Another hard to find and / or expensive Tiptree book. But at least there's a reason for this book to exist . . . and at least it is, in several ways, a special book (as Byte Beautiful most certainly was not).
As to the "special" aspect: (1) it was a limited edition publication--a mere 3,673 copies were published; (2) and that was the only American edition of the book--though there were two German printings in 2011 and 2012; (3) none of the three stories in this book appear in any of the other Tiptree books, and, so far as I can discern, appear nowhere else other than their original magazine publications (one in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine and two in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction); (4) it has 28 black and white illustrations by one Glennray Tutor 1 --some full page, some smaller--and some decorative designs at the top of most of the pages . . . and a map; and (5) it has a sewn binding, which is always nice.
And as for the Expensive and / or Hard to Find . . . I found copies on Amazon, AbeBooks, Alibris, Better World Books, Barnes & Noble, and eBay . . . but from a low of $38 to a high of $2,128.01 + $3.99 shipping. And most copies leaned towards north of $100.
And as for the stories?
Well, there are only three of them, which does make for a pretty slim book. There are 97 story pages . . . but many of them are not full pages. In fact, I don't think any of them are actually full pages, because the pages that don't have illustrations on them with the text have design elements which take up some space. So we're not talking Quantity here.
As for Quality . . .
The first story, "What Came Ashore at Lirios," is a pretty interesting story of a conversation with a very strange person. I assume that this is non-fiction . . . but maybe not. There are no science fiction elements to the story, for sure. Although it might be a ghost story. It's not clear enough on that to be classified as a fantasy, though. This story takes up 40 of the 97 story pages in this book.
The second story is "The Boy Who Waterskied to Forever." Which is a pretty terrible title in my humble, and which doesn't have much to do with the story. Also, there's a brief aside in the story in which a story is told about a man raping a woman, and it's told as a "funny anecdote." Unfuckingbelievable. It really made me lose some respect for Tiptree.
The third story was a lot like the first one. Same format: main character meets a stranger who tells a spooky story. This spooky story was very heavy handed on the message side, though, which is always a bit off-putting. Unless the writer in Jonathan Edwards. And you, Mr. Tiptree sir, are no Jonathan Edwards.
So all in all . . . not a very good book at all. I'm not sorry to have read it, but I'm glad I didn't step in it.
Onward to better Tiptree books, I hope.
1 I feel compelled to confess that I did not find the scent of these drawings pleasing to my nostrils AT ALL.
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