Venus Plus X

Name: Venus Plus X
Brand: Blackstone Audiobooks
Availability: InStock
Author: Theodore Sturgeon
ISBN: 9781433275340

Author: Theodore Sturgeon

Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki

Unabridged: 6 hr 27 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Published: 02/17/2009

Categories: Fiction, Science Fiction

Synopsis

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.

About Theodore Sturgeon

Theodore Sturgeon (1918-1985) is considered one of the godfathers of contemporary science fiction and dark fantasy. The author of numerous acclaimed short stories and novels, among them the classics More Than Human, Venus Plus X, and To Marry Medusa, Sturgeon also wrote for television and holds among his credits two episodes of the original 1960s Star Trek series, for which he created the Vulcan mating ritual and the expression "Live long and prosper." He is also credited as the inspiration for Kurt Vonnegut's recurring fictional character Kilgore Trout.

Sturgeon is the recipient of the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the International Fantasy Award. In 2000, he was posthumously honored with a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Franco on January 21, 2018

4.5 Mi cuarto libro de Sturgeon, y ¡qué sorpresa! Sin lugar a dudas, mi favorito de él. Conmovedor, visionario, emocionante y esperanzador. Venus más X explora la moralidad, el machismo, el feminismo, la sexualidad y principalmente lo más duro y vergonzoso que reside en nuestra naturaleza como seres......more

Goodreads review by Kalin on July 31, 2019

A Platonic dialogue exploring the similarities between the sexes and our stereotypes about sex, many of which sadly persist, more than 60 years after the book was first published. As usual, I'm awed by Sturgeon's courage, insight and warmth. (Although this particular story seemed more clinical, cold......more

Goodreads review by Craig on August 20, 2024

Venus Plus X is one of Sturgeon's best-known novels, but not necessarily among his best (in my opinion, of course!) It was on the Hugo Award ballot for best novel of the year in 1961, but lost (quite rightly, again in my opinion) to Miller's A Canticle for Leibowitz. It's more of a long fictionalize......more

Goodreads review by Jemppu on June 11, 2021

"You cannot be objective about it because you have been indoctrinated, sermonized, drenched, imbued, inculcated and policed on the matter since first you wore blue booties. You come from a time and place in which [...] the importance of then- difference, were matters of almost total preoccupation." A......more

Goodreads review by Kaisa on July 12, 2015

This is a SF classic I would like to see discussed more often. Written in 1960, it is vitally relevant to the current transformation in constructing gender and sexuality. If nothing else, it serves to remind us that the change has been going on for quite some time. Venus Plus X takes an everyman obse......more