From Publishers Weekly
A dozen writers pay tribute to Alice Sheldon (1915–1987), who as an SF author adopted the pseudonym James Tiptree Jr., in this eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction, the third in an anthology series to examine gender identity. Ursula K. Le Guin's provocative "Mountain Ways" portrays a world where marriage is a four-partner affair, while in Nalo Hopkinson's harrowing "The Glass Bottle Trick," a light-skinned black woman discovers a disturbing secret about her husband, who resents his own dark skin. "Have Not Have," the opening chapter of Geoff Ryman's novel
Air, presents a tantalizing portrait of a humble fashion consultant in a fictional Asian country. Most striking among the nonfiction selections is L. Timmel Duchamp's gently poignant "Letter to Alice Sheldon."
(Jan.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Julie Phillips' biography
James Tiptree, Jr.(2006) renewed interest in the late, iconoclastic author and perhaps will magnify the profile of the annual bearing Alice B. Sheldon's famous pen name. Emulating Tiptree's predilection for gender-bending themes, the collection continues to feature stories, essays, and novel excerpts that "explore and expand gender." A dozen award-winning and short-listed pieces probe the boundaries of sexual identity in today's world and in imaginatively rendered futures. Nalo Hopkinson recounts the macabre fate of a superstitious man's third wife, who mistakenly becomes pregnant. Ursula LeGuin fashions a world in which marriage involves four bisexual partners and predictably complex interrelations. In honor of its namesake, the volume includes Tiptree's brilliant "The Girl Who Was Plugged In," envisioning a future in which advertising is illegal, and remotely manipulated starlets push products using their celebrity alone. While some selections focus more on racial concerns than gender issues, the resulting collection is both entertaining and thought-provoking.
Carl HaysCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
