arrogance, his unwillingness to compromise or cooperate. And she shows him that in his bonsai he already has a profound insight into the proper way...