The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2

by Karen Joy Fowler (Editor), Pat Murphy (Editor), Debbie Notkin (Editor/Introduction)

Following the successful debut of the series, this second serving of innovative storytelling continues to celebrate thought-provoking and provocative speculative fiction. Touching on the most fundamental of human desires—sex, love, and the need for acceptance—Tiptree Award-winning authors continually challenge and redefine social identities, simultaneously exploring and expanding gender. James Tiptree, Jr. was the pseudonym of Alice Bradley Sheldon, whose lasting contributions to the genre are honored every year with the award. This collection gathers short fiction and essays that were chosen by the Tiptree Award judges in 2004, as well as additional selections from previous years. Contributors include Raphael Carter, L. Timmel Duchamp, Carol Emshwiller, Eileen Gunn, Joe Haldeman, Nalo Hopkinson, Gwyneth Jones, Jaye Lawrence, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jonathan Lethem, Debbie Notkin, Julie Phillips, Johanna Sinsalo, and Leslie What.

Contents

“All of Us Can Almost” by Carol Emshwiller
“Nirvana High” by Eileen Gunn and Leslie What
“The Brains of Femaile Heyana Twins” by Gwyneth Jones
“Letter to Rudolf Arnheim” by James Tiptree, Jr.
“Kissing Frogs” by Jaye Lawrence
Excerpt from Camouflage by Joe Halderman
Excerpt from Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo
“Five Fucks” by Jonathan Lethem
“Talking Too Much: About James Tiptree, Jr.” by Julie Phillips
“The Gift” by L. Timmel Duchamp
“Looking for Clues” Nalo Hopkinson
“Sea of Trolls” by Nancy Farmer
“Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation” by Rafael Carter
“Another Story, or a Fisherman of the Inland Sea” by Ursula K. Le Guin

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction, Anthologies, Short Stories, Gender, Fantasy, LGBT

252 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2005

About the author

Karen Joy Fowler is the New York Times bestselling author of seven novels and three short story collections. Her 2004 novel, The Jane Austen Book Club, spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s previous novel, Sister Noon, was a finalist for the 2001 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction. Her debut novel, Sarah Canary, won the Commonwealth medal for best first novel by a Californian, was listed for the Irish Times International Fiction Prize as well as the Bay Area Book Reviewers Prize, and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s short story collection Black Glass won the World Fantasy Award in 1999, and her collection What I Didn’t See won the World Fantasy Award in 2011. Her most recent novel We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, won the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction and was short-listed for the 2014 Man Booker Prize. Her new novel Booth published in March 2022.

She is the co-founder of the Otherwise Award and the current president of the Clarion Foundation (also known as Clarion San Diego). Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children and seven grandchildren, live in Santa Cruz, California. Fowler also supports a chimp named Caesar who lives at the Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary in Sierra Leone.

Reviews

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those just joining us, James Tiptree Jr was a magnificent SF writer whose work Robert Silverberg once described as "ineluctably masculine." Which is amusing because she was actually Alice B Sheldon. Anyway, in 1991 some people decided there should be an award named for a woman, and that it should be given to works that "explore and expand gender". So, to be quirky, they named it for Sheldon/Tiptree. And the award has been going since then, and there are now a number of anthologies that reflect it: excerpts from novels, complete short stories, but also other work that reflects the issues that the award desires to highlight. Which is awesome.

Debbie Notkin's introduction does a marvellous job of discussing the very first award and how it was decided on, as well as - most interestingly - pointing out that each jury has been forced to decide all over again what it means to "explore and expand gender." Which is good to be reminded of, because there are definitely stories in the anthology whose inclusion I was a little confused by. And this, Notkin says, is totally fine.

In honour of Tiptree/Sheldon, the anthology opens with a short essay from Julie Phillips, the biographer of Tiptree/Sheldon (which I reviewed here, and as I write I am listening to The Writer and the Critic discuss it), about talking and talking too much which is completely fascinating (and somewhat connected to the current furore over Hilary Mantel's words about the media representation of royalty?). It's matched with a letter from Sheldon herself, to the psychologist Rudolf Arnheim, talking about identity and science fiction and science and friendship, which is such a nice touch. And then the anthology jumps straight into Raphael Carter's "Congenital Agenesis of Gender Ideation by KN Sirsi and Sandra Botkin," which can only be read by itself, must be read in a single sitting, and may then require that you sit staring at a wall for a few minutes. Because it is mind blowing. It's written as a thoroughly researched scientific article, where two scientists from different backgrounds come to a startling discovery about how gender is perceived and what that means for identity and... that doesn't really explain it at all. It's very accessible as well as challenging and I can absolutely understand why it won.
L Timmel Duchamp's collection Love's Body, Dancing in Time was shortlisted in 2004, and from it this anthology includes "The Gift." For all that it's set in a distant future where the narrator is a travel writer who discusses other planets rather than other countries, there's something rather medieval in its suggestion that there is more to an understanding of gender than a basic dichotomy. And I don't mean 'medieval' in a pejorative sense, but in the sense that some medieval thinkers seemed to be groping towards a similar sense - and for similar reasons as suggested here. That aside, one of my favourite parts of this story is the description of the meal composed around the ideas of Matrix Aesthetics. And made me wish that something similar could possibly exist, that combined visual, aural, and taste sensations all designed to complement one another.
The next two parts of the anthology are again from 2004, this time excerpts from the winning novels. The Tiptree Award is an interesting one in that it seems to me one of the few really big-name awards that considers all work for one award (shorts and novels), and which is not afraid of having a tie (which has happened a few times). Firstly here, Joe Haldemann's Camouflage - the first four chapters and "and two from a little further along," according to the reading notes. I HAVE to read this novel. It's utterly gripping, right from the start: an alien comes to earth millennia ago, and is capable of changing its outward appearance to be... whatever it likes. Imagine the consequences of that on ideas of gender and identity. This is complemented by an excerpt from Johanna Sinisalo's Troll: A Love Story, which I imagine I will also get around to reading. Translated from the Finnish, it does indeed involve a troll, as well as (again according to the reading notes) mail-order bride slavery and Finnish folklore and homoerotic imagery. In this excerpt, the narrator's night has started badly, with a failed date, and gets worse when she finds a bunch of boys attacking an animal. Things get weirder after that.
"Looking for Clues" is Nalo Hopkinson's guest of Honour speech from WisCon (the convention where the Tiptree is announced) in 2002. As a woman of colour, as she explains in her speech, finding people "like her" was one of the aims of her extensive early reading - because there weren't that many. She takes a winding road through various media and her experiences to look at the different sorts of role models (and not) available through her childhood and teenaged years, as well as making pointed remarks about people who insist on remaining ignorant about the issues. It would have been a brilliant speech to hear in person.

Eileen Gunn's collection Stable Strategies is another one that got shortlisted in 2004, and as a representative this anthology chose "Nirvana High," co-written with Leslie What. This is one of the inclusions that I simply do not get. It's a clever story and it says interesting things about difference, and about growing up as 'different', but I don't see that it says things about gender that connect it to the Tiptree. But I'm sure Notkin would say "and?"
From 1996 comes Jonathan Lethem's "Five F***s" (sorry, I would like to keep this profanity free!). It's a series of six vignettes, and in all of them there is a woman whose life appears to be different each time she has sex with a particular man. Indeed, it's not just her life, but the world around her; in this sense it reminds me a bit of Lathe of Heaven. The lover does not appear in every story; in all but the first, there is a different man - Pupkiss, a policeman (mostly). So there are elements of the procedural to some of the sections, but not really. It's one of those stories, as you may be able to guess, that is particularly hard to explain. It should just be read.
Carol Emshwiller's "All of Us Can Almost..." is another story in the I don't entirely get it pile. Shortlisted in 2004, it's about desire and lying and determination, and while I think it's a very good story and fascinating in what it says about interactions between people and expectations, I don't entirely see that the gender aspects - which I can see - are an interesting enough or explored enough aspect to get it shortlisted. Again, refer to Notkin's advice.
Gwyneth Jones is rapidly becoming one of my favourite authors, so I was pleased to see an entry from her here. Rather than a piece of fiction, it's a paper she gave called "The Brains of Female Hyena Twins: On the Future of Gender," presented at the Academic Fantastic Fiction Network conference in 1994. In it, she ranges far and wide over scientific papers that discuss aspects of gender and biological sex in animals (those hyenas, peacocks, lizards and fish...), as well as gender and sex in humans and their malleability, as well as some frightening aspects of the battle of the sexes. It's erudite and occasionally witty (insofar as such a topic ought to be), and outright challenging to biological determinists.

The penultimate place belongs to Ursula le Guin, for Another Story, or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea which I have read before but fell in love with all over again, reading it here. The planet of O is such a richly realised place - their marriage customs so breathtakingly original - and they're not even the centre of the story, which is I think mostly about scientific research and its impact on individuals, as well as the impact of family, and the choices that we make... It's wonderful.
Finally, Jaye Lawrence's "Kissing Frogs" is described as "a pleasing after-dinner mint of a story" by the reading notes, and I think that's about right. It's a retelling of the fairy story, of course; it's amusing and sweet and I can't go into any details because the point of it is the little twists Lawrence weaves in. A highly enjoyable way to complete the anthology, anyway.

What this anthology does, and I presume what it set out to do, is give a broad overview of the point of the Tiptree Award - showcasing works that various juries have thought worth honouring, as well as including work that must help to inform the juries, and authors, and readers about the ideas of gender that the award wants to recognise. It succeeds in this aim, and no doubt in a secondary aim as well - of publicising those names whose work has been recognised, so that they get more recognition, and more people are challenged and inspired by their words.

You can get this anthology from Fishpond.

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second anthology for the James Tiptree Jr. award, published in 2006 and featuring publications mostly from the early 2000s. It's not just fiction; there is an intriguing essay on scientific findings on sex and gender by Gwyneth Jones, an introduction by Tiptree biographer Julie Phillips, and a letter from Tiptree to a good friend.

For fiction, this volume includes Ursula Le Guin's marital-variation story “A Fisherman of the Inland Sea”, as well as excellent stories by Raphael Carter, Jonathan Lethem, and excerpts from novels by Joe Haldeman and Johanna Sinisalo. All stories examine the issues of gender and sex. The shortest (and funniest) story is the last, “Kissing Frogs” by Jaye Lawrence, a delightful switcheroo of the classic fairy tale trope.

[Marie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's hard to review an anthology. I will say this collection is ecclectic. There was only one story I found dreadful. ("The Gift" is just painfully slow and over-written, I suppose the author gets away with "Restaurant Reviewer" prose because the main character actually IS a restaurant reviewer, but, eh, I still don't care for that type of over-indulgent scene-setting.)

My favorites were "Five Fucks", "All of Us Can Almost...", and "Kissing Frogs"... in hindsight these are all rather mythic, fairy-tale stories. "Five Fucks" has a man and woman whose union creates increasing chaos, and yet who can't keep their hands off each other as they devolve themselves and society around them. "All of Us Can Almost..." (Fly, that is, we find in the first sentence) is from the point of view of a large flightless bird-of-prey, whose species has a typical wildlife view of romance, or lack thereof, and our female bird decides to take things in her own wings. And the last story in the collection, "Kissing Frogs" is just a deftly written modern take on the fairy tale, with a touching ending.

[Bex · Rating 5 out of 5]

My overwhelming favorite short from this anthology was Ursula K. Le Guin's "Another Story or a Fisherman of the Inland Sea". I'd read the fiction stories from the first anthology, skipping the gender theory essays when they seemed dry or unengaging. In this second edition, every piece stood on its own, and Le Guin's resonated so deeply. She explores relationships between people in a world where the normative relationship is not a two-person couple, but a four-person couple, with various extrapolations and interweavings of connections with even more others. Sexuality is a small fragment of the relationship component, with happiness seeming more related to companionship over time. And a crossplot regarding time travel gives the protagonist an unusual opportunity, to remake his decisions, and maybe pick heartstrings over his work drive.

I liked this notion of relationship and sexuality acceptance so much; it seems the best fiction makes one want to see it become reality, somewhere.

[Raven · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book that sat on my shelf before being read as long as this one had, I was expecting it to be that blend of difficult and boring that sometimes happens with anthologies when the first story doesn't grab you. I'm not sure why I let it languish -- there are several stories in here that I particularly found appealing, including the first one! (Maybe I hated the intro? I don't know.) But the different parsing of gender in pursuit of artistic excellence was a pleasing theme, and living in Seattle I kinda had to love the Cobain High story too. Still, I think my favorite was Gwyneth Jones on the state of scientific research about gender expression in 1994... I didn't know about the parthenogenic lizards or the default masculinity of peacocks, but I promptly ran around telling everyone I could find about it. [grin]

[Nat Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

loved three of the stories enuf to look for the larger collections they belong to. My favorite was definitely the story about a young person with special talents in highscool: Nirvana High. Generally though, the other stories did not really spark my interest. Here's to the other two anthologies and the possibilities within them.

[Maryann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this one as much as the first volume, perhaps because several of the selections were excerpts from longer works, and I wanted to read short stories, not excerpts. However, it was still interesting, and the last story in the book "Kissing Frogs" by Jaye Lawrence, was adorable.

[Nicole Bunge]

hee... of course I'm reading this out of order... and had to start with the story titled "Five F*cks." Then work my way backwards.

[Rajesh · Rating 3 out of 5]

The usual mixed bag for anthologies.

[Mills College Library]

Fiction J294 v.2

[Kit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very mixed. I absolutely loved the Le Guin story (the whole reason I picked up the book), and liked several others, but the connection to gender seemed tenuous at best in many of the stories. A lot of them seemed to be far more about sex or sexuality, which is interesting but a different matter altogether.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like the first Tiptree Award anthology, this is a wide-ranging combination of fiction & non-fiction, authors I already know and those new to me. I particularly liked Timmel Duchamp's "The Gift," Nalo Hopkinson's "Looking for Clues" and Jaye Lawrence's "Kissing Frogs, and of course Urusla LeGuin's "Another Story or a Fisherman of the Inland Sea," though the last wasn't new to me.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I continue to appreciate the behind-the-scenes nonfiction included in these anthologies, as well as the mix of old favorites and work I hadn't seen before. Also I appreciate them reprinting Another Story (aka A Fisherman of the Inland Sea), one of my favorite Le Guin stories of all time.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very good stories, and nonfiction too--I loved "The Brains of Female Hyena Twins." But, I expected and wanted to see more about gender. The stories about aliens, trolls, and frogs were good, but not what I expected. I wished that more of the queerness was about some kind of sexuality rather than any kind of difference.