Synopses & Reviews
Winner of the Hugo, Nebula and World Fantasy Life Achievement Awards
"One of the masters of modern science fiction."—The Washington Post Book World
Eight-year-old Horty Bluett has never known love. His adoptive parents are violent; his classmates are cruel. So he runs away from home and joins a carnival. Performing alongside the fireaters, snakemen and "little people," Horty is accepted. But he is not safe. For when he loses three fingers in an accident and they grow back, it becomes clear that Horty is not like other boys. And it is a difference some people might want to use.
But his difference risks not only his own life but the lives of the outcasts who provided for him, for so many years, with a place to call home. In The Dreaming Jewels, Theodore Sturgeon renders the multiple wounds of loneliness, fear, and persecution with uncanny precision. Vividly drawn, expertly plotted, The Dreaming Jewels is a Sturgeon masterpiece.
"An intensely written novel and very moving novel of love and retribution."—Washington Star
Synopsis
In The Dreaming Jewels, Theodore Sturgeon, winner of the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award, renders the multiple wounds of loneliness, fear, and persecution with uncanny precision. Eight-year-old Horty Bluett has never known love. His adoptive parents are violent; his classmates are cruel. So, when his stepfather slams Horty's hand in a door, severing three fingers, Horty runs away from home taking only his beloved doll, Junky, and joins the carnival.
Performing alongside the fire-eaters, snakemen, and "little people", Horty is accepted. But he is not safe. For among the freaks is a man who knows that Junky is not a normal doll and that Horty is not a normal boy -- and he knows why Horty's fingers have mysteriously grown back. Using this knowledge he will threaten not only the life of the boy, but the lives of the outcasts who provided the boy with a place to call home. Vividly drawn, expertly plotted, The Dreaming Jewels is a Sturgeon masterpiece.
About the Author
Theodore Sturgeon died in 1985.