"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.
Alien invasion or space invasion is a common feature in science fiction stories and films, in which extraterrestrial lifeforms invade Earth to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it, harvest people for food, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether. It can be considered as a science-fiction subgenre of the invasion literature, expanded by H. G. Wells's seminal alien invasion novel The War of the Worlds, and is a type of 'first contact' science fiction.
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.
A bioship is a type of spacecraft or starship described in science fiction as either predominantly or totally composed of biological components, rather than being constructed from manufactured materials. Because of this, they nearly always have a distinctively organic look.
LGBT themes in speculative fiction include lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBTQ) themes in science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction and related genres.[a] 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.
First contact is a common theme in science fiction about the first meeting between humans and extraterrestrial life, or of any sentient species' first encounter with another one, given they are from different planets or natural satellites. It is closely related to the anthropological idea of first contact.
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 the earliest depictions, it was portrayed as having a solid surface rather than its actual gaseous composition. In many of these works, the planet is inhabited by aliens that are usually portrayed as being more advanced than humans. In modern science fiction, the Saturnian atmosphere sometimes hosts floating settlements. The planet is occasionally visited by humans and its rings are sometimes mined for resources.
LGBTQ 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.
Uranus has been used as a setting in works of fiction since shortly after its 1781 discovery, albeit infrequently. The earliest depictions portrayed it as having a solid surface, whereas later stories portrayed it more accurately as a gaseous planet. Its moons have also appeared in a handful of works. Both the planet and its moons have experienced a slight trend of increased representation in fiction over time.
"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. The original publisher, Ace Books, changed Delany's originally intended title from A Fabulous, Formless Darkness for commercial reasons.
Gender has been an important theme explored in speculative fiction. The genres that make up speculative fiction, 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.
National Lampoon's Men in White is a 1998 American science fiction comedy film parodying contemporary science fiction films, mainly Men in Black and Independence Day. It debuted on the Fox Family Channel.
A flying saucer, or flying disc, is a purported disc-shaped UFO. In science fiction, reported UFO sightings, and UFO conspiracy theories, they are typically piloted by nonhuman beings. The terms flying saucer and flying disc can be used generically for a mysterious flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has gradually been supplanted since 1952 by the United States Air Force term unidentified flying object (UFO), the downside of which being that, according to the term, absolutely anything can be a UFO. Early reported sightings of flying saucers usually described them as silver or metallic, sometimes reported as covered with navigation lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly, either alone or in tight formations with other similar craft, and exhibiting high maneuverability.
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.
Ancient astronauts have been addressed frequently in science fiction and horror fiction. Occurrences in the genres include:
The Day the Earth Stopped is a 2008 American direct-to-DVD science fiction action horror film produced by independent studio The Asylum, directed by and starring C. Thomas Howell. It is a mockbuster of the 2008 remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, which was released three days later. Howell stars as the protagonist, soldier Josh Myron, who witnesses the arrival of giant alien robots that threaten to destroy the Earth unless they are shown the value of human existence.
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.
"Vaster than Empires and More Slow" is a science fiction story by American author Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in the collection New Dimensions 1, edited by Robert Silverberg. It is set in the fictional Hainish universe, where Earth is a member of an interstellar "League of Worlds". The anthology was released in United States in 1971, by Doubleday Books.