Per le raccolte di racconti Urania leggo i racconti in ordine sparso e li recensirò singolarmente.
Al momento ho letto:

- Piccolo grande dio (3/5) - L'idea c'è, è quella che molti anni dopo avrebbe ispirato anche un frammento di un episodio di Treehouse of Horros dei Simpson, ma lo svolgimento della storia è confuso e non molto interessante. Peccato perché con un incipit simile (uno scienziato che da vita ad un popolo di piccoli esseri, che si evolvono molto rapidamente) le possibilità erano molteplici. Come molti altri racconti di Sturgeon anche questo non porta da nessuna parte. Manca tensione perché manca un reale conflitto coinvolgente. Sufficiente.

LETTE 1 DI 8

The title is a sort of pun, of course. But the stories are quite good examples of 1950's Science fiction. The collected stories are: 1 · Bright Segment · nv *
28 · Microcosmic God · nv Astounding Apr ’41
59 · Ghost of a Chance [“The Green-Eyed Monster”] · ss Unknown Jun ’43
77 · Prodigy · ss Astounding Apr ’49
89 · Medusa · nv Astounding Feb ’42
112 · Blabbermouth · nv Amazing Feb ’47
138 · Shadow, Shadow, on the Wall · ss Imagination Feb ’51
149 · Twink · ss Galaxy Aug ’55 ( )

Suffers from a certain amount of dated-ness (they’re from the ‘40s and ‘50s) that is characteristic of golden age sf. There is nothing prophetic in any of the stories. Gender roles are strictly stereotyped and therefore romance is mostly comical by today’s norms. One story is set in the distant future of 1973. The non-sf stories remain the most entertaining.

I do have to mention that The Cosmic God, in spite of its absurdity and clumsiness, has the most profound philosophical ideas of any of the stories revolving around Creation and evolution but Sturgeon fails to exploit these sufficiently and flesh out the ramifications and instead settles for an absurdly typical sf resolution. There is another story, about a planet that is an organism, that is likewise quarantined to a superficial conclusion.

Other, later writers like Harlan Ellison or Samuel Delaney, would take similar ideas to a more profound and satisfying conclusion. Still, without Sturgeon maybe those ideas would never have germinated. ( )

Stories from the 1940s and 1950s. "Medusa" is the story I most enjoyed in this collection. ( )

La claridad por una rendija // Un dios microscópico // Fantasma por truco // Prodigio // Medusa // Chismosa // Sombras chinescas // Twink