"The World Well Lost" is a science fiction short story by American writer Theodore Sturgeon, first published in the June 1953 issue of Universe . [1] It has been reprinted several times, for instance in Sturgeon's collections E Pluribus Unicorn , Starshine , and A Saucer of Loneliness . The story takes its title from the subtitle of John Dryden's verse drama All for Love .
The tagline for the Universe cover was "[His] most daring story". [2] Its sensitive treatment of homosexuality was unusual for science fiction published at that time, and it is now regarded as a milestone in science fiction's portrayal of homosexuality. [3] According to an anecdote related by Samuel R. Delany, when Sturgeon first submitted the story, his editor not only rejected it but phoned every other editor he knew and urged them to reject it as well. [4]
In a postscript to his 1960 novel Venus Plus X , Sturgeon complained that following the publication of "The World Well Lost" he received a great volume of "cards drenched with scent and letters written in purple ink with green capitals." He urged readers of Venus Plus X to "keep [their] troubles to [themselves]", noting that he did not personally identify with the bisexual beings depicted in that novel. [5]
In the future, two members of an alien race called the Dirbanu come to Earth. They win humanity's heart by their grace and love for each other. Earth's media has dubbed them the "Loverbirds", and almost everyone on Earth is touched by the Loverbirds' tender displays of wonder and affection.
Dirbanu heretofore had almost no contact with Earth, except for one short investigative trip in which the ambassador of Dirbanu made clear that he found Earth disgusting. However, the Dirbanu government breaks the silence with Earth in order to demand the return of the Loverbirds. Allegedly, the Loverbirds are fugitive criminals and must be extradited. Earth's government, hoping to profit by cooperation with this powerful planet, dispatches spacers Rootes and Grunty to return the Loverbirds.
Rootes, the Captain of the team, is an arrogant, loquacious womanizer. Grunty serves under the Captain. He is a hulking, taciturn poet, so-named because he grunts rather than speaks. Despite their radically different personalities, the two friends are famed in space travel circles for their teamwork and efficiency. They refuse to travel with any other spacers.
The faster than light propulsion employed by Earthmen has the side-effect of stunning the human nervous system to a variable degree. Rootes is deeply affected, while Grunty is almost unaffected, resulting in an extensive period of time after each "jump" in which Grunty is the only aware entity on the ship, a situation that to him is priceless.
While Rootes sleeps off the first jump, Grunty realizes that the Loverbirds are telepathic and have sensed a deep personal secret of his. Grunty prepares to kill them to protect his secret. To dissuade him from committing murder, the Loverbirds sketch for him a series of four drawings. The first is of Rootes, Grunty, and a beautiful human woman, all clothed. The second depicts all three humans nude. The third sketch depicts the Loverbirds themselves and a short, round extraterrestrial, all clothed. The fourth sketch depicts the three aliens nude.
When viewed in sequence, it becomes clear that the short, round alien is a Dirbanu female; Dirbanu males and females vary vastly from each other in appearance. The two Loverbirds, whom humanity had presumed to be male and female because of their physical similarity to Earth males and females, were actually both male. When Grunty realizes the significance of the sketches, he sets them free in an escape pod. The escape pod heads away from the planet, towards the outer reaches of the universe.
Upon awakening, Rootes is furious that Grunty has seemingly sabotaged the mission. Grunty justifies his actions by showing Rootes the four sketches. Realizing that the Loverbirds were a pair of male lovers, the outraged Rootes declares that he would have killed them if he had known. Grunty, having known this, allows Rootes to think this is why he set the Loverbirds free, avoiding the potential consequences if it were to be discovered that an Earth operative had killed Dirbanu citizens. His anger abated, Rootes is impressed by what he perceives as Grunty's cleverness.
Pondering aloud, Rootes realizes that the Dirbanu government's reluctance to interact with Earth must be based on homophobia: since human males and females both resemble Dirbanu males, the Dirbanu were presumably disgusted by the impression that Earth is a "planet full of queers". Although the Dirbanu intellectually know that this is not the case, their visceral reaction to the concept nonetheless repels them. Rootes also hypothesizes that the Dirbanu government wanted to bring the Loverbirds home, as they were ashamed to have the Loverbirds viewed as representatives of the Dirbanu planet.
Upon arriving at the Dirbanu homeworld, Rootes reports that the Loverbirds died of natural causes in transit, and the Earth ship is abruptly dismissed, leaving future interactions between the two worlds questionable. On the return trip, with Rootes again fallen unconscious, Grunty ponders him lovingly. The reader realizes that Grunty is gay and secretly in love with Rootes. Earlier in the story, the omniscient narrator had noted that the only way to destroy the pair's working bond would be to attempt "to explain it to Rootes". The story's conclusion clarifies the full meaning of this statement.
Theodore Sturgeon was an American fiction author of primarily fantasy, science fiction and horror, as well as a critic. He wrote approximately 400 reviews and more than 120 short stories, 11 novels and several scripts for Star Trek: The Original Series.
The alien invasion or space invasion is a common feature in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrial lifeforms invade the Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under an intense state, harvest people for food, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether.
Sexual themes are frequently used in science fiction or related genres. Such elements may include depictions of realistic sexual interactions in a science fictional setting, a protagonist with an alternative sexuality, a sexual encounter between a human and a fictional extraterrestrial, or exploration of the varieties of sexual experience that deviate from the conventional.
Ancient astronauts refers to a pseudoscientific hypothesis which holds that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Proponents suggest that this contact influenced the development of modern cultures, technologies, religions, and human biology. A common position is that deities from most, if not all, religions are extraterrestrial in origin, and that advanced technologies brought to Earth by ancient astronauts were interpreted as evidence of divine status by early humans.
LGBT themes in speculative fiction include lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) themes in science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction and related genres. Such elements may include an LGBT character as the protagonist or a major character, or explorations of sexuality or gender that deviate from the heteronormative.
The Noon Universe is a fictional future setting for a number of hard science fiction novels written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. The universe is named after Noon: 22nd Century, chronologically the first novel from the series.
An extraterrestrial or alien is any extraterrestrial lifeform; a lifeform that did not originate on Earth. The word extraterrestrial means "outside Earth". The first published use of extraterrestrial as a noun occurred in 1956, during the Golden Age of Science Fiction.
Earth vs. the Flying Saucers is a 1956 American science fiction film from Columbia Pictures. It was produced by Charles H. Schneer, directed by Fred F. Sears, and stars Hugh Marlowe and Joan Taylor. The stop-motion animation special effects were created by Ray Harryhausen. The storyline was suggested by the bestselling 1953 non-fiction book Flying Saucers from Outer Space by Maj. Donald Keyhoe. The film was released as a double feature with The Werewolf.
Many works of fiction have featured UFOs. In most cases, as the fictional story progresses, the Earth is being invaded by hostile alien forces from outer space, usually from Mars, as depicted in early science fiction, or the people are being destroyed by alien forces, as depicted in the film Independence Day. Some fictional UFO encounters may be based on real UFO reports, such as Night Skies. Night Skies is based on the 1997 Phoenix UFO Incident.
Saturn has made appearances in fiction since the 1752 novel Micromégas by Voltaire. In many of these works, the planet is inhabited by aliens that are usually portrayed as being more advanced than humans. The planet is occasionally visited by humans and its rings are sometimes mined for resources. The moons of Saturn have been depicted in a large number of stories, especially Titan with its Earth-like environment suggesting the possibility of colonization by humans and alien lifeforms living there.
LGBT themes in horror fiction refers to sexuality in horror fiction that can often focus on LGBTQ+ characters and themes within various forms of media. It may deal with characters who are coded as or who are openly LGBTQ+, or it may deal with themes or plots that are specific to gender and sexual minorities. Depending on when it was made, it may contain open statements of gender variance, sexuality, same-sex sexual imagery, same-sex love or affection or simply a sensibility that has special meaning to LGBTQ+ people.
Neptune was discovered in 1846 and has only made occasional appearances in fiction since then. The first time it was mentioned, then called "Leverrier's planet", was in the 1848 novel The Triumphs of Woman by Charles Rowcroft where an inhabitant of the planet visits Earth. The earliest stories where Neptune itself directly appears as a setting, such as the 1930s works "The Monsters of Neptune" by Henrik Dahl Juve and Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon, portray it as a rocky planet rather than as having its actual gaseous composition; in the latter, it becomes humanity's refuge in the far future when the Sun expands. Later works rectified this error, with Alexei Panshin's 1969 short story "One Sunday in Neptune" depicting a voyage into Neptune's atmosphere and Alex Irvine's 2003 story "Shepherded by Galatea" featuring resource extraction in the atmosphere. In the 1969 novel Macroscope by Piers Anthony, Neptune is converted to a world ship.
Uranus was discovered in 1781 and has comparatively rarely been featured in fiction since then. The earliest such works, such as Stanley G. Weinbaum's 1935 short story "The Planet of Doubt" and Clifton B. Kruse's 1936 short story "Code of the Spaceways", portray it as having a solid surface; in the former, humans landing on Uranus encounter hostile aliens. Later works depict it more accurately as a gaseous planet; for instance, Cecelia Holland's 1976 novel Floating Worlds depicts floating cities in the Uranian atmosphere. Towards the end of the 20th century, there was a slight uptick in appearances by Uranus in science fiction, including the 1985 short story "Dies Irae" by Charles Sheffield about life in the atmosphere and the 1999 short story "Into the Blue Abyss" by Geoffrey A. Landis where there is life in the ocean below.
"Killdozer!" is a science fiction/horror novella by American writer Theodore Sturgeon, originally published in the magazine Astounding and revised for the 1959 collection Aliens 4.
The Einstein Intersection is a 1967 science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany. The title is a reference to Einstein's Theory of Relativity connecting to Kurt Gödel's Constructible universe, which is an analogy to science meeting philosophy. Delany's intended title for the book was A Fabulous, Formless Darkness.
Gender has been an important theme explored in speculative fiction. The genres that make up speculative fiction (SF), science fiction, fantasy, supernatural fiction, horror, superhero fiction, science fantasy and related genres, have always offered the opportunity for writers to explore social conventions, including gender, gender roles, and beliefs about gender. Like all literary forms, the science fiction genre reflects the popular perceptions of the eras in which individual creators were writing; and those creators' responses to gender stereotypes and gender roles.
Almuric is a science fiction novel by American writer Robert E. Howard. It was originally serialized in three parts in the magazine Weird Tales beginning in May 1939. The novel was first published in book form in 1964 by Ace Books.
A relatively common motif in speculative fiction is the existence of single-gender worlds or single-sex societies. These fictional societies have long been one of the primary ways to explore implications of gender and gender-differences in science fiction and fantasy. Many of these predate a widespread distinction between gender and sex and conflate the two.
The Day the Earth Stopped is a 2008 American direct-to-DVD science fiction film produced by independent studio The Asylum, directed by and starring C. Thomas Howell. Its title and premise are similar to those of the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still but the film's plot also incorporates elements from other science-fiction films involving aliens, such as Transformers, Independence Day and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. The film is Howell's second Asylum film in which he was attached as director, the first being War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave.
The role of women in speculative fiction has changed a great deal since the early to mid-20th century. There are several aspects to women's roles, including their participation as authors of speculative fiction and their role in science fiction fandom. Regarding authorship, in 1948, 10–15% of science fiction writers were female. Women's role in speculative fiction has grown since then, and in 1999, women comprised 36% of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's professional members. Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley has been called the first science fiction novel, although women wrote utopian novels even before that, with Margaret Cavendish publishing the first in the seventeenth century. Early published fantasy was written by and for any gender. However, speculative fiction, with science fiction in particular, has traditionally been viewed as a male-oriented genre.