Alice Sheldon. Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home. By James Tiptree, Jr. With a new Introduction by Gardner Dozois. Boston: Gregg Press, 1976.
Alice Sheldon (1915–87) wrote most of her fiction in the span of a single tumultuous decade in America, 1967–77, under the pseudonym of James Tiptree, Jr. The Tiptree voice expressed an easy competence and clarity and an understanding of the way worlds worked. Tiptree stories are almost invariably about death: beautifully written, sometimes very funny and sometimes very sexy, but inexorable and unflinching.
In 1977, a fan writer revealed Tiptree’s identity. Alice Sheldon wrote to a correspondent, “As to writing, I am dead.”
Inscribed by the author to her editor, “Dave Hartwell with unbounded regard James Tiptree Jr. Alli.”
No. 44.