The Widget, the Wadget, and Boff, in large measure a meditation upon what makes us human, can be seen as part of Sturgeon's lifelong fictional quest to explain the defining characteristics of human beings. In More Than Human, he investigates what makes a human community functional by bringing together children who are misfits as individuals but who become a powerful force when united. As with the characters in The Widget, the Wadget, and Boff, Sturgeon concerns himself with those who make up all of humanity. He does so by identifying the elemental human qualities in people who are social misfits, individuals estranged from the rest of humanity by the fact of having a surface that has scarcely anything in common with others. The situation of the children is more bizarre than that of Philip Halvorsen, although they share a common alienation from society. One of the...