Collecting Sturgeon

(This is my Friday post, a little bit early.)

What makes someone want to dish out some 30 bucks a-freakin'-piece for 11, so far, volumes of "The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon?" Especially when it is noted that he-who-is-typing-this-little essay already has most of the stories in their original, or second- or third- of fourth-printing, paperback forms?
A little background:
(And please pause for a moment to note that I have just read Harlan Ellison's wonderful introduction to the latest volume, number 11 in the series, called "The Nail and the Oracle," and I have his authorial voice pouring through my fingers and, try as I might, if I write anything right now it comes out on the keyboard.)
I spend a few years after I graduated from college reading a lot of science fiction. I mean a lot. I mean, sometimes three books-a-day a lot. Often, it would mean finishing one book in the morning, reading another in the afternoon, starting a third in the evening, and then going to be to wake up and do it again.
I started with Ray Bradbury. For some reason, whenever I want to read but can't, I can always turn to Bradbury to make me read again. I don't to this day really understand why, but it almost always works.
The book was "The Vintage Bradbury," and I had bought it and was supposed to read it for a college class (English 210, "Lit of Science Fiction," if I am to remember correctly). I had read a few stories in it, written a paper and discussed what I had read, along with what I hadn't, during the class.
There were several similar books from the class which I had read but not read that I read that summer as well. None were written by Theodore Sturgeon, however.
I moved on to a book I had wanted to read but never did, "The Essential Ellison," and worked backward to re-read Ellison's "Angry Candy" which I had bought and read a few years earlier. In the introduction to that book, Ellison talked at some length about people he knew who had died recently. One of them was — A-hah! Here's where I am going at last! — Sturgeon.
After reading Ellison eulogize his friend so passionately, I started looking for some books Sturgeon wrote. The first I found was his wonderful novel, and science fiction classic, "More Than Human." I read it, and really enjoyed it. So, I kept looking for more.
I haunted used bookstores that whole summer, and found lots of old Sturgeon books. I could find almost none of his works in new book stories. I think most of his short story collections were out of print by the early 1990s.
But, I rounded up "E Plurbus Unicorn," "Theodore Sturgeon Is Alive and Well," "Beyond," "Caviar," and many others. I found his novels like "The Dreaming Jewels," "The Cosmic Rape," and Venus Plus X."
So, I had, and still have, a pretty good Sturgeon collection. I didn't have everything, though.
Then, a few years later, random House books started publishing "The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon," which, I think, was initially supposed to be a 10-volume set. (It has already reached 11 volumes, and I don't know when it will stop.)
Initially, I decided not to buy them, because I figured I had most of the stories, anyway. Plus, they were expensive, even as paperbacks.
Cut to an evening in 2001 and I am perusing a Half-Price Books store in Columbus, Ohio and I find two of the earlier volumes, three and four, for $5 apiece. What did I do? I bought them.
Sturgeon's story "Killdozer" is considered one of his best. However, I always get stuck reading it. I have tried to work through it something like four or five times, and I have to force myself. I don't really know why.
I started the volume with "Killdozer" in it pretty soon and I got the books, and I got stuck. So, I didn't finish the volumes I had until 2004.
I figured I ought to take something along to read when I was on my honeymoon in Ireland, something that I could pick up and put down as I wanted. So, I picked the Sturgeon book.
I think I finished it while my lovely new wife was showering one evening, and when I got home resolved to start buying the rest of the series.
At this point, there was something like eight or nine books, and I had but two. The later ones were only being issued in hardcover, which meant they were expensive. Like $35 apiece expensive.
I got a couple and plowed through them, all the while planning to get the rest, buying maybe a month or two at a time. Well, it didn't work out that way. I shunted the collecting to the side for something like two more years.
Allofasudden it was 2007, and I was arranging my Sturgeon on a bookshelf and I saw which ones I was missing. So, I tried to get one book from what I thought was his peak period, which turned out to be volume eight.
I ordered in it April from Amazon.com. It was backordered. I waited something like four months, and it never came.
I tried to order a used copy from Barnes and Noble's Web site. A seller listed it, but then I ordered it, it never came. Ultimately, I got a refund. I tried to order it from the Random House site. I got an e-mail that it was back ordered there, too. I cancelled that order a day later.
Because it was so hard to get, I realized I may run out of time. I worried they wouldn't be in print forever, and I'd have a collection with some gaping holes.
In the mean time, I started buying all the other books I didn't have. I got volumes one and two from Amazon. I got volume six, too. I got volumes nine and 11, too -- all of them for less than cover price, sometimes less than half.
Finally, on Amazon, a used volume eight appeared for cover price, $35, and I ordered it. I got it four days later. It's the only one I paid full price for.
One can safely say that after some six years, I almost have the complete stories of Theodore Sturgeon. Volume 10 is on the way to me now, and I'll finally be done with the whole thing.
I just noticed something: I still didn't answer the question I started with: what makes a person want to buy all these books? Sturgeon is a wonderful writer, whose stories are entertaining, informative and enlightening all at the same time.
I guess if you really want to know why I got all the volumes, you'll just have to get one, read it and find out for yourself. Needless to say, I think having all the stories is worth the work I went through.