More Than Human is a 1953 science fiction novel by
Theodore Sturgeon, expanded from his earlier novella
Baby Is Three. It follows six people: Lone, a mentally disabled wild man who can read minds; Gerry Thompson, an orphan with limited mind control abilities; Janie, a girl with
telekinesis; Bonnie and Beanie, twins who can teleport; and Baby, a child with Down syndrome who can't talk, but has superhuman intelligence. The six have the ability to merge their abilities together, which they call bleshing.
More Than Human contains examples of:
- Artificial Gravity: Lone builds an antigravity machine, following Baby's instructions, in order to help the Prodds with their truck. When he reaches their farm, he finds that they're already gone, so he attaches it to the truck in their field and forgets about it. Hip discovers it years later and spends seven years tracking down the people who put it there.
- Commonality Connection: Hip tells Gerry about his history of being rejected and unwanted so that Gerry will listen to him when he explains the concept of ethos.
- Dedication: To His Gestaltitude Nicholas Samstag.
- Elevator Buttons Mash: As a young child, Janie presses all the elevator buttons because the elevator's stupidity in stopping at every floor amuses her.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Hip Barrows' father wants him to become a doctor and does everything possible to discourage his interest in electronics and engineering. When he was nine, his father forced him to burn his collection of engineering texts, and when he was twelve, his father made him refuse a scholarship.
- Hive Mind: When the protagonists blesh, they become what they call the gestalt being, with Lone and later Gerry as central command. When Hip joins as the conscience, the gestalt being becomes complete, and they are put in telepathic contact with other gestalt beings from across the globe.
- Identity Amnesia: Janie rescues Hip from a prison cell, where he has been slowly wasting away with no memory of anything. Under Janie's care, he gradually recovers his memories, starting with the most recent. His condition was caused by Gerry tampering with his mind. The first incident occurred seven years ago, when Gerry placed mental blocks to prevent Hip from finding the inventors of the antigravity device. He managed to investigate despite the blocks and found Gerry seven years later, so Gerry compelled him to smash himself into a plate glass window, then curl up and die. The second incident resulted in the amnesia, but with Janie's help, he is able to recover from both that and the earlier mental blocks.
- I Have No Son!: Hip's father disowns him when he's sixteen. He isn't upset at all, and is glad to be able to work in a research lab and go to engineering school without his father's interference.
- Making Room for Baby: Lone spends eight years with the Prodds, a farming couple, who teach him to talk. He stays in a room the Prodds built onto the side of their house, meant for the child they couldn't have. When Mrs. Prodd finally gets pregnant, Mr. Prodd asks Lone to leave.
- Named After Somebody Famous: Hip is short for Hippocrates
. - Old-Timey Ankle Taboo: Alicia and Evelyn Kew have been raised in isolation by their tyrannical, sex-hating father, who dresses them in Victorian-style outfits and trains them to quickly cover their ankles if they become exposed.
- Runaway Hideaway: After he leaves the Prodds, Lone sets up a shelter in the woods. He is soon joined by Gerry, who ran away from the state orphanage, and Janie, who left her parents, who didn't like her, and took Bonnie and Beanie with her. He also takes in Baby, the Prodds' infant son, whom they rejected for having Down syndrome.
- Self-Abuse: Mr. Kew doesn't want his daughters to even look at their bodies, let alone masturbate, and shows Alicia pictures of people with cataracts to show what will happen if she takes baths with the lights on.
- A Taste of the Lash: Lone breaks into the Kews' yard, drawn by the signal from Evelyn's mind. When Mr. Kew sees the two of them, he starts whipping Lone.
