All posts tagged: James Tiptree Jr.

Content featuring the work of science fiction writer James Tiptree Jr., aka Alice Sheldon.

Reconnect 2: Cautionary Ekostories

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The cautionary tale is a good tool for raising awareness about serious problems. It is also a good place to turn to for inspiration when ignorance and indifference threatens. Sometimes we need a shot in the arm, a reminder of what is potentially at stake. But care must be exercised to not overuse them, lest we grow numb to their bleak messages and become paralyzed in taking meaningful and needed action. This week’s Reconnect brings together Ekostories that serve as warnings to a world wracked with ecological degradation and cultural destruction.

Tiptree Love is the Plan Death Wordle

Love is the Plan the Plan is Death!

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I usually have to think to come up with catchy titles for my entries, but the work has been done for me this week. Love is the Plan the Plan is Death is a Nebula-winning short story written by James Tiptree Jr., a pseudonym of Alice Sheldon. A trailblazer in fusing “hard” science fiction which focused on science and technology with the sociological and psychological ideas of “soft” science fiction, Tiptree was also a master in exploring the vantage point of the other, the female, and the alien. I first came upon her work in the collection Her Smoke Rose Up Forever and was captivated by the mastery of her prose and the bleakness of her tales.  Love is the Plan the Plan is Death is my favorite story out of that compilation. Unlike the utopian future of the Star Trek universe, Tiptree’s science fiction stories tend to be dark and pessimistic, often exploring the inexorable force of biological determinism and the futility of existence as self-aware individuals. Her tales force me to wonder: Are …