From Booklist
The late James Tiptree Jr. was well known for producing some of the most imaginative, gender-bending sf of the 1970s and 1980s. Tiptree also had a reputation for J. D. Salinger-like reclusiveness and astounded everyone when a presumed masculine identity dissolved to reveal the author's given name, Alice Sheldon. The award bearing her pseudonym honors stories and novels that "explore and expand gender roles in speculative fiction." This first collection of Tiptree Award-related material samples the winning stories since the first awards in 1991 and includes informative essays and snippets from a few of the winning novels. Geoff Ryman opens the volume with an inventive tale about the first homosexual male to give birth, and Kelly Link closes it with a modern variation on Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen." In between, such stellar figures as Ursula K. LeGuin and Joanna Russ weigh in with discourses on femininity, and Tiptree herself gives an account of her "identity crisis." A superior array of creative and thoughtful writing for both genders.
Carl HaysCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"...immense, surprising and utterly delightful." -- SciFi.com. "...involving, gender-breaking stories..." -- Midwest Book Review. "A superior array of creative and thoughtful writing for both genders." -- Booklist. "The stories explore all varieties of gender in thoughtful and provocative ways." -- SF Site.
