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From: kallis@pen.DEC
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: re: Sturgeon's Law
Message-ID: <2921@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Jun-85 15:28:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.2921
Posted: Thu Jun 27 15:28:45 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 1-Jul-85 06:03:00 EDT
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>There have been references to Theodore Sturgeon recently, and also a few
>citations on the famous "Sturgeon's Law".  I would like to trace down the
>actual origin ..."

I cannot say whether it was the *first* time Ted uttered it, but I first
heard the Law enunciated by him when he was the guest at a meeting of a
New York City fan group in 1956 (or 1957 -- I didn't mark down the date
at the time).  I was a college kid at the time, and in those days, we were
all wrapped up in the idea of the Sanctity of *all* SF.  I'll try to
reconstruct this as close as I can.

	After a few opening remarks, Ted said, "People are always criticizing
the quality of science fiction.  Well, I have to say, honestly, that 90
percent of science fction is crap."  He paused for a second, which allowed
us all to register shock, then he went on: "But then, 90 percent of *all*
literatue is crap.  However, science fiction is the only form of literature
that is judged by its crap."  please recall that in the mid- to late 1950s,
"crap" was a lot stronger word than it is nowadays.  And if it wasn't the
very first time he made that utterance publicly, it had to be one of the
early versions.  Over the years, it became broadened and refined.

The shock value was there:  having a leading science fiction writer apparently
biting the hand that fed him (though saving it with a sort of judo-twist in
the next sentence) was to us in those days like discovering that our parents
were hokers, or worse.

Sturgeon's Law has a great deal of validity, and there are theoreticians
who have tried to extend it beyond its bounds.  It was meant to apply to
literary works, not to the cosmos -- although certainly elements of that
are, as Winston Smith might have said, double-plus ungood.  But even the
Zoroastrians and Manachees gave the continuum a 50-50 split.

Steve Kallis, Jr.