Talk:The Cosmic Rape

The Cosmic Rape

Per Paul Williams in the Story Notes to The Man Who Lost the Sea, Volume X: The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, p. 333:

The Cosmic Rape was a novel, published as an original paperback in August 1958, four years after Sturgeon had contracted to write it and had indicated that he could produce it quickly; the delay led his editor to remark to a mutual acquaintance, Judith Merril: "I know Sturgeon can write a novel in three days, but which three days?" The August 1958 issue of Galaxy included a short novel by Sturgeon called "To Marry Medusa," which is actually a condensed or edited-down version of The Cosmic Rape, probably prepared by the magazine's editor. I have not chosen to include "To Marry Medusa" in The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon because I believe it is not a story but a shortened version of an already completed novel, possibly put together by someone other than Sturgeon.

I have rewritten this page to match Paul Williams's version. Signinstranger 20:22, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Now this page should be moved to The Cosmic Rape and "To Marry Medusa" directed to the relocated page. Signinstranger 19:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Readers of "To Marry Medusa" or "The Cosmic Rape" may be interested to learn that in chapter 63 of Kurt Vonnegut's last novel, "Timequake" (1997) a speech given to the character Kilgore Trout (Vonnegut's parody version of Theodore Sturgeon) was clearly borrowed from Chapter 29 of "To Marry Medusa" - a meditation on how the human eye and mind can travel from star to star faster than light. George Weinberg-Harter 23:00, 28 September 2007 (UTC)