Reading those two not-fiction letters to Tiptree in The Long List Anthology Volume 2 led me to pick up Meet Me at Infinity, and reading that made me want to read some more Tiptree--for several reasons, one of which is because much of what I've read in Meet Me at Infinity is not very good, and I want to get the real, full flavor of Tiptree back in my mouth. And I've found (without really trying to look for them) a couple of other Tiptree books on my shelves: Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, Star Songs of an Old Primate, and Warm Worlds and Otherwise. And I'm pretty sure that I have Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home around here somewhere. Which got me to thinking, since Tiptree only has thirteen books--
Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home 1973
I am sure that I own this book, but I can't find it. U of L came through for me, though.
I am sure that I own this book, but I can't find it. U of L came through for me, though.
Warm Worlds and Otherwise 1975
Own it.
Own it.
Star Songs of an Old Primate 1978
Own it. Actually have two copies. Don't know why. Want one?
Own it. Actually have two copies. Don't know why. Want one?
Up the Walls of the World 1978
Own it.
Own it.
Out of the Everywhere & Other Extraordinary Visions 1981
Own it.
Own it.
Byte Beautiful: Eight Science Fiction Stories 1985
Looks like this collection only contains one story which is not in another collection: "Excursion Fare" (novelette); a copy of this book is available at Jeffersonville Township Public Library--which has no reciprocal lending arrangement with LFPL, alas. Fortunately LFPL interlibrary loan came through on this for me.
Looks like this collection only contains one story which is not in another collection: "Excursion Fare" (novelette); a copy of this book is available at Jeffersonville Township Public Library--which has no reciprocal lending arrangement with LFPL, alas. Fortunately LFPL interlibrary loan came through on this for me.
Brightness Falls from the Air 1985
Own it.
Own it.
Tales of the Quintana Roo 1986
Own it.
Own it.
The Starry Rift 1986
Own it.
Own it.
Crown of Stars 1988
U of L.
U of L.
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever 1990
Own it.
Own it.
Neat Sheets: The Poetry of James Tiptree Jr. 1996
Own it.
Own it.
Meet Me at Infinity 2000
Own it.
Own it.
--well, you know. Why not just go the whole hog, right? I mean, seriously.
What is particularly satisfying about this is that--if Wikipedia knows what it's talking about--these thirteen books contain everything that James Tiptree, Jr. published: 69 short stories, a few poems, and two novels. That's very sexy. In a book-y way.
As with so many of the writers I've fallen for, though, there are Tiptree books which are not readily available / are expensive to obtain. For Tiptree, there are three: Byte Beautiful, Neat Sheets and Tales of the Quintana Roo. The latter(-ist) is the hardest one. It's out there, but the cheapest one I saw was $38, and most of the copies I saw were $40 to $60. So I put in an interlibrary loan request on that one. World Cat tells me that there is a copy at The Indianapolis Public Library (a mere 109 miles away), so there may be a chance of that happening. Neat Sheets was only available at university libraries and was listing for around $25 at the bookstores--pretty hefty for a book that's only ix + 26 pages long--but lo and behold, a new copy can be obtained from the publisher, Tachyon Publications, for a mere $6.50. So I went ahead and ordered that one. And Byte Beautiful is one of those frustrating books that is very short--a mere xiv + 177 pages long--and, even worse, of the eight stories it contains, seven of them appear in other Tiptree books. I did find that the nearby Jeffersonville Township Public Library has a copy, though, so at worse I should be able to slip across the bridge and have a long sit-down.
The other five books are all readily available for cheap, and, even better, all but one are available at either The University of Louisville Library.
So . . . Game On!
However . . .
Reading these non-fiction pieces (I started with the second part of Meet Me at Infinity) has not been altogether pleasant. For one thing, Alice / James sounds really immature at times, and while it's not really fair to judge her / him on the content of letters that were never meant to be public, it's still hard not to be affected by it. And actually some of the letters doubled as articles for fanzines, so in that case the previously noted objection doesn't apply. Speaking of . . . in one of these article / letters, Alice / James puts her / his two cents / 1 1/3 rupees worth in on the question of Women in Science Fiction, and it is just painful to read. I can't imagine why Alice / James didn't either come clean ("I'm not a man") before participating in this discussion or recuse her/himself. Instead, she / he goes on about how awful men are and how they want to kill their moms and the woman inside them and how superior women are, and it's just so fucking duplicitous, ya know? Unless, of course, Alice identified as a male . . . but (1) I've seen no evidence to suggest that this was true and (2) this wouldn't absolve her / him of the necessity of being forthright before taking part in this discussion. So.
Onward.
ADDENDUM: I'd written down a couple of quotes from one of the Tiptree pieces that I found particularly irksome, but then I lost the paper they were written on and didn't feel like going back to find them again, so I left it at the vague "how awful men are and how they want to kill their moms and the woman inside them" comment. But I was just doing a little tidying up and found the paper, so here are the nitty gritty details:
"[Men] attempt to like the mother in themselves . . . . "
"How soon, O Lord, can men learn to be mothers?"
I found the second of these to be really offensive, since I have spent decades being a mother to my kids, and retired early so that I could help them on an every day basis rather than trust their care to a stranger making minimum wage. Sheesh, James Alice, generalize and / or pander much? Yet another example of how the liberal / radical can be (and often is) just as narrow-minded and prejudicially oriented as the worse conservative. So there's that. Oh specifics? Okay. Here are a couple of lines which I found particularly irritating.
As with so many of the writers I've fallen for, though, there are Tiptree books which are not readily available / are expensive to obtain. For Tiptree, there are three: Byte Beautiful, Neat Sheets and Tales of the Quintana Roo. The latter(-ist) is the hardest one. It's out there, but the cheapest one I saw was $38, and most of the copies I saw were $40 to $60. So I put in an interlibrary loan request on that one. World Cat tells me that there is a copy at The Indianapolis Public Library (a mere 109 miles away), so there may be a chance of that happening. Neat Sheets was only available at university libraries and was listing for around $25 at the bookstores--pretty hefty for a book that's only ix + 26 pages long--but lo and behold, a new copy can be obtained from the publisher, Tachyon Publications, for a mere $6.50. So I went ahead and ordered that one. And Byte Beautiful is one of those frustrating books that is very short--a mere xiv + 177 pages long--and, even worse, of the eight stories it contains, seven of them appear in other Tiptree books. I did find that the nearby Jeffersonville Township Public Library has a copy, though, so at worse I should be able to slip across the bridge and have a long sit-down.
The other five books are all readily available for cheap, and, even better, all but one are available at either The University of Louisville Library.
So . . . Game On!
Reading these non-fiction pieces (I started with the second part of Meet Me at Infinity) has not been altogether pleasant. For one thing, Alice / James sounds really immature at times, and while it's not really fair to judge her / him on the content of letters that were never meant to be public, it's still hard not to be affected by it. And actually some of the letters doubled as articles for fanzines, so in that case the previously noted objection doesn't apply. Speaking of . . . in one of these article / letters, Alice / James puts her / his two cents / 1 1/3 rupees worth in on the question of Women in Science Fiction, and it is just painful to read. I can't imagine why Alice / James didn't either come clean ("I'm not a man") before participating in this discussion or recuse her/himself. Instead, she / he goes on about how awful men are and how they want to kill their moms and the woman inside them and how superior women are, and it's just so fucking duplicitous, ya know? Unless, of course, Alice identified as a male . . . but (1) I've seen no evidence to suggest that this was true and (2) this wouldn't absolve her / him of the necessity of being forthright before taking part in this discussion. So.
Onward.
ADDENDUM: I'd written down a couple of quotes from one of the Tiptree pieces that I found particularly irksome, but then I lost the paper they were written on and didn't feel like going back to find them again, so I left it at the vague "how awful men are and how they want to kill their moms and the woman inside them" comment. But I was just doing a little tidying up and found the paper, so here are the nitty gritty details:
"[Men] attempt to like the mother in themselves . . . . "
"How soon, O Lord, can men learn to be mothers?"
I found the second of these to be really offensive, since I have spent decades being a mother to my kids, and retired early so that I could help them on an every day basis rather than trust their care to a stranger making minimum wage. Sheesh, James Alice, generalize and / or pander much? Yet another example of how the liberal / radical can be (and often is) just as narrow-minded and prejudicially oriented as the worse conservative. So there's that. Oh specifics? Okay. Here are a couple of lines which I found particularly irritating.
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