Craig's Reviews > Venus Plus X

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 fictionalized meditative essay and discussion about sex and religion and gender roles and such weighty philosophical subjects than it is a novel. It was an important work and brought the focus of the field onto those subjects and away from the nutz'n'boltz to which sf readers were accustomed, and Sturgeon (and Philip Jose Farmer as well as a few others) can be credited with doing more to paving the way for the New Wave rebirth of the field than anyone else. It was ground-breaking in its day but is quaintly dated by modern standards, so I'd recommend it for its historical value more than for entertainment purposes.