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James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon

Julie Phillips

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Jan 22, 2009 Sarah rated it really liked it

Shelves: writing, gender, biography

I don't read a lot of biographies, but this is one of the finest I have ever read. I had read some of Tiptree's stories as a teenager, and I knew that he was actually a woman, but I assumed that it was a case like Andre Norton or George Eliot, a woman publishing under a man's name. The complexity of Alli's relationship with her alter-ego Tiptree, and of Tiptree's relationships with others, was compelling.
The book asks many fascinating questions about gender and identity and self (taken as three ...more

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Apr 03, 2012 H. R. rated it really liked it

Shelves: science-fiction, cold-war, vietnam, wwii, litcrit, biography, africa, authors_james_tiptree

This story couldn't be made up. In the 1920s, a young girl from New York society travels to central Africa with her parents to hunt gorillas. When she returns, immersed in personal coming-of-age experiences from an extremely foreign culture, she gravitates toward pulp science fiction. 15 years later she becomes an early employee of the CIA. In the 60's and 70's, she creates a false identity and assumes a male persona, writing some of the most literary acclaimed SF of the time, and sense then.

Fo ...more

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