karl@dartvax.UUCP (Karl Berry.) (09/01/85)
In the copyy of Warm Worlds and Otherwise that I have, Silverberg added a postscript ( it's a new edition. ) to the fact that he was, indeed, humbled by learning Tiptree is female, as Jim Balter ( ima!jim ) suggests. On the other hand, regarding his other comment about her writing: I read everything by Tiptree I could get my hands on before I learned that she was Alice Sheldon, and found no reason to take ``James Tiptree'' as anything other than an extremely fine male writer. I think it is extremely easy to point out after the fact ``well, of COURSE Tiptree was female, look at this story, and this one, and this one!'' Writing is writing. Silverberg was probably rash to go out on such a thin limb about being able to tell males' writing from females'; he may be correct, however, in postulating that some fiction writers, he named Hemingway and Austen, write fiction that simply could not be written by someone of the opposite sex. I don't think this is the case with Tiptree/Sheldon, and, in fact, since she was able to write as a male for many years without a great hue and cry ( even in the small sf community. ) it seems that it couldn't be. I think Mr. Balter does an injustice to male writers when he says they mostly concentrate on war and mechanics, in two ways. First, by implying -- at least to me -- that female sf writers concentrate on the ``meaning of love, beauty, and other emotional themes'', when, as I peruse some of the non-emotional books in the sf section at the local library, proportionately just as many are written by females as males. ( C.J. Cherryh comes to mind immediately as a prolific writer of war and mechanics. Wait -- C.J. Cherryh is female, isn't she? ) Second, that the ``vast majority'' of male sf writers aren't concerned with that, either. Gene Wolfe, Harlan Ellison, Stephen Donaldson are all, at least to me, concerned with love and beauty, not to mention hate and ugliness, without which love and beauty wouldn't exist, at least as much as, say, James Tiptree, Jr. Or Alice Sheldon. karl@dartvax.uucp karl@dartmouth.csnet
peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (09/02/85)
> anything other than an extremely fine male writer. I think it is extremely > easy to point out after the fact ``well, of COURSE Tiptree was female, look > at this story, and this one, and this one!'' I don't know about any "of course", but I do recall reading "Houston, Houston, do you read" and thinking "this guy has some serious problems". It is obvious in retrospect that Alice Sheldon has had very little experience with men who haven't been "putting on a show" for her benefit. There are other female authors who have this problem (Anne McCaffrey being a notable example), and of course mail authors with the opposite problem (Heinlein, for example). But "Houston, Houston, do you read" is probably the first story such people will point to. The males in the story all behave exactly like one of Desmond Morris's babboons. They think in sociobiological terms (how many of you stuck in a capsule would be afraid to answer the comm because the "Alpha Males" were both asleep?). Even Jack Chalker's "Fluxgirls" are more believable. It never occurred to me that James Tiptree Jr was a woman, probably because after reading "Houston, Houston, do you read" I put the collection down and never picked it up again, never gave it another thought. Then when I heard, it became obvious what was wrong.
chabot@miles.DEC (All God's chillun got guns) (09/04/85)
> I don't know about any "of course", but I do recall reading "Houston, Houston, > do you read" and thinking "this guy has some serious problems". It is obvious > in retrospect that Alice Sheldon has had very little experience with men who > haven't been "putting on a show" for her benefit. There are other female > authors who have this problem (Anne McCaffrey being a notable example), and of > course mail authors with the opposite problem (Heinlein, for example). > It never occurred to me that James Tiptree Jr was a woman, probably because > after reading "Houston, Houston, do you read" I put the collection down and > never picked it up again, never gave it another thought. Then when I heard, > it became obvious what was wrong. Gee, I know some pretty interesting stories by Harlan Ellison that have just the same problem with depicting the show-off behavior of males in distasteful ways! What's "wrong" with Harlan Ellison? Is, perhaps like Sheldon, he a woman?? (He doesn't look like one. I've even seen him write a story, so unless he's got a real talent for memorizing he must not have a ghost-writer.) Is it possible he's undersocialized with other males?? But, well, gee, he claims he's friends with Robert Silverberg and several other male (and reputedly heterosexual) authors--is it possible they only show him their show-off behavior?? Many "mail" authors have a lot of problems, though. I don't know about Heinlein--I've never received any letters from him. L S Chabot ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot
donn@utah-gr.UUCP (Donn Seeley) (09/08/85)
I still really fail to see why everyone got so excited when Alice Sheldon was revealed to be writing as 'James Tiptree, Jr.'. After reading through the commentary I had to laugh; I couldn't (and can't) imagine why it should make any difference to the STORIES whether the real author was Alice Sheldon or Doris Lessing or Richard Nixon or Mr. Spock. In fact (is a ;-) necessary here?) Sheldon herself makes this very point whenever someone brings up the topic. I have to admit that I was rather delighted to find out that Alice Sheldon is such an interesting person... The controversy over her gender tended to conceal the fact that Sheldon is a unique human being, a person who consists of more than hormones. I recommend that you read the Tiptree/Sheldon interview in Charles Platt's DREAM MAKERS if you are at all curious about the subject. There is also a too-short interview in the September LOCUS (its main attraction is that it mentions Tiptree/Sheldon's forthcoming books, three collections (BYTE BEAUTIFUL, TALES OF THE QUINTANA ROO and THE TIPTREE OMNIBUS (a 'best of')) plus an untitled new novel). Sheldon turned 70 on Aug. 24th and is still writing good stuff... (Guess who has the lead story in the October anniversary issue of F&SF?) Never met a 'mail' author either, Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@utah-cs.arpa 40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 decvax!utah-cs!donn PS -- Do you suppose that a 'mail' author is formed when huge piles of postcards and letters begin to coalesce and acquire sentience, much as the city of San Francisco comes to life in Leiber's OUR LADY OF DARKNESS? It's kind of creepy to imagine what might arise out of accumulations of netnews...
peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (09/16/85)
> Gee, I know some pretty interesting stories by Harlan Ellison that have just > the same problem with depicting the show-off behavior of males in distasteful > ways! What's "wrong" with Harlan Ellison? Is, perhaps like Sheldon, he a > woman?? (He doesn't look like one. I've even seen him write a story, so unless > he's got a real talent for memorizing he must not have a ghost-writer.) You missed my point. It's not that the behaviour was distasteful. It's not even the show-off behaviour that was the problem, it was their behaviour when alone. When the astronauts were alone they acted like some ideal out of a sociobiology text. Even their thoughts sounded like they were scripted by Desmond Morris or Robert Ardrey. Look at how the youngest astronaut behaves in the capsule before contact... he's actually thinking "alpha-males here. Better not answer the communicator..."