More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon7/2/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() He has gone to a psychiatrist to find out what he has suppressed from his past, and much of the story takes place in the office where he receives therapy. The second part, “Baby Is Three,” is told in first person by Gerard, the orphan boy who takes over as the gestalt head when a tree falls on the idiot. The first part, “The Fabulous Idiot,” related in third person omniscient, cuts from character to character as it gives the back stories of Lone, the idiot, Jane, the girl with telekinetic abilities, Bonnie and Beanie, the African American girls with the ability to teleport, and Baby, the brilliant calculating mind. The book consists of three novellas, each told in a different style. Each has specific functions within the larger gestalt. The story concerns the creation of homo gestalt, or the next evolutionary step in humanity, consisting of a group mind of several disparate characters: a wandering idiot, who functions as the group’s head (when he is killed he is replaced by an orphan boy), a baby with Down’s syndrome who is referred to in the language of the era as mongoloid (the group’s brain), a girl with the power of telekinesis, and twin girls with the power of teleportation. I’ve had it on my shelf for years and… Well, now seemed to be the right time to pick it up and read it. It was first published in 1953, the year I was born, and in the following year it won the International Fantasy Award for best novel. I find it surprising that I have never read this novel until now. ![]()
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