The Synthetic Man, Theodore Sturgeon

The Synthetic Man, Theodore Sturgeon

This was a Bookcrossing book that was given to me for my Little Free Library, but I decided to read it first. Vintage sci-fi can be fun to read, and this was an interesting read...can't say I have ever read anything quite like it. Written originally in 1950 under the title "The Dreaming Jewels," this is the story of a young man who is abused as a child by his adopted father and runs away and joins a carnival, where he is taken under the wings of the carnival freaks who work there. He is not like other boys, something about him is just plain different, for example, three of his fingers get cut off, and they grow back. He eats ants sometimes. And he doesn't realize it, but he can make himself look like the sister of one of the carnival freaks, and keep himself from growing into an adult. He doesn't know where he came from, or who he really is, but the woman watching over him has an idea of where he came from, but in order to protect him from the head of the circus, she hides this from him until she no longer can. 

I finished this book in about two days, it was a fun story, written at a time when authors were trying their best to think outside the box, and well, this one is definitely outside the box!