He's a name that is synonymous with the genre and one you must surely have heard of if you've spent two minutes venturing deeper into SciFi. However, I'm often hard pressed to find others, especially those under the age of 50, who has ever read Sturgeon.

I randomly picked up More Than Human from my Giza-esque TBR pile and it was fantastic. The thing that stuck out most was how fantastic the prose was; it almost has a poetic quality to it, but he never seems pretentious, purple or up himself. Overall, it was a fantastic work of fiction, one that I believe may have influenced the creation of the X-men (along with Kuttner and Moore's Mutant fixup).

Now, since reading More Than Human, I often come across Sturgeon in short story compilations. And whatever book he's featured in, whoever else is involved, whether it's Van Vogt, Harrison, Simak, Niven, Aldiss, Dick, you name it, Sturgeon is always the best. Every single time. The thing I notice most about his work is how immersive he is. I find that within the first two sentences -- boom! -- I'm there in his world. Transported away within a few words. It's just amazing to me how he's so good, and what's more, it doesn't even seem like he's trying. He just writes like that. He's just that fucking good.

If you want to be an SF author, you need to study this guy. He is on another level, technically.

https://www.ursulakleguin.com/prize26

I was just thinking about how I probably don't read enough Australian books. NZ is close enough!

I tried asking after this a couple of years ago [I do not use Grok any more]. I am still a bit haunted by the memory of the story - does it ring a bell with anyone else?

Has anyone written a novel or short story that explores how an alien species might cycle between unintelligence and intelligence over a long lifecycle, and most of the time is spent as unintelligent with intelligent technological phase lasting relatively short amount of time?

Book number one of a one book series in the paranormal romance dark fantasy Kate Daniels series. This book is right before book ten of the Kate Daniels series, "Magic Triumphs". I read the well printed and well bound POD (print on demand) trade paperback published by the Nancy Yost Literary Agency, Inc. in 2018 that I bought from Amazon in 2026. The authors have announced plans for two more books in this mini series of theirs which I will buy when they come out. Note that “Ilona Andrews” is the pseudonym for a husband and wife writing team.

Hugh d'Ambray, Preceptor of the Iron Dogs, Warlord of the Builder of Towers, served only one master all of his life. His master, the 5,000+ year old all powerful mage currently known as Roland, cast Hugh away for failing at one task. Hugh was suppose to capture Kate Daniels and bring her to Roland but he failed.

Now Hugh is a falling down drunk but his Iron Dogs find him and tell him that someone is murdering their ranks since they left Roland. Hugh takes charge of the Iron Dogs again and the several hundred of them start looking for a place to rest and regroup. Instead, they find Elara Harper and her 5,000+ people in an abandoned castle in Kentucky. Elara's people call her the White Lady, other call her the Abomination. Hugh and Elara wed as a matter of convenience, not love, and they form a partnership against Roland and his minions.

Hugh's universe sucks. Forty years ago, the tech world crashed over the entire Earth and was replaced by the magic world in the form of a magic flare. Guns don't work, cars don't work, electricity and phones do not work. But magic works. Good magic and bad magic. After a week, the tech world came back to a drastically changed world. And radically fewer humans. And the magic world came back after a while. And the tech world came back after that. And so on and so forth. Each world can last a few weeks or a few hours.

I liked everything about the story. I especially liked the very clear distinction between the tech time and the magic time. I had never thought about it that way. The series may be inspired by "Ariel" by Steven Boyett and "Dies The Fire" by S. M. Stirling except those never interchange the tech time and the magic time, they just transitioned to the magic time.

The authors have a website at:
https://www.ilona-andrews.com

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Amazon rating: 4.8 out of 5 stars (11,745 reviews)
https://www.amazon.com/Iron-Magic-Covenant-Ilona-Andrews/dp/1641970405

Lynn

I'm not that familiar with cli-fi (except the obvious ones) but I'm curious whether AllDive covers the genre well (including cli-fi board games and video games, if they exist?)