ANYway . . .
Byte Beautiful is not an easy or cheap book to acquire. Here's what really baffles me, though: it's only 177 pages long (plus an absolutely useless six page introduction by Michael Bishop), and it only contains 8 stories . . . and 7 of those stories appear in other Tiptree books which are readily available for cheap. As Negan would say, "What the fuckety fucking fuck is going on here?"
It's not a fancy book. It's not a well made book. It's just a book book.
And the only story that isn't available in another Tiptree book, "Excursion Fare," is a mere 39 pages long.
So why does this book exist? I dunno. But I'm glad that I didn't have to pay to put my hands on it.
I managed to get a copy for free through interlibrary loan. (My copy hailed from Northern Kentucky University--
--and I am thankful for their largesse in making this book available to the world at large.
And I am glad that I had a chance to read "Excursion Fare," since when I aim for complete I want complete complete . . . which is one of the reasons my Charles Willeford experience was a bit frustrating, as there were some books that just weren't to be had without spending the big bucks (which I don't have).
I was planning on just reading the one story, since I'd be hitting the others as I made my way through the Tiptree Canon, but I felt compelled to read the Introduction, just because it was there and nowhere else. And then I just went right into the first story, "With Delicate Mad Hands," which was disturbing enough to keep me reading along. And then the next story was "Beam Us Home," which I had been reading in Ten Thousand Light Years From Home, but I hadn't finished it before switching over to Byte Beautiful, so I kept on going through that story as well. Seeing those first two stories side by side was not such a good experience, though. For one thing, they were so similar that I had to wonder why they both existed . . . and why anyone would put them in the same book . . . much less right next to each other. Both are stories about outsiders who are shunned by their fellows and who take to space in order to escape from humanity. Both are taken in by alien creatures. Both are happy that this happens to them. Also, and this is part of what was disturbing about the first story, both have insulting, animal names for prominent female characters. In "Mad Hands," the lead character is called Cold Pig. Consistently. And in "Beam" the lead character has a female friend who is called Dog. What the fuck, man? That is totally not cool.
I should probably have cut and run at this point, but I decided to go ahead and read the third story, "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death." I seem to have a very faint memory of having read this a long time ago, but I don't know if that's true or not. I think the only Tiptree book I read before this (proposed) marathon was Ten Thousand Light Years From Home, and this story isn't in that collection, it's in Warm Worlds and Otherwise. But the cover of that book looks familiar, so maybe I did have and read it once upon a time. Or maybe I read the story in a collection; it did win a Nebula Award, and I know I used to read things in those award anthologies.
Before reading this one I took a deep breath and uttered this prayer: Please don't be about an abused outsider who either is or is friends with a woman who is referred to as some type of animal and who longs to go into outer space and does and is taken in by kindly aliens. The third time is NOT the charm in this case.
BTW, "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death" also appears in Tiptree's Her Smoke Rose Up Forever. Why would a writer put the same story in three different collections? Well, I guess Harlan Ellison would know about that. But at least he had more than eleven books in his stable.
And our survey says . . . "Plan" was not about an abused outsider etc. and there were no women referred to as animals. Although a female animal was the protagonist of the story. Which was about cannibalism and incest. And which had a large proportion of silliness. For example: "I keen my baby hum, Deet! Deet! Tikki-takka! Deet! hoping Mother will answer, crooning deep, Brum! Brrumm! Brumaloo-brum!" At risk of offending the skittish out there, I have to say that it surprised me that no one concluded that Tiptree was a woman after reading this story. There are certain types of silliness that it is unlikely a man would commit to paper, and the preceding quoted material is one of those types. Which is not to say that men don't have their own types of silliness. They certainly do. But there are differences. Anyway, this story was not my cup of tea. Not by a long shot.
But I shook it off and turned to "The Man Who Walked Home." (Which is another story which appears in three of Tiptree's books.*)
And it was an amazing story. It made me more confident of the desirability of pursuing the Tiptree oeuvre--which was needed, as after the first three stories, doubt was starting to set in.
The title of the fourth story did not seem promising to me: "Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!" That's not what I think of as a good title. But surprise! It was another excellent story. (It also appears in two other anthologies, by the way.)
Story number five was "The Peacefulness of Vivyan," and it was not nearly as good as the preceding two, but it wasn't bad. (It only appeared in one other collection.)
And then it was time for The Main Event: the novelette "Excursion Fare," which appeared in no other Tiptree collection . . . and which seems to have been previously published only in the Judy-Lynn del Rey edited Stellar 7 anthology from 1981.
And . . . oh my. It was quite, quite good. No Tiptree fan should miss reading this story. Quick tip, though: you can pick up a used copy of Stellar 7 for $6 or $7, shipping included, so that would be a more economical way to go. Unless you live in my neighborhood, of course, in which case you can just come by and read my copy. For free, of course.
And after that there was only one more story, "I'll Be Waiting for You When the Swimming Pool Is Empty," so of course OCD demanded that I go ahead and read that one . . . even though I'll be reading it in Ten Thousand Light Years From Home in a little while (once I finish off these interlibrary loan books, which I have for only a limited amount of time and without the opportunity to renew them). And . . . it was the worst story of all. The silliness factor was through the roof on this one, for one thing. For another, the cruelty factor was unfuckingbelievable: at least four mentions of murdering infants, and a flippant reference to The Holocaust. Plus quite a few bits that were demeaning to women. Sheesh. It really doesn't get much worse than this. I can't even imagine why this piece of shit was published, much less published 16 times (Protostars anthology 1971, in four different printings of Best Science Fiction Stories of the Year 1972-1974, five different printings of Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home 1973, the Byte Beautiful publication, and 5 translations).
I really wish I had bailed out of the book before reading this last story. I was feeling really good about "Excursion Fare." Now . . . I feel like I need a mind shower, so I'm going to go read some William Gibson to get the taste of this out of my brain.
* Which made me check back on the first two stories, and I found that "Mad Hands" had also appeared in three Tiptree books; "Beam" only appeared in two. "Only.")
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