The Starry Rift

by James Tiptree Jr.

These are the heroes of the Starry Rift, a dark river of night that flows between the arms of our galaxy: A headstrong teenaged runaway who makes first contact with a strange alien race. A young officer on a deep-space salvage mission who discovers an exact double of a woman he thought he'd lost. The crew of an exploration ship who must plead for the human race to avert an interstellar war.

Contents:
In the Great Central Library of Deneb University (1986)
The Only Neat Thing to Do (1985)
Good Night, Sweethearts (1986)
Collision (1986)

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Speculative Fiction, Collections, Space Opera, Novella

250 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

"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

Reviews

[James Field · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the first story in this book, 'The Only Neat Thing To Do', as a stand-alone in an anthology. It impressed me so much that I concluded the only neat thing to do was buy The Starry Rift: and I'm glad I did. The other two novels in the book aren't quite as good as the first, but still excellent.
The first is conventional sci-fi, five stars; the second is hard sci-fi, four stars; and the third fantasy sci-fi, three stars. All different, yet with a common denominator: they all take place in the same starless rift in our galaxy. We are on one side; the unexplored are on the other.

[Dorothea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not actually a novel; it's three novellas, connected by setting (sort of -- in the same universe, and same version of humanity's future, but with no characters in common) and by the conceit that the stories are all a sort of well-researched historical fiction that alien students of the future can read to get a sense of the "ambiance" of human history.

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The first story, "The Only Neat Thing To Do," was my favorite. It's about a girl whose parents buy her a space coupe for her sixteenth birthday. She immediately spends all her saved allowance fitting it for deep-space travel, heads out for the "Starry Rift" in search of adventure, comes upon the track of two adult scouts reported missing, and in an attempt to find them herself comes subject to the same problem... It's also a story about the friendship between this human girl and a young creature of another star system.

I thought the characterization of Coati Cass (this story's protagonist) was lovely. Yes, Coati's not exactly sensible in breaking away from her approved flight plan, and that is why she gets in trouble. But she's also clever, confident, and extremely well-prepared, just like one of Heinlein's Boy Scouts.

Most of my favorite of Tiptree's stories are a lot darker and sadder and especially angrier than this one. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something really horrible to happen to Coati. And of course, something does happen; but it's not, somehow, terrible. In fact, this is very much like a retelling of "With Delicate Mad Hands" in which the protagonist starts out with rich, adoring parents in a society in which sexism doesn't seem to exist anymore (there are even gender-neutral honorary prefixes!). Same irrepressible wanderlust and creativity in obeying it; same intense, costly female friendship with an alien creature; but Coati is taken seriously and until she heads out into the Rift, she's safe.

That was good to read. "With Delicate Mad Hands" is one of my favorite Tiptree stories, but it makes me happy that she had "The Only Neat Thing To Do" in her too.

(The only real problem with this story, I think, is that unless I was missing something -- and I definitely wouldn't mind doing a re-read to check! -- the time-settings of the Base Coati starts from, Coati awake on her little ship, and Coati at her destinations all seem to match up, when they shouldn't.)

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The middle story, "Good Night, Sweethearts," was far less interesting to me. It's all about how a lone spacer rescues a luxury space-yacht, encounters some pirates, is reminded of a past he's left behind him, and has to choose between human affections and the lonely freedom of his space adventures. I find Tiptree's male protagonists much less interesting than the female ones, especially when they're thinking about women as sexual and romantic objects -- she's good at doing the Male Gaze and I don't really want any more of that -- and so this story, for me, was too much navel-gazing by this character. I liked the exciting rescue and escape bits, but otherwise could have done without.

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The last and longest story, "Collision," is a very good First Contact story. It's told partly in a sort of future-epistolary form, as the humans on a Base bordering the Rift receive recorded messages from an expedition that set out twenty years ago. The first message states that after crossing a certain point in space, the explorers are all experiencing "subjective phenomena" -- species dysphoria, in fact, in which they feel as though they ought to have structurally-important tails, an upper set of arms, and in some cases, socially-significant spots! But although they feel clumsy and fear that Base might question their sanity, they see no compelling reason not to carry on...

The human messages are alternated with scenes (in some cases, other recorded messages) among people who, it so happens, have structurally-important tails, an upper set of arms, etc. Interesting alien-design is very important to me in science fiction, and I highly approve of Tiptree's creativity in designing the parts of this alien society she chooses to describe. Unfortunately, although these aliens (the Zieltan) are just as interested in peace and friendly contact with others as the humans (which is very much, in this universe), at the same time the human explorers are making their way across the Rift, the Zieltan are becoming predisposed to hate and fear them...

"Collision" is not as tightly written as "The Only Neat Thing To Do," although it tries a lot harder to have the timelines make sense; but it's fun and exciting, and is one of those first contact stories in which one gets the aliens' side of things and sympathizes with and cheers for them just as much as for the humans.

[Dustin]

Contains the novellas: Collision, Good Night, Sweethearts, and The Only Neat Thing To Do.

http://speculiction.blogspot.com/2013...

Following is the review which can also be found at the link above, and which I feel is excellent:

"The biography of James Tiptree Jr., known as Alice Sheldon in reality, makes for interesting reading. Having had anything but a predictable life, amongst her many talents was writing science fiction. Her personal life troubled, its emotional tension leaked into her fiction, giving it a certain salience, and likewise dark undertones. One of her last novellas, The Only Neat Thing to Do may be the most autobiographical of them all.

Coati Cass is a plucky, intelligent young girl with dreams of space. She knows all the star stations, the models of ship that traverse the universe, and the rules of space flight. Saving up her money, she decides to put her knowledge to use and fulfill her dreams by renting a ship for a few weeks’ trip into the great unknown. Things go smoothly at first; she spends the last of her money on fuel and food, gets permission to lift off after chartering a course, and heads off to the starry beyond. At the first way station, however, things take a turn—as innocent as it may be. Intercepting a message from a pair of spacers thought lost, she decides to follow up on their request for help. Little does she know what else was stowed in the message container.

Opening in an adventurous mode a la Jack Vance and closing on the bleakest of notes a la Hemingway, The Only Neat Thing to Do is a true arc of story. Hugging a proper 180 degree curve, the narrative seems to parallel Tiptree Jr.’s personal life in more ways than one. From the innocence of youth to the uncertainty of responsibility in the wide world—err, universe, the struggles of a person coming to terms with themselves and the reality they are a part of are symbolized in what Coati finds inside the message, or better yet, what finds Coati inside the message. From the hopes and dreams of youth to sexuality and the psychological weight of family expectation, Tiptree Jr. covers a lot of ground in the short, heartbreaking novella.

In the end, The Only Neat Thing to Do is a poignant tale of a young girl who turns herself loose on the world only to meet a tragic end. By parallel, it is also the story of an author in turmoil, seeking escape from demons past and present. The main plot device similar to Jack Vance’s Nopalgarth or Dan Simmon’s Carrion Comfort, readers will find the underlying content all Tiptree Jr.’s. Symbolism ripe and the narrative flowing, the story haunts beyond the grave."

[Saturn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Viaggi spaziali in cerca di nuovi mondi, nuove stelle, nuove culture, da conoscere e da esplorare... In questi tre racconti ambientati nello stesso universo si respira un'aria di avventura e di ricerca dell'ignoto, soprattutto nel primo e nel terzo. In particolare l'ultimo racconto mostra le difficoltà di un Primo Contatto, l'incontro con una cultura aliena completamente diversa dalla nostra in cui il rischio di non capirsi è alto e rischia di creare una frattura che può facilmente degenerare in una guerra.
Lo spirito di esplorazione di queste storie mi ha un po' ricordato l'universo di Star Trek, con uno stile però più arrembante e acerbo.

[Peter · Rating 2 out of 5]

After the extinction of humanity, aliens visiting a galactic library study three tales from humanity's history.

This is a fix-up novel, that is, short stories wrapped up by a framing device to turn it into a novel. The stories are all set in the same universe, and sometimes reference the same locations and aliens, but the time is different enough that the same technological rules don't apply (although they're always at a spacefaring level).

Tiptree herself (James Tiptree Jr. being a pseudonym for Alice Sheldon) has been an author I've enjoyed several short stories of in the past, but at the same time, I felt like I haven't read enough. Moreover, she had quite a fascinating life. And, since we were coming up on what would have been her 100th birthday, when I saw this collection in a used book bin, I figured I'd give it a try.

It's not her best work, unfortunately. It showcases some of the same characteristics she's known for, explorations of gender and sexuality, power, and death, but none have the power of the few classic works, and, to a degree, they seem more like average pulp stories with, occasionally, a little extra.

Since there's only three, it's easy enough to discuss them individually, and then I'll discuss some of the things that apply to all of them.

In "The Only Neat Thing To Do" a teenage girl who wants nothing more to explore space is given a spacecraft by her parents, for local use, and promptly runs away to uncharted territories. There she encounters an alien being unknown to her and uncovers a potential threat to local humanity. This was the best story of the bunch, all told. The alien, although maybe requiring a bit of suspension of disbelief, was a lot of fun to imagine, and the growing horror of what might potentially happen was well-played, as well as the tragedy surrounding the whole situation, that it's not because of any particular maliciousness, but that like physics, biology can also be unforgiving.

"Good Night, Sweet Hearts," tells the story of a man who is out of time due to a large amount of traveling under cryogenic suspension. As part of a series of coincidences, he encounters the great lost love of his college years, now much older and changed in many ways beyond that... and later, encounters the descendant of a clone of hers that's the age that he knew her. Also, there are space pirates. The weakest of the bunch, I get the idea that the author was playing with (a choice between a second chance with a person you have history with that you still hold a torch for, but isn't how you remember her, or one who looks virtually the same but doesn't remember you), and I like how it was eventually dealt with, but too much about it seemed like a false choice and, perhaps oddly, it didn't seem to give enough agency or respect to the women themselves. The fact that the clone was rescued from being a slave (and endured some horrific things) kind of makes her not much like the woman he left behind, except in looks, which makes him shallow for even considering it. And, all in all, the story just didn't have a lot of what I was interested in, it ran more along the lines of a pulp style adventure.

The third story, "Collision", ranks somewhere in between. The alien race was actually quite well-conceived, with an interesting life cycle involving three genders, and the conflict between them and the humans made sense and was resolved more or less in a satisfying way... but there was just a bizarre subplot (involving people of any race, in certain regions of space, thinking that they should look like the primary inhabitants of that area) that was just... frankly, too silly for me. The worst part was, it had only the smallest consequences on the plot and could easily have been removed. It felt like an interesting idea the author wanted to explore, but didn't have a proper story, so she just shoved it into this one, and made it much worse in the process. But, I still have to give her credit for the alien race itself.

As for the framing story, it's not substantial enough to really enjoy, but there is one quality that takes it from being a neutral factor in the book to being a minor negative: too often, the author uses the alien's reactions to comment on her own writing, in a way that feels smarmy (even were she criticizing them, but there's some praise too).

Overall, there are some trends, mostly, unfortunately, to the negative. Not in a "I hate this book" sense, but simply that I might have enjoyed it more if they were improved. Some, you can't really blame Tiptree for... that is, the technology in these seems very dated. Particularly, storage capacities and the fact that tapes are regularly referred to, not as archaic language but as physical things that need to get respooled, threaded, and such, giving the impression that in the far future humanity has spread throughout the galaxy and discovered faster-than-light travel but still uses magnetic tape based cassettes. Of course, any fiction of a certain time period is going to have big gaps like this, and you sort of have to forgive them, but they can still have their effect on your enjoyment. Somewhat more distancing is some occasional language abnormalities. I'm not sure if these are meant to indicate linguistic drift, were particular dialogue quirks of the era or location Tiptree wrote, or some combination (her use of the word "minim" to denote a specific but undefined time period certainly seems to be some element of world-building, but it felt out of place), but it often felt not quite right, not quite natural. Some of the dialogue had the clipped rhythm you sometimes hear in military or pilot speak, where words that are not strictly necessary, but make your sentences feel more natural, get omitted. It's not a huge problem, but it made it harder to get into than I'd hoped.

I didn't dislike it, I just thought it was okay. Despite the weak review, it's not turning me off Alice Sheldon's work in general, it just might not be the best place for someone to get a deeper exposure to her.

[Tim Hicks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A re-read for me too, and it's still as good as ever. Readers, get everything Tiptree wrote; you won't regret it. Sadly, there aren't that many of her books.

I particularly liked the way the third story stayed away from the tired old trope of having one side learn the other's language in eight minutes.
Also its mix of experienced and inexperienced people on both sides, and no Heinlein-style I-can-do-anything heroes.

[Chi]

The Only Neat Thing To Do: 5

Coati, newly gifted a spacecraft by her parents, decides that adventuring is the first order of business. So, we follow our intrepid young traveller as she reaches the outer limits of charted space, and encounters a mystery worth solving.

The story though, ends in a rather sad (albeit uplifting) note.

[Mao Wtm · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first story has a great start and middle development, but the plot turns a bit too quickly and before I knew it it's over. Would enjoy a longer version of that more.

[path · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall a pretty enjoyable collection of three novellas. I don't have enough familiarity with Tiptree to know how this compares with her other work, but it ranks up there with the inventiveness and good plotting that I know of her other work.

The first novella, "The Only Neat Thing to Do" is indeed neat. It's a great concept for an alien species and story itself is tight and focused. I could have gone for more story with Coati Cass, so that was a little disappointing. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised to find out that she appears in earlier Tiptree.

The second novella, "Good Night Sweethearts" was okay. Maybe I'm a little burnt out on clones and the mind-bendiness of meeting up with younger/older versions of people you know.

The third novella, "Collision" was my favorite. It is a good first contact tale, complete with a clash of customs and clash of assumptive biological needs. I very much like how the narrative set in Zeillor time/space is spend developing a more sophisticated mutual understanding of different species and using that new knowledge to differentiate one species from others with which it is habitually grouped.

[Tsana Dolichva · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Starry Rift by James Tiptree Jr is one of only two collections of short stories readily available as ebooks. I admit I chose to buy it first partly because it was only $3 and partly because it was shorter and I could more easily fit it in before getting to Letters to Tiptree.


The Starry Rift is set up with a framing narrative about two students seeking library materials for class. The books the librarian gives them form the three stories contained within this collection. The stories are all set around the same general region of space: Federation Base 900, the frontier outpost on the edge of the Rift. (Hence the title.) The Rift is an area of space devoid of stars, apparently not quite in between spiral arms of the Milky Way, but something like that.


I have to say, the science in this book was a bit off. Some of it was quaint — as in, not up to date, as would be expected of an older book like this — and some of it did not entirely make sense. I was a bit confused about the relativistic and also normal time passing effects of space travel which didn't seem to be addressed in the first story but were explained more in the third. On the other hand, the scientific points in these stories were generally not dwelt upon, decreasing the likelihood of an egregious error. None of the stories were about new inventions; they were all, first and foremost, about characters in unusual situations. (But aliens who have FTL comms but not pretty fundamental chemistry? Come on!)


Anyway, as per usual I have made comments on the individual stories which you can find below. In general, I would recommend this collection as a good example of classic SF. While the science may not have stood the test of time, the concepts explored in the stories mostly have.


The Only Neat Thing to Do — A fourteen year old girl (with rich parents) gets a space coupe from her parents, tricks it out with extra fuel tanks and goes exploring to the edge of Human-explored space. It started out as a fun adventure, if a little unlikely since fourteen year olds can't have cars, and took some interesting and then emotional turns. (I really wasn't expecting the sort of ending it had.) There were a few weird science-related moments but they weren't dwelled on by the narrative, so I found them easier to skip over than in most books. (Why do so many books use bad science as a lynchpin?) As a first introduction to Tiptree, I found it a solid story. (Coming back after finishing the collection, this was my favourite of the three.)


Good Night, Sweethearts — A space salvager/repairman/portable refueller comes across a stranded ship that's out of fuel. It transpires that it contains someone from his past. A past that, almost interestingly (it could have been explored further), he doesn't remember due to what I gathered to be PTSD-type treatment he received after being in a war. Some external action provides excitement and the climax and the main character is left with some difficult decisions. I was disappointed with how much these objectified the female characters. I also found his final choice baffling, though perhaps less so, given some of what I've recently learnt about the author's life.


Collision — This is the story of first (well, second) contact between the human Federation and a large alien empire. Told from points of view on both sides, we learn a lot about the culture and unusual biology of the aliens before the human protagonists come across them. The biological procedure of reproduction was very unusual — honestly it struck me as a bit inefficient — for all that the aliens resemble kangaroos in superficial ways. I liked that after explaining the mechanics of it, the notion turned out to be relevant to the plot in an unexpected way. On the human side of things, the story starts off being told through long-delayed communications capsules. We listen to the story along with the people at base, knowing only that the explorers survive long enough to send the capsule, but nit whether there'll be another capsule. Although this is actually a relatively cheery story in the end, there is still some death, notably of the only two human women (although they didn't die because they were women). It's still less bleak than the first story in this collection.


4 / 5 stars


Read more reviews on my blog.

[Anthony Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first ‘James Tiptree, Jr’ novel – really three long stories – I’ve read. I quite enjoyed it.

My reticent appreciation is based on what, for me, is a typical difficulty I have with some sci-fi. The worlds the writer discovers are, I often find, rather clearer in her or his head than they are to the reader. Finding the balance between lengthy exposition and a subtle but lucid communication of the imaginary ‘peoples’, their behaviours and politics and social and cultural practices, their landscapes and buildings, their technologies etc is a tricky one, and it was only by the end of ‘The Starry Rift’ I was pretty much on the right wavelength.

Tiptree structures her stories interestingly. They are given coherence by the Librarian of Deneb University who has been asked by two Comeno students for ‘a selection of Human fact/fiction from the early days of the Federation’. He offers them stories which introduce both the students and, of course, us to those times more or less chronologically, from the Human discovery of distant galactic spaces and worlds, moving on to their exploration and early colonisation, and finally the first contact between Humans and the Comenor. All three stories show the central Human protagonists at their human best, operating altruistically, positively, generously, judicially, diplomatically, keen to promote intra-galactic friendship and understanding and mutually beneficial trading relationships.

I say intra-galactic rather than inter-galactic because all the stories are set in the galaxy that we know as the Milky Way. The Starry Rift of the title is the relatively starless part of the galaxy, on one side of which lie Humans while on the other are planets and ‘peoples’ as yet undiscovered.

Several narrative strands concern the Human mapping of the Rift to facilitate the navigation of it. Some Humans, however, have made the crossing on their own account with a view to colonising whatever they may find on the other side, displaying an aggression that the ‘peoples’ there – which include the Comenor - have long ago succeeded in excluding from their affairs. Along with these roughnecks that have earned the Humans a bad reputation, the Rift is cruised by Human space pirates and, in the first story, an alien creature hitching a ride to a new world.

I am going to hang on to my copy of this novel, as I think a re-reading will prove rewarding. Apart from anything else, Tiptree is determined to present us in our best light, and displays those qualities that, if practised, make us and our societies rather better places to live.

[Lesley · Rating 4 out of 5]

One can see why Tiptree is such an acclaimed writer; but, although I can see that, I can also see why I have not except very occasionally to look at a particular story, really returned to Tiptree's work since first reading them round about the 70s/80s. Which is about what I like, rather than what I admire, in a writer.

[Sol]

Added because of this blogpost about how the story "The Only Neat Thing to Do" has become a self-sustaining meme in Japan.

[David Hibberd · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Starry Rift deals with areas where little exists between the galactic arms. There are three stories about the rift from different times. These are given to two young Comenors wanting to learn about Humans from the early days of the Federation.
The first tale is from a time when humans had little FTL capabilities. It follows Coati Cass, a young lady who was given a little space-coupe on her 16th birthday. She tricks it out with additional fuel tanks with the idea of exploring space beyond the northern borders of the rift. She leaves FedBase 900. She encounters a message pipe from another starship and a small, gold speck falls onto her arm.
The speck turns out to be an intelligent life that enters her body and travels to her brain. She goes into cold sleep to continue her journey and the life form uses that time to explore her brain. When Coati comes out of her cold sleep, the entity uses Coati's voice to communicate with her. She learns that her new companion is an Eea named Syllobene. During their journey together, Coati learns about the Eea and Syl and the eventual results of Syl's growing in Coati's brain. Coati is able to record a message pipe to send to FedBase 900 and warn them about the Eea.
In the second tale, FTL communication did not exist and FTL travel was only for emergencies. Raven does salvage work and spends much time in cold sleep on trips to his salvage destinations. He responds to an out-of-fuel call. One of the people on board the ship he comes to help is a silver-gilt haired girl named Illyera. She goes by Illya and is a well-known celebrity. Raven learns there is more to Illya. He sees that over many years she has had extensive cosmetic surgery and eventually realizes that they had been romantically involved years before. Because of his decades in cold sleep, he has aged very little compared to Illya.
Raven provides them with the fuel they need and warns them about the route they choose to take. They ignore his warning and soon encounter another ship which connects to theirs. Raven is able to connect to them and disable the hostiles. He discovers a young version of Illya, her grandclone named Illaine. Raven is still in love with Illya and now finds that Illaine is interested in him. In the end he is faced with a difficult decision.
The third tale describes a human encounter with the Ziellor. They are fur covered with a large tail they use for hopping. They have an extra pair of smaller arms and have only one eye. As the humans get closer to Ziellor space some of the crew have impressions that they should have tails and extra arms while knowing nothing about the Ziellor.
The Ziellor have had horrible encounters with what they call Zhumans. Zhumans are Black World humans that have waged war with the Ziellor. A young female Ziellor named Zella has learned some human language and eventually becomes a translator. The human ship, Rift-Runner eventually lands on Ziellor but have taken steps to disguise themselves to look more like the Ziellor. Eventually things fall apart and the humans flee Ziellor pursued by a Ziellor warship. They grow low on fuel and cannot outrun the warship. However, the warship is also low on fuel but has called for a supply ship. It comes down to the two ship captains to come to an understanding and prevent a war between the two worlds.
This is an interesting story in three parts and was very enjoyable.

[Mark Cheverton (scifipraxis) · Rating 2 out of 5]

A composite novel featuring three linked stories set at humanity's galactic borderland. This was a disappointing first Tiptree read for me having expected better. The SF encyclopedia says her best work was in the 70s so maybe I just started in the wrong place. 

The only neat thing to do ⭐⭐

The concept of a symbiotic relationship between golem-like animals and a brain parasite that acts as the controlling intelligence is an intriguing concept, and I liked the exploration of the consequences of such an encounter for humanity. However, I found it hard to suspend my disbelief in the teenage spacefarer out alone on her first adventure, which tainted a thought-provoking high concept with a YA delivery.

Good night, sweethearts ⭐⭐⭐

A deep space rescue reunites two old flames, but all is not as it appears as pirates strike. Raven is a war veteran come salvager who I quickly warmed to. His classic heat-of-the-action problem-solving is believable and enjoyable as the action ramps up and hard decisions and sacrifices have to be made.

Collision ⭐

This story has so many flaws. Surprisingly, for being written in the 80s, it's a technologically analog space opera. This lack of imagination makes the world-building feel like a thin pasted-on veneer - a key plot point has the aliens using a hose to serupticiously siphon out fuel from a spaceship's fuel cap! Structurally, the time jumps in the narrative are poorly handled; the first contact descends into farce as the humans cavort around in hastily crafted alien costumes, and tension is often created by irritating incompetence.

The alien civilisation has almost identical technologies except for video, so we have the ridiculous notion of building a galactic trade of FTL tech for video tech. The denouement has some ridiculous orbital mechanics, a convenient falling of the alien warship's environmental systems just as they arrive, and wraps the story up with a deus ex machina.

[Christian Schwoerke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not top-shelf Tiptree, though there are some occasional felicities. There are three stories in this collection—each set in the Starry Rift, a section of the galaxy where there is an absence of stars—all framed as library materials given to aliens seeking knowledge of humans. This conceit—that aliens would learn about humans from reading—implied there may have been perceptual/sensory difficulties with an image-based medium, such as movies. Additionally, it suggested and never overtly denied the possibility that humans had become extinct. The aliens mention how the reading evoked emotion and conjured images, which is a pretty marvelous coincidence... (that their brains could process, as humans mysteriously do, this same aspect of language, using arbitrary symbols that compose arbitrary words so that in combination they make the brain connect those symbols with ragtag bits of random memory to create a new, almost-lived, cognitive experience).

The first and best story initially had me thinking the whole collection was following a Young Adult agenda, but the young protagonist simply mirrors the other young principal, an alien entity that exists as a benign brain parasite. This was an intriguing premise and the quixotically altruistic relation between parasite and host was the story’s highlight.

The second story involved a self-isolating former astronaut whose many time-delaying FTL flights have removed him from his natal contemporaries by almost a century, though he remains only 30 years old. In his occupation as remote mobile refuel jockey, he encounters his first love, a galactically famous star of visual and holographic fictions who’s maintained her youthful appearance through numerous surgeries, though she is over a century old. The daughter of one of her clones becomes involved, and the fuel jockey is torn between preserved first love or youthful clone of first love. He ends up opting for neither, making plans instead to rebuild/scavenge lost space ships.

The final, longest story entails a first-contact mission that might explode into a galactic war if the intentions of the humans are not properly perceived as benign. There is some good interesting atmospherics in this story, but it ends up being a creaky bit of machinery for generating a “phew, that was a close call” ending. (After the sophistication of alien encounter depicted by Stanislaw Lem in Fiasco, it’s difficult to approach any sort of space opera without champing down on the skepticism.)

This is not Tiptree’s best work, and it would be a shame if a reader had only read this and not delved into her earlier, more challenging and more unsettling work. Something was lost in Tiptree’s writing, and she never recovered from the unmasking of her identity as a woman. For nearly a decade, she’d been writing as a reclusive man and garnering attention and critical hosannas for fiction that exhibited a subliminal otherness, a frisson generated by a subterfuge that enabled her to keep in flux/in potentia her own awareness of identity.

[ScoLgo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this short set of interconnected novellas set in the same universe as the Tiptree/Sheldon novel, Brightness Falls From the Air. The framing device here felt a bit clunky but the stories themselves are of the fun, pulpy variety. They are more about the characters and the situations in which they find themselves rather than about hard sci-fi, so readers will likely have a better time if they don't go into this expecting to find science and space travel ideas that conform to actual physics.

The first story, The Only Neat Thing To Do, starts off with a very 'James H. Schmitz' type of feel to it with a plucky young heroine zipping off to adventure in her new spaceship, (without her parent's permission). But the story takes a very non-Schmitz-like darker turn that leads to a rather poignant ending. Story #2, Good Night, Sweet Hearts is the weakest of the three, but still not bad. Time-dilation, clones, and space pirates! The third tale, Collision, is also the longest and centers around an exploratory mission across The Rift that stumbles upon a new alien species. Half the tale, similar to Asimov's The Gods Themselves, is told from the alien's perspective, which lends an extra dimension to what is, in the end, a fairly standard alien contact story. That said, the characterization is good and the aliens are nicely realized.

Overall, this is a decent entry in Tiptree's catalog. It is not her best work but is still worth checking out if you are already a fan.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

And so matters are decided, not without further talk and work, until two shocks make it all come unglued again.

The Starry Rift collects three far future short stories by James Tiptree, Jr., pen name for Alice Sheldon, linked together with a frame story of two lovestruck aliens checking out books from a friendly university librarian.

This is the first I’ve read from Tiptree, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. What stands out most is the sheer creativity of the stories in this collection. It starts with a joyriding teen who finds herself in over her head with something in her head, continues on to a story about a pilot out of time linked with an aged lost love and her clone, and ends with a first-encounter style story where communication is all that can prevent a war.

There is a heart and depth to it all, and a vivid imagination that explains why I sometimes see her works mentioned with other New Wave greats. Beyond that, certain touches like references to cassettes give it a somehow cozy retro future feel.

5/5.

[Zachary Barber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everyone seems to love the first story, but I think they're sleeping on the other two.

The second story grapples with memory, lost love, lovers who are your lover but aren't your lover, freedom and commitment. Interesting stuff in the context of Tiptree's life. The book was published the year before she committed suicide and shot her husband in an apparent suicide pact.

The last story is the real winner here. Great 20th century scifi imagination, complete with a fresh idea or too. Like the rest, it wraps up a bit too neatly, but is a lot of tense fun along the way.

Tiptree demonstrates mastery in using small details to create foreboding uneasiness.

[Earl Truss · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is called a novel in many places but it turned out to be three short stories connected by a little story about students and a library.

The Only Neat Thing to Do - I did not read it as it is in another book to be read in the future

Good Night, Sweethearts - this has to be the most boring story I've read in a long time, inane
dialogue, weak characters (and SO many of them), a long plot I had a lot of trouble following

Collision - this was by far the better of the stories that I read.

Maybe I should just stick with her shorter stories in the future.

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's always awkward when a favorite writer occasionally produces sub-par work. There is much verve and imagination on display in the three tales included here, but much of it seems to have been phoned in. Tiptree could be transcendent when at her best, but this is not representative of those moments. Rather clumsy, all in all, with some pulpish attributes that make this seem more of the Thrilling Wonder school of 1940s SF than the product of one of the most original voices in science fiction. For the completist only, in my opinion.

[Shane Noble · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid sci-fi with great characters and tales from the edges of space including a rambunctious teen girl who runs away from home to explore the stars, a veteran explorer who encounters an old flame and has to save her from pirates, and a first encounter that could turn into an interstellar war. This takes place in the same universe as Brightness Falls From the Air and definitely leaves you wanting more.

[Namenamenamename · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this very much. So rare to find old scifi that has characters I can actually care about! Also fun aliens, and spacefarers also mucking about with audio cassettes and VHS tapes.

The first and last of the three stories are much better than the middle story, in my opinion, but the middle one was okay at least. The disconnected 3-part structure was odd overall, but interesting in its own way.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Starry Rift is a science fiction novella by Alice Sheldon writing as James Tiptree, Jr. This book has three short stories all set in the same universe. The first short story is "The Only Next Thing To Do", the second short story is "Good Night Sweethearts", and the third short story is "Collision". Each of these stories involves some form of first contact between mankind and various alien races. Written in the late eighties, the stories still hold up in 2025. A great read.

[Chloe Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I often comb the Tiptree award nominees for book recommendations, but I’ve never read a Tiptree book until now! I liked it. Three stories, linked together loosely: I loved the first one so much! The other two were “meh”, and I also loved the far-future vignettes in between each story. I’ll definitely look for more Tiptree, but she can be hard to come by!

[Adam Becker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The structure of the book was interesting; three stories set in the same place but at different times with different characters. All tied together by a separate brief narrative that served as an introduction and bridged between the stories. Entertaining concepts and plots. Some of the characters seemed rather flat but not to the point of being completely unlikable.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good taste of what Tiptree (Alice Sheldon) has to offer for anyone who hasn't read her work. Quite imaginative, creative, and emotional (The first and last story, the middle one was a dud for me). Characters feel really fleshed out and the aliens are refreshingly unique. This is a universe I'd love to explore more of.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice collection of stories. The first and third were the best, with the first being my favorite. The second was just okay. The first, "The Only Neat Thing to Do," is a very classic Tiptree story in both topic and structure. I liked the framing narrative a lot, very charming. And I liked that it's a novel of connected stories, but still short stories.

[Mark Edlund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Science Fiction - I have not read enough of this great female author (Tiptree is a pseudonym). Three little novellas are tied together by a couple doing research at a galactic library. The stories all have interesting twists on space exploration, first contact and potential interstellar conflict. Nicely done.
No Canadian or pharmacy references.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Three short stories, I only read the first two. Not very interesting or engaging.