On This Day: Theodore Sturgeon

On this day in 1918, Edward Hamilton Waldo – better known to the world as Theodore Sturgeon – was born  in New York City. Sturgeon was not a pseudonym; his name was legally changed after his parents’ divorce.

After selling his first SF story to Astounding in 1939, Sturgeon travelled for some years, only returning in earnest to his writing in 1946. He produced a great body of acclaimed short fiction as well as a number of novels, including More Than Human, which was awarded the 1954 retro-Hugo in 2004. In addition to coining Sturgeon’s Law – ‘90% of everything is crud’ – he wrote the screenplays for seminal Star Trek episodes ‘Shore Leave’ and ‘Amok Time’, inventing the famous Vulcan mating ritual, the pon farr.

You can find more of Theodore Sturgeon’s work via his author page on the SF Gateway website, and read more about him in his entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.