The Only Neat Thing to Do

by James Tiptree Jr.

40년만의 국내 출간으로 대한민국을 뜨겁게 달궜던 <체체파리의 비법>에 이은 제임스 팁트리 주니어의 두 번째 소설집. 로커스상과 성운상 등을 수상한 작가의 대표작 '마지막으로 할 만한 멋진 일'을 비롯해 국내에 처음 소개되는 11편의 작품이 수록되었다.

열여섯 살 생일에 부모님으로부터 우주선을 선물받은 소녀. 선택은 두 가지. 안전하게 행성 주위 휴양지나 돌며 주어진 삶에 적응하며 살든지 아니면 아무도 가보지 않은 우주로 떠나든지. 고민하기도 전에 소녀는 이미 답을 알고 있다. 외계 생명체와의 극적인 조우, 그리고 위험에 닥친 탐사대원들을 돕기 위해 소녀는 긴 여정을 떠나는데….

주어진 운명을 거부하고 자신의 삶과 사랑을 선택한 여성들의 위대한 모험과 운명에 굴복하고 좌절하는 남성들의 절망을 선명하게 대비해서 보여줌으로써, 작가는 독자들로 하여금 경험하지 못한 세계에 대한 도발적인 실험을 제안한다. 페미니즘 SF의 전설과도 같은 제임스 팁트리 주니어의 또 다른 걸작 모음집이다.

Genres: Science Fiction

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1985

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

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun fact: if you typed 'The only neat thing to do' into Back to the Future II on the Amiga 500 it unlocked some cheats.

Why can I remember that yet I can't remember who recommended this book, or why?

[Glen Engel-Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story has some similarities with the famous SF short, Tom Godwin's “The Cold Equations,” in that it involves a spaceship hitchhiker and an extremely tough decision. The story starts out all happy and light, made even more so by Tiptree telling the story using present tense instead of past. Coati Cass is a rich 16-year-old with dreams of exploring the stars, a real Heinleinesque hero, all self-sufficient and wonderment. And she does extremely well in her plans, getting herself out to a far FedBase, refueled and supplied, and off on adventure. And that’s when she picks up the hitchhiker and things get a bit more serious. This story is what science fiction was meant for—it portrays both the excitement and danger of such an unlimited frontier full of surprises, and then it stays true to itself in evaluating what such things cost. Highly recommended, on my list of the best SF short stories written.

[E.T.Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't remember this story clearly, but I'd love to find the name of the anthology I read it in in the early 2000's, which was themed around SF stories with child characters (not written for children).

[Carlos Cisneros · Rating 3 out of 5]

La historia se me hizo un poco larga y un poco extraña aunque después supe de la vida de la autora y entendí un poco mejor el por que de este pequeño relato.

[Luis Morales · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brutal. Bastante bueno

[Abby Chua · Rating 4 out of 5]

yassss

[julia lark · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5. Short sci-fi. Lulls a little in the middle. “It was the only really neat thing to do.”