James Tiptree Jr.
"James Tiptree Jr." was born Alice Bradley in Chicago in 1915. Her mother was the writer Mary Hastings Bradley; her father, Herbert, was a lawyer and explorer. Throughout her childhood she traveled with her parents, mostly to Africa, but also to India and Southeast Asia. Her early work was as an artist and art critic. During World War II she enlisted in the Army and became the first American female photointelligence officer. In Germany after the war, she met and married her commanding officer, Huntington D. Sheldon. In the early 1950s, both Sheldons joined the then-new CIA; he made it his career, but she resigned in 1955, went back to college, and earned a Ph.D. in experimental psychology.
At about this same time, Alli Sheldon started writing science fiction. She wrote four stories and sent them off to four different science fiction magazines. She did not want to publish under her real name, because of her CIA and academic ties, and she intended to use a new pseudonym for each group of stories until some sold. They started selling immediately, and only the first pseudonym—"Tiptree" from a jar of jelly, "James" because she felt editors would be more receptive to a male writer, and "Jr." for fun—was needed. (A second pseudonym, "Raccoona Sheldon," came along later, so she could have a female persona.)
Tiptree quickly became one of the most respected writers in the field, winning the Hugo Award for The Girl Who was Plugged In and Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, and the Nebula Award for "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death" and Houston, Houston. Raccoona won the Nebula for "The Screwfly Solution," and Tiptree won the World Fantasy Award for the collection Tales from the Quintana Roo.
The Tiptree fiction reflects Alli Sheldon's interests and concerns throughout her life: the alien among us (a role she portrayed in her childhood travels), the health of the planet, the quality of perception, the role of women, love, death, and humanity's place in a vast, cold universe. The Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree Award) has celebrated science fiction that "expands and explores gender roles" since 1991.
Alice Sheldon died in 1987 by her own hand. Writing in her first book about the suicide of Hart Crane, she said succinctly: "Poets extrapolate."
Julie Phillips wrote her biography,
James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
“DOCTOR AIN WAS recognized on the Omaha-Chicago flight. A biologist colleague from Pasadena came out of the toilet and saw Ain in an aisle seat. Five years before, this man had been jealous of Ain's huge grants. Now he nodded coldly and was surprised at the intensity of Ain's response. He almost turned back to speak, but he felt too tired; like nearly everyone, he was fighting the flu.The stewardess handing out coats after they landed remembered Ain too: A tall thin nondescript man with rusty hair. He held up the line staring at her; since he already had his raincoat with him she decided it was some kooky kind of pass and waved him on.She saw Ain shamble off into the airport smog, apparently alone. Despite the big Civil Defense signs, O'Hare was late getting underground. No one noticed the woman.- 'The Last Flight of Doctor Ain”
“A voice spoke in his head, mellow and vast:"Long have we watched you, little one.""Who's there?" he quavered. "Who are you?""Your concepts are inadequate.""Malfunction! Malfunction!" squalled the scouter."Shut up, it's not a malfunction. Who's talking to me?""You may call us: Rulers of the Galaxy."The scouter was lunging wildly, buffeting him as it tried to escape the white grasp. Strange crunches, firings of unknown weapons. Still the white stasis held."What do you want?" he cried."Want?" said the voice dreamily. "We are wise beyond knowing. Powerful beyond your dreams. Perhaps you can get us some fresh fruit."- 'Painwise”
“He was wise in the ways of pain. He had to be, for he felt none.When the Xenons put electrodes to his testicles, he was vastly entertained by the pretty lights.When the Ylls fed firewasps into his nostrils and other body orifices the resultant rainbows pleased him. And when later they regressed to simple disjointments and eviscerations, he noted with interest the deepening orchid hues that stood for irreversible harm."This time?" he asked the boditech when his scouter had torn him from the Ylls."No," said the boditech."When?"There was no answer."You're a girl in there, aren't you? A human girl?""Well, yes and no," said the boditech. "Sleep now."He had no choice. - 'Painwise”
“I think they're gentle," she mutters."For Christ's sake, Ruth, they're aliens!""I'm used to it," she says absently.- 'The Women Men Don't See”
“—so much more opportunity now." Her voice trails off."Hurrah for women's lib, eh?""The lib?" Impatiently she leans forward and tugs the serape straight. "Oh, that's doomed."The apocalyptic word jars my attention."What do you mean, doomed?"She glances at me as if I weren't hanging straight either and says vaguely, "Oh …""Come on, why doomed? Didn't they get that equal rights bill?"Long hesitation. When she speaks again her voice is different."Women have no rights, Don, except what men allow us. Men are more aggressive and powerful, and they run the world. When the next real crisis upsets them, our so-called rights will vanish like—like that smoke. We'll be back where we always were: property. And whatever has gone wrong will be blamed on our freedom, like the fall of Rome was. You'll see."Now all this is delivered in a gray tone of total conviction. The last time I heard that tone, the speaker was explaining why he had to keep his file drawers full of dead pigeons."Oh, come on. You and your friends are the backbone of the system; if you quit, the country would come to a screeching halt before lunch."No answering smile."That's fantasy." Her voice is still quiet. "Women don't work that way. We're a—a toothless world." She looks around as if she wanted to stop talking. "What women do is survive. We live by ones and twos in the chinks of your world-machine.""Sounds like a guerrilla operation." I'm not really joking, here in the 'gator den. In fact, I'm wondering if I spent too much thought on mahogany logs."Guerrillas have something to hope for." Suddenly she switches on a jolly smile. "Think of us as opossums, Don. Did you know there are opossums living all over? Even in New York City."I smile back with my neck prickling. I thought I was the paranoid one."Men and women aren't different species, Ruth. Women do everything men do.""Do they?" Our eyes meet, but she seems to be seeing ghosts between us in the rain. She mutters something that could be "My Lai" and looks away. "All the endless wars …" Her voice is a whisper. "All the huge authoritarian organizations for doing unreal things. Men live to struggle against each other; we're just part of the battlefield. It'll never change unless you change the whole world. I dream sometimes of—of going away—" She checks and abruptly changes voice. "Forgive me, Don, it's so stupid saying all this.""Men hate wars too, Ruth," I say as gently as I can."I know." She shrugs and climbs to her feet. "But that's your problem, isn't it?"End of communication. Mrs. Ruth Parsons isn't even living in the same world with me.”
“Well, then. Whatever trauma you went through, these things don't last forever. You can't hate all men."The smile is back. "Oh, there wasn't any trauma, Don, and I don't hate men. That would be as silly as—as hating the weather." She glances wryly at the blowing rain. - 'The Women Men Don't See”
“Bethesda … Would I be wrong in guessing you work for Uncle Sam?""Why, yes. You must be very familiar with Washington, Mr. Fenton. Does your work bring you there often?"Anywhere but on our sandbar the little ploy would have worked. My hunter's gene twitches."Which agency are you with?"She gives up gracefully. "Oh, just GSA records. I'm a librarian."Of course. I know her now, all the Mrs. Parsonses in records divisions, accounting sections, research branches, personnel and administration offices. Tell Mrs. Parsons we need a recap on the external service contracts for fiscal '73. - 'The Women Men Don't See”
“I see her first while the Mexicana 727 is barreling down to Cozumel Island. I come out of the can and lurch into her seat, saying "Sorry," at a double female blur. The near blur nods quietly. The younger one in the window seat goes on looking out. I continue down the aisle, registering nothing. Zero. I never would have looked at them or thought of them again. - 'The Women Men Don't See' (opening)”
“And here is our girl, looking--If possible, worse than before. (You thought this was Cinderella transistorized?)”
“Passing in any crowd are secret people whose hidden response to beauty is the desire to tear it into bleeding meat.”
“I've had too many experiences in my life of being the first woman in some damned occupation.”
“Nothing but the effects of dust and vapor in the thin skin of air whereupon she crawls wingless.”
“Certainly my inner world will never be a peaceful place of bloom; it will have some peace, and occasional riots of bloom, but always a little fight going on too. There is no way I can be peacefully happy in this society and in this skin. I am committed to Uneasy Street. I like it; it is my idea that this street leads to the future, and that I am being true to a way of life which is not here yet, but is more real than what is here.”