“A master storyteller certain to fascinate.”— Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.   Up until one minute ago, Gurlick was merely a specimen of Homo sapiens, and a substandard specimen at that. But now this craven, seething, barely literate drunk has ingested a spore that traveled light years before touching down on our planet. A spore that has in turn ingested Gurlick—turned him into a host for the Medusa, a hive mind so vast that it encompasses the life forms of a billion planets. A hive mind that is determined to ingest Earth as well.   In this mind-wrenching classic of science fiction, the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novelist Theodore Sturgeon places humanity on a collision course with an organism of unimaginable power and malevolence and reminds us how much we depend on each other, or even on a wretch like Gurlick. Crackling with suspense, overflowing with invention, and startling in its compassion, To Marry Medusa is a tour de force from one of the great imaginers of the golden age of speculative fiction. Theodore Sturgeon is the father of literary SF, his profound influence apparent in the works of such wildly different authors as Samuel R. Delany, Harlan Ellison, and Nancy Kress. His fiction--concerned with alienation, union, repression, self-discovery, and the healing powers of love and tolerance--foreshadowed the humanist, sexual, and transcendental revolutions of the 1960s. He was honored with the Hugo, Nebula, and International Fantasy Awards and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. To Marry Medusa (1958) may be Theodore Sturgeon's best novel. Dan Gurlick was a drunken bully--until he became infected with an alien spore. Now Gurlick is part of the Medusa, a galaxy-spanning hive mind comprising a billion life forms--a near-omnipotent intelligence horrified by humanity, and determined to destroy the unsuspecting human race in order to save it. To Marry Medusa is vintage Sturgeon, a treat for fans and newcomers alike. --Cynthia Ward Theodore Sturgeon was born in Staten Island, New York, in 1918. He lived in New York City, upstate New York, and Los Angeles. In addition to  More Than Human , winner of the International Fantasy Award, he is the author of  Venus Plus X ,  To Marry Medusa,   The Dreaming Jewels,  and numerous other books and stories. He won the Hugo and Nebula Awards for his short story "Slow Sculpture" and the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award. He died in Eugene, Oregon, in 1985.