![]() ![]() In much more than nine cases out of ten the only objectively truthful criticism would be "This book is worthless ." Īccording to science fiction author William Tenn, Sturgeon first expressed his law circa 1951, at a talk at New York University attended by Tenn. Ī 1946 essay Confessions of a Book Reviewer by George Orwell asserts about books: But the remnant is worth the trouble for its own sake. Discussion Ī similar adage appears in Rudyard Kipling's The Light That Failed, published in 1890.įour-fifths of everybody's work must be bad. However, almost all modern uses of the term Sturgeon's law refer to the second, including the definition listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. ![]() The second adage, variously rendered as "ninety percent of everything is crud" or "ninety percent of everything is crap", was known as "Sturgeon's Revelation", formulated as such in his book review column for Venture in 1957. ![]() Sturgeon deemed Sturgeon's law to mean "nothing is always absolutely so" in the story "The Claustrophile" in a 1956 issue of Galaxy. ![]() It was coined by Theodore Sturgeon, an American science fiction author and critic, and was inspired by his observation that, while science fiction was often derided for its low quality by critics, most work in other fields was low-quality too, and so science fiction was thus no different. Sturgeon's law (or Sturgeon's revelation) is an adage stating "ninety percent of everything is crap". ![]()
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