James Tiptree, Jr.

Alice B. Sheldon
Born	August 24, 1915 (1915-08-24) Chicago, Illinois, USA
Died	May 19, 1987 (1987-05-20) (age 71) McLean, Virginia, USA
Education	Baccalaureate, American University Doctorate, George Washington University
Occupation	Artist, Intelligence Analyst, Research Psychologist, Writer
Spouse	William Davey (1934–1941) Huntington D. Sheldon (1945–1987)
Parents	Mary Hastings Bradley Herbert Edwin Bradley

James Tiptree, Jr. (August 24, 1915 – May 19, 1987) was the pen name of American science fiction author Alice Bradley Sheldon, used from 1967 to her death. She also occasionally wrote under the pseudonym Raccoona Sheldon (1974–77). Tiptree/Sheldon was most notable for breaking down the barriers between writing perceived as inherently "male" or "female" — it was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree, Jr. was a woman.

Early life

Bradley came from a family in the intellectual enclave of Hyde Park, a university neighborhood in Chicago. Her father was Herbert Bradley, a lawyer and naturalist, and her mother was Mary Hastings Bradley, a prolific writer of fiction and travel books. She travelled the world with her parents from an early age. In 1921-22, the Bradleys made their first trip to central Africa, which later contributed to Sheldon’s short story, “The Women Men Don’t See.” She was a graphic artist and a painter, and—under the name "Alice Bradley Davey"—an art critic for the Chicago Sun between 1941 and 1942. She was married to William Davey from 1934 to 1941. She met and married her first husband at age 19 because she felt as if it was her duty as a daughter.

In 1942 she joined the United States Army Air Forces and worked in the Army Air Forces photointelligence group. She later was promoted to major, a high rank for women. In the army, she “felt she was among free women for the first time.” In 1945 she married her second husband, Huntington D Sheldon,at the close of the war on her assignment in Paris and she was discharged from the military in 1946, at which time she set up a small business in partnership with her husband. The same year her first story ("The Lucky Ones") was published in the November 16, 1946 issue of The New Yorker, and credited to "Alice Bradley" in the magazine itself, but to "Alice Bradley Sheldon" in the magazine's DVD index. In 1952 she and her husband were invited to join the CIA. She resigned in 1955 to return to college.

She studied for her Bachelor of Arts degree at American University (1957–59), going on to achieve a doctorate at George Washington University in Experimental Psychology in 1967. She wrote her doctoral dissertation on the responses of animals to novel stimuli in differing environments. After receiving her doctorate in experimental psychology in 1967, she submitted a few science fiction stories under the name James Tiptree Jr. to protect her academic reputation.

Sheldon had a complex relationship with her sexual orientation, putting different terms to use over the years. "I like some men a lot, but from the start, before I knew anything, it was always girls and women who lit me up."

Science fiction career

Unsure what to do with her new degrees and her new/old careers, Sheldon began to write science fiction. She adopted the pseudonym of James Tiptree Jr. in 1967. The name "Tiptree" came from a branded jar of marmalade, and the "Jr." was her husband's idea. In an interview, she said: "A male name seemed like good camouflage. I had the feeling that a man would slip by less observed. I've had too many experiences in my life of being the first woman in some damned occupation."

The pseudonym was successfully maintained until the late 1970s. This is partly due to the fact that though it was widely known that "Tiptree" was a pseudonym, it was generally understood that its use was intended to protect the professional reputation of an intelligence community official. Readers, editors and correspondents were permitted to assume gender, and generally, but not invariably, they assumed "male." There was speculation, based partially on the themes in her stories, that Tiptree might be female.

"Tiptree" never made any public appearances, but she did correspond regularly with fans and other science fiction authors through the mail. When asked for biographical details, Tiptree/Sheldon was forthcoming in everything but gender. Many of the details given above (the Air Force career, the Ph.D.) were mentioned in letters "Tiptree" wrote, and also appeared in official author biographies.

After the death of Mary Hastings Bradley in 1976, "Tiptree" mentioned in a letter that his mother, also a writer, had died in Chicago — details that led inquiring fans to find the obituary, with its reference to Alice Sheldon; soon all was revealed. Several prominent science fiction writers suffered some embarrassment. Robert Silverberg had written an introduction to Warm Worlds and Otherwise, arguing on the basis of selections from stories in the collection, that Tiptree could not possibly be a woman. And in an introduction to Tiptree's story in his Again, Dangerous Visions anthology, Harlan Ellison opined that "[Kate] Wilhelm is the woman to beat this year, but Tiptree is the man." Silverberg's article in particular, by taking one side, makes it clear that the gender of Tiptree was a topic of some debate.

The revelation of her gender had less adverse impact on people's opinions of her talent than she had feared; her final Nebula Award (for "The Screwfly Solution", published under her other occasional pseudonym, Raccoona Sheldon) was awarded in 1977.

Up the Walls of the World published in 1978 was her first full length novel, up until then she worked and built a reputation only in the field of short stories.

Pen Names

James Tiptree Jr., Alice Hastings Bradley, Alice Davey, Ann Terry, Mrs. Huntington D. Sheldon, are all names that Alice B. Sheldon has used to identify herself. All of these different names allowed her to explore the different selves hidden within her. One well-known name, Tiptree, has assisted Sheldon in conveying feministic themes and beliefs to her audience. The male persona of Tiptree granted Sheldon the ability to write things that Sheldon herself could not. The problem was not that Sheldon had the inability to write what she wanted to write, it was mostly because Sheldon was a woman. The audience tends to read writings from an author who is well respected and has high authority. When comparing authority, the name James Tiptree Jr. has more authority than Alice B. Sheldon due to the fact that male authors were more respected during Sheldon’s era.

Description of works

Tiptree/Sheldon was an eclectic writer who worked in a variety of styles and subgenres, often combining the technological focus and hard-edged style of "hard" science fiction with the sociological and psychological concerns of "soft" SF, and some of the stylistic experimentation of the New Wave movement.

After writing several stories in more conventional modes, she produced her first work to draw widespread acclaim, "The Last Flight of Doctor Ain", in 1969. One of her shortest stories, "Ain" is a sympathetic portrait of a scientist whose concern for Earth's ecological suffering leads him to destroy the entire human race.

Many of her stories have a milieu reminiscent of the space opera and pulp tales she read in her youth, but typically with a much darker tone: the cosmic journeys of her characters are often linked to a drastic spiritual alienation, and/or a transcendent experience which brings fulfillment but also death. John Clute, noting Tiptree's "inconsolable complexities of vision", concluded that "It is very rarely that a James Tiptree story does not both deal directly with death and end with a death of the spirit, or of all hope, or of the race". Notable stories of this type include "Painwise", in which a space explorer has been altered to be immune to pain but finds such an existence intolerable, and "A Momentary Taste of Being", in which the true purpose of humanity, found on a distant planet, renders individual human life entirely pointless.

Another major theme is the tension between free will and biological determinism, or reason and sexual desire. "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death", one of the rare SF stories in which no humans appear, describes an alien creature's romantic rationalizations for the brutal instincts that drive its life cycle. "The Screwfly Solution" suggests that humans might similarly rationalize a plague of murderous sexual insanity. Sex in Tiptree's writing is frankly portrayed, a sometimes playful but more often threatening force.

Before the revelation of Sheldon's identity, Tiptree was often referred to as an unusually macho male (see, e.g., Robert Silverberg's commentaries) as well as an unusually feminist science fiction writer (for a male) — particularly for "The Women Men Don't See", a story of two women who go looking for aliens to escape from male-dominated society on Earth. However, Sheldon's view of sexual politics could be ambiguous, as in the ending of "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?," where a society of female clones must deal with three time-traveling male astronauts.

One of the themes prevalent throughout most of Sheldon’s work is feminism. In “The Women Men Don’t See,” Sheldon gives a feminist story a unique spin by making the narrator, Don Fenton, a male. Fenton judges the Parsons based on their attractiveness and is agitated when they do not “fulfil stereotypical female roles,” as author Anne Cranny-Francis describes it (Feminist Science Fiction, 30). In addition, Fenton’s inability to understand both the plight of woman and Ruth Parson’s feelings of alienation further illustrate the differences of men and women in society. The theme of feminism is emphasized by “the feminist ideology espoused by Ruth Parsons and the contrasting sexism of Fenton” (33). The title of the short story itself reflects the idea that women are invisible during Sheldon’s time. As Francis states, “‘The Women Men Don’t See’ is an outstanding example…of the subversive use of genre fiction to produce an unconventional discursive position, the feminist subject” (38).

Sheldon's two novels, produced toward the end of her career, were not as critically well-received as her best-known stories but continued to explore similar themes. Some of her best-regarded work can be found in the collection Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, available in paperback as of 2004.

Death

Sheldon continued writing under the Tiptree pen name for another decade. On May 19, 1987, at age 71, Sheldon took the life of her 84-year-old, nearly-blind husband and then took her own. They were found dead, hand-in-hand in bed, in their Virginia home. According to biographer Julie Phillips, the suicide note Sheldon left was written years earlier, and saved until needed. In an interview with Charles Platt in the early 1980s Sheldon spoke of her emotional problems and previous suicide attempts. Much of her work contains dark and pessimistic elements, which in retrospect can be seen as reflective of her troubled emotions.

Award winning science fiction authors Karen Joy Fowler and Pat Murphy created the James Tiptree, Jr. award in honor of Alice B. Sheldon on February 1991. Sheldon influenced this award through her use of a masculine pseudonym, James Tiptree, Jr., demonstrating that there is no distinction in works of science fiction when written by either gender. This award also coincides with her main theme, feminism. The criteria for winning this award would be for authors who focus their stories on the exploration of science fiction and gender. Novels such as "Half Life" by Shelley Jackson and "Light" by M. John Harrison have received the James Tiptree, Jr. award for incorporating themes of fantasy and sexuality. The James Tiptree, Jr. Award is given in her honor each year for a work of science fiction or fantasy that expands or explores our understanding of gender; funds for the award are raised in part by bake sales

Quotes about James Tiptree, Jr

• "James Tiptree's surface was often airy and at times hilarious, and her control of genre conventions allowed her to convey the bleakness of her abiding insights in tales that remain seductively readable; but she was, in the end, incapable of dissimulation." — from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, by John Clute and Peter Nicholls
• "Sheldon was simply one of the best short-story writers of our day....She has already had an enormous impact on upcoming generations of SF writers. Her footprints are all over cyberpunk turf (...)" — Gardner Dozois, in Locus magazine, 1987
• "Her stories and novels are humanistic, while her deep concern for male-female (even human-alien) harmony ran counter to the developing segregate-the-sexes drive amongst feminist writers; What her work brought to the genre was a blend of lyricism and inventiveness, as if some lyric poet had rewritten a number of clever SF standards and then passed them on to a psychoanalyst for final polish." — Brian Aldiss, Trillion Year Spree
• "'Tip' was a crucial part of modern SF's maturing process (...)'He'(...) wrote powerful fiction challenging readers' assumptions about everything, especially sex and gender." — Suzy McKee Charnas, The Women's Review of Books
• "[Tiptree's work is] proof of what she said, that men and women can and do speak both to and for one another, if they have bothered to learn how." — Ursula K. Le Guin, Khatru

Bibliography

Short story collections

• Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home (1973)
• Warm Worlds and Otherwise (1975)
• Star Songs of an Old Primate (1978)
• Out of the Everywhere and Other Extraordinary Visions (1981)
• Byte Beautiful: Eight Science Fiction Stories (1985)
• The Starry Rift (1986) (linked stories)
• Tales of the Quintana Roo (1986) (linked stories)
• Crown of Stars (1988)
• Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (omnibus collection) (1990)

Timeline of Stories

Story	Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home (1973)	Warm Worlds and Otherwise (1975)	Star Songs of an Old Primate (1978)	Out of the Everywhere and Other Extraordinary Visions (1981)	Byte Beautiful: Eight Science Fiction Stories (1985)	Tales of the Quintana Roo (1986) (linked stories)	The Starry Rift (1986) (linked stories)	Crown of Stars (1988)	Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (omnibus collection) (1990)
1968
'The Mother Ship' (later retitled 'Mamma Come Home') (novelette)	Yes
'Pupa Knows Best' (later retitled 'Help') (novelette)	Yes
'Birth of a Salesman' (short story)	Yes
'Fault' (short story)		Yes
1969
'Beam Us Home' (short story)	Yes				Yes
'The Last Flight of Doctor Ain' (short story)		Yes							Yes
'Your Haploid Heart' (novelette)			Yes
'The Snows Are Melted, The Snows Are Gone' (novelette)	Yes
'Parimutuel Planet' (later retitled 'Faithful to Thee, Terra, in Our Fashion') (novelette)	Yes
1970
'Last Night and Every Night' (short story)								Yes
'The Man Doors Said Hello To' (short story)	Yes
'I’m Too Big But I Love to Play' (novelette)	Yes
'The Nightblooming Saurian' (short story)		Yes
1971
'The Peacefulness of Vivyan' (short story)	Yes				Yes
'I’ll Be Waiting for You When the Swimming Pool Is Empty' (short story)	Yes				Yes
'And So On, And So On' (short story)			Yes						Yes
'Mother in the Sky with Diamonds' (novelette)	Yes
1972
'The Man Who Walked Home' (short story)	Yes				Yes				Yes
'And I Have Come Upon This Place by Lost Ways' (novelette)		Yes							Yes
'And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side' (short story)	Yes								Yes
'On the Last Afternoon' (novella)		Yes							Yes
'Painwise' (novelette)	Yes
'Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket' (short story)	Yes
'Filomena & Greg & Rikki-Tikki & Barlow & the Alien' (later retitled 'All the Kinds of Yes') (novelette)		Yes
'The Milk of Paradise' (short story)		Yes
'Amberjack' (short story)		Yes
'Through a Lass Darkly' (short story)		Yes
1973
'Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death' (short story)		Yes			Yes				Yes
'The Women Men Don’t See' (novelette)		Yes							Yes
'The Girl Who Was Plugged In' (novelette)		Yes							Yes
1974
'Her Smoke Rose Up Forever' (novelette)			Yes						Yes
'Angel Fix' (novelette, under the name 'Raccoona Sheldon')				Yes
1975
'A Momentary Taste of Being' (novella)			Yes						Yes
1976
'Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!' (short story, under the name Raccoona Sheldon)				Yes	Yes				Yes
'Beaver Tears' (short story, under the name Raccoona Sheldon)				Yes
'She Waits for All Men Born' (short story)			Yes						Yes
'Houston, Houston, Do You Read?' (novella)			Yes						Yes
'The Psychologist Who Wouldn’t Do Awful Things to Rats' (novelette)			Yes
1977
'The Screwfly Solution' (novelette, under the name Raccoona Sheldon)				Yes					Yes
'Time-Sharing Angel' (short story)				Yes
1978
'We Who Stole the Dream' (novelette)				Yes					Yes
'Up the Walls of the World' (novel)
1980
'Slow Music' (novella)				Yes					Yes
'A Source of Innocent Merriment' (short story)				Yes
1981
'Excursion Fare' (novelette)					Yes
'Lirios: A Tale of the Quintana Roo' (later retitled 'What Came Ashore at Lirios') (novelette)						Yes
'Out of the Everywhere' (novelette)				Yes
'With Delicate Mad Hands' (novella)				Yes	Yes				Yes
1982
'The Boy Who Waterskied to Forever' (short story)						Yes
1983
'Beyond the Dead Reef' (novelette)						Yes
1985
'Morality Meat' (novelette, under the name Racoona Sheldon)								Yes
'The Only Neat Thing to Do' (novella)							Yes
'All This and Heaven Too' (novelette)								Yes
1986
'Our Resident Djinn' (short story)								Yes
' In the Great Central Library of Deneb University' (short story)							Yes
'Good Night, Sweethearts' (novella)							Yes
'Collision' (novella)							Yes
1987
'Second Going' (novelette)								Yes
'Yanqui Doodle' (novelette)								Yes
'In Midst of Life' (novelette)								Yes
1988
'Backward, Turn Backward' (novella)								Yes
'The Earth Doth Like a Snake Renew' (novellette)								Yes
'The Color of Neanderthal Eyes' (novella)								Yes
'Come Live with Me' (novelette)								Yes
2000
'The Trouble Is Not in Your Set' (short story)
'Trey of Hearts' (short story)

Novels

• Up the Walls of the World (1978)
• Brightness Falls from the Air (1985)

Other collections

• Neat Sheets: The Poetry of James Tiptree, Jr. (1996)
• Meet Me at Infinity (a collection of previously uncollected and unpublished fiction, essays and other non-fiction, with much biographical information, edited by Tiptree's friend Jeffrey D. Smith) (2000)

Adaptations

• "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" (1990) - radio drama for the National Public Radio series Sci-Fi Radio. Originally aired as two half-hour shows, February 4 & 11.
• "Yanqui Doodle" (1990) - half-hour radio drama for the National Public Radio series Sci-Fi Radio. Aired March 18.
• "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (1998) - television film for the series Welcome to Paradox
• "Weird Romance" (1992) - Off-Broadway musical by Alan Menken. Act 1 is based on "The Girl Who Was Plugged In".
• "The Screwfly Solution" (2006) - television film for the series Masters of Horror

Major awards

• Hugo Awards: 1974 (Best Novella, "The Girl Who Was Plugged In") and 1977 (Best Novella, "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?")
• Nebula Awards: 1973 (Short Story, "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death"), 1976 (Novella, "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?") and 1977 (Novelette, "The Screwfly Solution", published under the pseudonym Raccoona Sheldon.)
• World Fantasy Award: 1987 for the collection Tales of the Quintana Roo
• Locus Award: 1984 (short story) 'Beyond the Dead Reef', and 1986 (novella) 'The Only Neat Thing to Do'
• Science Fiction Chronicle Award: 1986 (novella) 'The Only Neat Thing to Do'
• Jupiter Award: 1977 (novella) 'Houston, Houston, Do You Read?'

References

Notes

Bibliography

• Elms, A.C. "Painwise in space: The psychology of isolation in Cordwainer Smith and James Tiptree, Jr." in G. Westfahl (Ed.), Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0313308468.
• Fowler, Karen Joy with Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin and Jeffrey D. Smith (eds.). The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1: Sex, the Future, and Chocolate Chip Cookies. San Francisco, CA: Tachyon Publications, 2004. ISBN 978-1892391193.
• Fowler, Karen Joy with Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin and Jeffrey D. Smith (eds.). The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2. San Francisco, CA: Tachyon Publications, 2005. ISBN 978-1892391315.
• Fowler, Karen Joy with Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin and Jeffrey D. Smith (eds.). The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3: Subversive Stories about Sex and Gender. . San Francisco, CA: Tachyon Publications, 2007. ISBN 978-1892391414.
• Notkin, Debbie and The Secret Feminist Cabal (eds.). Flying Cups and Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction and Fantasy. Covina, CA: Edgewood Press, 1998 (2nd edition Lulu.com, 2008). ISBN 978-0962906688.
• Phillips, Julie. James Tiptree, Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2006. ISBN 0-312-20385-3. A thorough biography, with insight into Sheldon's life and work. Extensive quotation from her correspondence, journals, and other papers. Times Literary Supplement review [2]
• Phillips, Julie. "Dear Starbear: Letters Between Ursula K. Le Guin and James Tiptree Jr." in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, September 2006 issue.
• Cranny-Francis, Anne. Feminist Fiction. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990. Print.

• Phillips, Julie. “Alice Bradley Sheldon, 1915-1987.” James Tiptree Jr.:The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. Web. 23 Oct. 2011 <http://jamestiptreejr.com/>

External links

Biographical references

• James Tiptree, Jr. at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Biography and resources at the James Tiptree, Jr. World Wide Website
• Site for Julie Phillips's biography of Tiptree
• New York Times review of JAMES TIPTREE, JR The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon By Julie Phillips

Resources

• Aparta Krystian. Conventional Models of Time and Their Extensions in Science Fiction Master's thesis exploring conceptual blending in time travel, with case studies of four stories by James Tiptree, Jr. ("Backward! Turn Backward!," "Fault," "Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket," and "The Man Who Walked Home") and the novel Brightness Falls.
• Ebihara Yutaka. Constructions of James Tiptree, Jr.: A Note on His Life and Fiction, essay
• Lowry Pei. Poor Singletons: Definitions of Humanity in the Stories of James Tiptree, Jr.
• Sparks, Elisa Kay, Dr. A detailed bibliography of works by and about Tiptree (not updated since 1997)
• Walton Jo, Yearning for the unattainable: James Tiptree Jr.'s short stories, review-essay
• Works by James Tiptree, Jr. on Open Library at the Internet Archive

On-line Fiction

• The Women Men don't See Text of the short story
• Painwise Text of the short story
• Beam Us Home Text of the short story
• The Screwfly Solution Text of the short story
• Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death Text of the short story
• The Last Flight of Doctor Ain and The Screwfly Solution Pdf containing both short stories