Author, Feminist, Pioneer: The Unlikely Queen Of Sci-Fi
Tiptree was both a feminist and a pessimist, unsure whether our deepest problems have solutions, yet still certain society had to change. In Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, male astronauts discover that an all-female future has no use for them; in the brisk, terrifying "The Screwfly Solution," a cult, or a chemical weapon, turns men's sex drive to murderous "blood lust" (it doesn't take much). In "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death," two spider-like aliens fall in love and try to resist the instinct that will make one devour the other after mating, as their species always does.
Such work made Tiptree a pioneer in writing about gender and sexuality. But Sheldon, as Tiptree, thought just as hard about escape, and about why we — as children or adults, men or women or both or neither — must use our imaginations, why we stay unsatisfied. "We're built to dream outwards," a space station worker explains — we want the new, the exotic, the perfect love, the best trip, even if it kills us, and whether or not it's real.
Enlarge image i