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This fourth volume of Theodore Sturgeon's Complete Stories publishes the work of 1946-1948, wen Sturgeon's early popularity among science fiction readers crystallized into a lasting reputation among a wider group of readers. &quote;Maturity&quote; and &quote;Thunder and Roses&quote; are the best-known of the stories in this period. &quote;It Wasn't Syzygy&quote; display's Sturgeon's interest in psychological themes. &quote;The Professor's Teddy Bear&quote; is an early prototype of the modern &quote;horror story&quote; as practiced by Clive Baker, Stephen King and many others.In these years Sturgeon was recovering from the failure of his first marriage and a severe case of &quote;writer's block&quote;. In March 1947 his luck turned around: a story he had failed to sell earlier won a short story contest sponsored by the prominent British magazine, Argosy, with the then-enormous prize of $1000. Later Sturgeon credited this event for restoring his faith in himself as a writer. The same year &quote;Maturity&quote; and &quote;Thunder and Roses&quote; were received with tremendous enthusiasm by his peers. Ray Bradbury, a few years short of his own success, wrote to Sturgeon in February 1947:&quote;Ted, I hate you!...MATURITY...is a damned nice story. Your sense of humour, sir, is incredible. I don't believe you've written a bad story yet; I don't think you ever will. This is not log-rolling, by God; I only speak the truth. I predict you'll be selling at least six stories a year to Collier's and The Post before long. You have the touch.&quote; A month later, the day he learned he'd won the contest, Sturgeon wrote to his ex-wife, &quote;It's more than a thousand dollars. The curse is off with me. My faith in [the story's] quality and my own is restored, and I don't think that I shall ever again experience that mystic diffidence and childish astonishment when one of my stories sells or is anthologized. I know now why they do, and I'm proud of it, and I know how to use it.&quote;This fourth volume also features a major &quote;undiscovered&quote; story, &quote;Wham Bop!&quote;, from an obscure youth magazine in 1947. It may be one of the finest fictional portraits of a 1940s jazz band in American letters.Additional delicacies awaiting the Sturgeon fan in Thunder and Roses are his first Western Story, &quote;Well Spiced&quote;, and a UFO saga, &quote;The Sky Was Full of Ships&quote;, written in 1947 and set in the Southwest. It could well be the true story of the Roswell incident.