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Charlie Johns has been snatched from his home on 61 North 34th Street and delivered to the strange future world of Ledom. Here, violence is a vague and improbable notion. Technology has triumphed over hunger, overpopulation, pollution, and even time and space. But there is a change that Charlie finds even more shocking: gender is a thing of the past. Venus Plus X is Theodore Sturgeon's brilliant evocation of a civilization in which tensions between male and female and the human preoccupation with sex no longer exist. As Charlie Johns explores Ledom and its people, he finds that the human precepts he holds dear are profane in this new world. But has Charlie learned all there is to know about this advanced society? And why are the Ledom so intent on gaining Charlie's approval? Unsettling, compelling, and no less than visionary, here is science fiction at its boldest, a novel with the wisdom and lyricism to make it one of the most original and insightful speculations on gender ever produced.… (more)
I had a very difficult time following the main story. It seemed to lurch from place to place. And I never understood the purpose of the vignettes about the suburban families and how that was supposed to relate to the main story. ( )
This is strike 2 for Sturgeon, for me. Only made it about 20 pages in before I felt like I was reading random words put together into sentences. Just kept on finishing paragraphs thinking, "What?" I was interested in what was happening with the aliens, but it was just too much of a task slogging through what seemed like extra just thrown in as filler. ( )
Here is a book that I absolutely loved when I first read it (in 1965, when I was a junior in high school). Upon rereading, it shows some ambiguities. On the one hand, it has a really great depiction of a utopia where the ideas are startlingly innovative and thought provoking. This is interspersed with some not very good dystopic depictions of 1950s American social ambiguities that remind me a little bit of Kurt Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House." Still, I give it: ( )
"Charlie Johns," urgently cried Charlie Johns: "Charlie Johns, Charlie Johns!" for that was the absolute necessity--to know who Charlie Johns was, not to let go of that for a second, for anything, ever.
Charlie Johns has been snatched from his home on 61 North 34th Street and delivered to the strange future world of Ledom. Here, violence is a vague and improbable notion. Technology has triumphed over hunger, overpopulation, pollution, and even time and space. But there is a change that Charlie finds even more shocking: gender is a thing of the past. Venus Plus X is Theodore Sturgeon's brilliant evocation of a civilization in which tensions between male and female and the human preoccupation with sex no longer exist. As Charlie Johns explores Ledom and its people, he finds that the human precepts he holds dear are profane in this new world. But has Charlie learned all there is to know about this advanced society? And why are the Ledom so intent on gaining Charlie's approval? Unsettling, compelling, and no less than visionary, here is science fiction at its boldest, a novel with the wisdom and lyricism to make it one of the most original and insightful speculations on gender ever produced.
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HUMAN? MAYBE ...
Charlie Jones couldn't decide whether the Ledom fascinated or horrified him. they had snatched him from his ordinary life in 20th-century America to what looked like a futuristic Eden - with no Adams or Eves. For the Ledom had carried unisex to its ultimate, producing a harmonious society free of the age-old war between men and women.
But this Eden had its serpent 0 the loner who knew the true nature of the Ledom - and their plans for Charlie Jones. --------------------- "WE LEDOM RENOUNCE THE PAST ..."
Men and women are different. And the difference can be marvelous ... and deadly. Nothing equals the intensity of love between a man and a woman, or of the hatred they can come to bear each other. they are locked in an endless cycle of need and fear, and raise their children from birth to be trapped in that same cycle.
Can the human race evolve beyond sexual warfare, to achieved love and caring without dread and hate? The Ledom thought so - in fact, they knew so. For they were the next stage of humanity ... if they were still human.
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