Only two of the stories in The James Tiptree Award Anthology 3
have actually won the James Tiptree Award, and one of those is actually an
excerpt from the winning novel. The other stories which have been included
are stories which were recognized on the short list issued each year when
the award is announced. This is a nice touch since while award
winners are often reprinted, stories which almost won an award seem
all too often to be relegated the the dustheap of publishing history.
In 2001, Geoff Ryman published the story “Have Not
Have,” which later became part of his 2005 Tiptree Award winning novel Air.
In typical science fiction fashion, “Have Not Have” looks at the
changes to society brought about by the introduction of technology, in
this case, the internet to a small town in the fictional Asian region of
Karzistan. In Ryman’s world, however, it is women who tend towards
innovation while the men are more conservative. However, it is the very
changes in the world, whether technological or personal, that create havoc
in Ryman’s protagonist’s life.
Nalo Hopkinson looks at gender expectations and race
in “The Glass Bottle Trick,” in which a white woman in an interracial
marriage discovers that she is pregnant. Her joy at the prospect of
the birth of her child, however, is tempered by her discovery of her
husband’s past and the realization that her role in the marriage is not
what she expected and her very joy may result in her murder.
“Wooden Bride,” is a coming of age story by Margo
Lanagan in which a girl, Mattild Weir,
taking part in a coming of age ritual experiences all the emotional
baggage and sense of alienation that so often accompanies any teenager who
is going through life changes. Despite focusing on a young girl who
is in the quintessentially female role as a bride, Lanagan’s story
carries extra weight in that it can be applied to either gender.
“Dearth,” is a short story from Aimee Bender 2005
Tiptree winning collection Willful Creatures. The story deals
with a woman’s response to her pregnancy, although rather than actually
being pregnant, she finds herself faced with strangely appearing and
growing potatoes, thereby negating any emotional attachment and sense of
duty she might feel to them…at first. However, as the story (and
pregnancy?) progresses, Bender comes to see the potatoes as more than just
something strange.
“
Mountain Ways
,” the collection’s second Tiptree winner, by Ursula Le Guin examines
what happens to lesbians without an interest in men in a society in which
the typical marriage consists of two females and two males, living and
loving in a joint hetero-homo-bisexual and polyamorous relationship. By
creating such a complex marital arrangement, Le Guin is able to look at
our own culture’s response to similar issues in a very different way
that provides enough space and difference to offer a more neutral look at
homosexual relationships.
Pam Noles takes the makes of SciFi’s “Earthsea”
miniseries to task in the non-fiction article “Shame.” While her
criticisms are legitimate and can be applied to a number of works of
fiction (both on screen and off), the tone of the piece sounds dated and
almost inconsequential as the miniseries, which first aired in 2004, is no
longer a current item, although it does make occasional reappearances on
SciFi and it, of course, available on DVD.
Dorothy Allison’s non-fiction piece, “The Future
of Female: Octavia Butler’s Mother Lode,” was first published in 1990,
but given Butler’s untimely death in 2006, its inclusion in the current
volume is a fitting tribute to Butler and joins the concept of gender with
the concept of race, both of which were so prevalent in Butler’s
writing.
One of the misconceptions about the Tiptree Award is
that it is for women and women’s fiction, whatever that means.
Rather, it is for fiction which focuses on gender, such as “Liking What
You See: A Documentary,” by Ted Chiang. Chiang’s story, told in
the form of a transcript from a documentary project, examines a world in
which drugs suppress not physical beauty but the ability of the human mind
to recognize and respond to it. While the idea seems a bit far-fetched,
Chiang invites the reader to suspend disbelief and responds by producing a
story which is entertaining as well as thought provoking.
“The Girl Who Was Plugged In,” was first
published by James Tiptree, Jr. in 1973. As with Chiang’s
story which precedes it in this collection, the story focuses on the role
of beauty and how it can affect a person’s life, in this case the girl
Philadelphia Burke. Burke is given a way to become a beautiful
person and Tiptree looks at the way the dichotomy between her real
appearance and self-image differs from the new way people view her and
react to her.
The final non-fiction piece in the book is L.
Timmel Duchamp’s “Dear Alice Sheldon,” an epistolary essay
considering the importance of Tiptree/Sheldon’s work, but even more the
revelation of Tiptree/Sheldon’s identity. Timmel’s argument that
female authors are seen as women authors rather than authors who happen to
be women is interesting in light of the recent spate of articles and
essays attacking the 2006 Hugo slate for its dearth of female authors,
although it doesn’t seem to address to success of authors such as Lois
McMaster Bujold, Connie Willis, Ursula Le Guin, Nancy Kress, Vonda
McIntyre, or Kelly Link.
Vonda N. McIntyre’s “Little Faces” is a space
opera reminiscent, in some ways, of Anne McCaffrey’s The Ship Who
Sang. The women who ply the stars have symbiotic relationships with
the spaceships and men are relegated to additional symbiotic organisms
attached to the women’s body. However, the gender statements of
the story, while important, tend to take a back seat to the overall sense
of wonder and sense of fun displayed by the story.
“Knapsack Poems” is a reminder that in science
fiction, authors are not limited by the two primary genders belonging to
humans. Eleanor Arnason’s goxhat are multi-bodied organisms who come
across an individual child left in the wilderness. Arnason switches
between the various parts of her goxhat to show their different reactions
to the abandoned child, resulting in a complex, and at times confusing,
examination of relationships.
