What do you think?
Rate this book
The Girl Who Was Plugged In/Screwtop
This book is two novels in one; Screwtop by Vonda N. McIntyre and The Girl Who Was Plugged in by James Tiptree Jr.
140 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 1989
6 people are currently reading
1039 people want to read
About the author
James Tiptree Jr.
244 books589 followers"James Tiptree Jr." was born Alice Bradley in Chicago in 1915. Her mother was the writer Mary Hastings Bradley; her father, Herbert, was a lawyer and explorer. Throughout her childhood she traveled with her parents, mostly to Africa, but also to India and Southeast Asia. Her early work was as an artist and art critic. During World War II she enlisted in the Army and became the first American female photointelligence officer. In Germany after the war, she met and married her commanding officer, Huntington D. Sheldon. In the early 1950s, both Sheldons joined the then-new CIA; he made it his career, but she resigned in 1955, went back to college, and earned a Ph.D. in experimental psychology.
At about this same time, Alli Sheldon started writing science fiction. She wrote four stories and sent them off to four different science fiction magazines. She did not want to publish under her real name, because of her CIA and academic ties, and she intended to use a new pseudonym for each group of stories until some sold. They started selling immediately, and only the first pseudonym—"Tiptree" from a jar of jelly, "James" because she felt editors would be more receptive to a male writer, and "Jr." for fun—was needed. (A second pseudonym, "Raccoona Sheldon," came along later, so she could have a female persona.)
Tiptree quickly became one of the most respected writers in the field, winning the Hugo Award for The Girl Who was Plugged In and Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, and the Nebula Award for "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death" and Houston, Houston. Raccoona won the Nebula for "The Screwfly Solution," and Tiptree won the World Fantasy Award for the collection Tales from the Quintana Roo.
The Tiptree fiction reflects Alli Sheldon's interests and concerns throughout her life: the alien among us (a role she portrayed in her childhood travels), the health of the planet, the quality of perception, the role of women, love, death, and humanity's place in a vast, cold universe. The Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree Award) has celebrated science fiction that "expands and explores gender roles" since 1991.
Alice Sheldon died in 1987 by her own hand. Writing in her first book about the suicide of Hart Crane, she said succinctly: "Poets extrapolate."
Julie Phillips wrote her biography, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
At about this same time, Alli Sheldon started writing science fiction. She wrote four stories and sent them off to four different science fiction magazines. She did not want to publish under her real name, because of her CIA and academic ties, and she intended to use a new pseudonym for each group of stories until some sold. They started selling immediately, and only the first pseudonym—"Tiptree" from a jar of jelly, "James" because she felt editors would be more receptive to a male writer, and "Jr." for fun—was needed. (A second pseudonym, "Raccoona Sheldon," came along later, so she could have a female persona.)
Tiptree quickly became one of the most respected writers in the field, winning the Hugo Award for The Girl Who was Plugged In and Houston, Houston, Do You Read?, and the Nebula Award for "Love is the Plan, the Plan is Death" and Houston, Houston. Raccoona won the Nebula for "The Screwfly Solution," and Tiptree won the World Fantasy Award for the collection Tales from the Quintana Roo.
The Tiptree fiction reflects Alli Sheldon's interests and concerns throughout her life: the alien among us (a role she portrayed in her childhood travels), the health of the planet, the quality of perception, the role of women, love, death, and humanity's place in a vast, cold universe. The Otherwise Award (formerly the Tiptree Award) has celebrated science fiction that "expands and explores gender roles" since 1991.
Alice Sheldon died in 1987 by her own hand. Writing in her first book about the suicide of Hart Crane, she said succinctly: "Poets extrapolate."
Julie Phillips wrote her biography, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews
December 10, 2021
This is one of the Tor Double books, in which two novellas are presented back-to-back in the format of the classic Ace Doubles, with separate covers and printed in opposition to one another. Tiptree's shorter novella won the best-of-the-year Hugo in 1974 after it appeared in Robert Silverberg's New Dimensions anthology series and is a classic satire of gender rolls and expectations in advertising and life in general. It's told in an offbeat hipster fashion with a curious narrator. McIntyre's Screwtop is a good story that also first appeared in a Silverberg anthology called The Crystal Ship with two other novellas by different writers. (Pause to consider that Silverberg never got the appreciation he deserved as an excellent editor.) Screwtop is also centered with feminist themes and includes a non-traditional family unit of two men and a woman who are forced to labor in an alien prison, the sacrifices they're willing to make to care for one another, and the brutality they face. Both stories are well written and thought provoking and quite depressing.
September 13, 2013
6/5
It's a pity I cannot rate it higher than the maximum allowed - it is astonishing that Tiptree, in this short story achieves so much. I liken her to Vonnegut, who could pull your guts out in a matter of minutes with stories that take usually barely half-an-hour to read.
The present story is rich in terms of ideas - it anticipates cyberpunk, rather, feminist cyberpunk - the process of jacking in, and taking up the issues of representing women's bodies in a genre that was indifferent to anyone apart from white loner males. The undertones of the story are overwhelmingly dark and sharpened further by satire.
The thinly veiled attack on consumerist culture, driven by profits with little concern for humans, the ugly side of successful businesses and the ethical conflict presented by P. Burke and Delphi - what begins as emancipation for Burke ends in tragedy for Delphi, Burke and Paul - is so well-portrayed.
The narrative in present continuous is so hard-hitting, the author-as-narrator works so well at stabbing the reader at appropriate times, for instance, the references to Cinderella and the ugly duckling. It intensifies the grim, mocking, sharp tone of the story.
It is absolutely befuddling to believe this story was written so many years ago, yet it refuses to become outdated. And it is infinitely better written than most of the so-called SF/cyberpunk today is churned out.
This is not only SF - it is classic literature, and it is a serious loss to English literature that Tiptree is remembered only as an indispensable SF writer.
It's a pity I cannot rate it higher than the maximum allowed - it is astonishing that Tiptree, in this short story achieves so much. I liken her to Vonnegut, who could pull your guts out in a matter of minutes with stories that take usually barely half-an-hour to read.
The present story is rich in terms of ideas - it anticipates cyberpunk, rather, feminist cyberpunk - the process of jacking in, and taking up the issues of representing women's bodies in a genre that was indifferent to anyone apart from white loner males. The undertones of the story are overwhelmingly dark and sharpened further by satire.
The thinly veiled attack on consumerist culture, driven by profits with little concern for humans, the ugly side of successful businesses and the ethical conflict presented by P. Burke and Delphi - what begins as emancipation for Burke ends in tragedy for Delphi, Burke and Paul - is so well-portrayed.
The narrative in present continuous is so hard-hitting, the author-as-narrator works so well at stabbing the reader at appropriate times, for instance, the references to Cinderella and the ugly duckling. It intensifies the grim, mocking, sharp tone of the story.
It is absolutely befuddling to believe this story was written so many years ago, yet it refuses to become outdated. And it is infinitely better written than most of the so-called SF/cyberpunk today is churned out.
This is not only SF - it is classic literature, and it is a serious loss to English literature that Tiptree is remembered only as an indispensable SF writer.
May 22, 2016
[Review, like many others', is just for The Girl Who Was Plugged In]
It’s not often a book makes me feel like this. My mind is buzzing. Alice-Sheldon-alias-James-Tiptree-Jr is a genius. GENIUS.
I mean, this story and me? It’s pretty much dangling candy in front of a baby. 70s uberfeminist science fiction with implicit analysis of consumerism AND body/gender politics? God, I am so in, girl.
It’s about a now-familiar (thanks to films like Avatar, Surrogate, etc.) concept: a human who uses another body, using only their mind, while their birth-body remains inert. This human, Philadelphia (“P.”) Burke, is practically deformed from a medical condition, a “monster,” a “brute,” a “carcass.” And she’s pretty starry-eyed when it comes to celebrities, who are all but created, not born.
After she tries to kill herself, she’s picked to be one of these celebrities. She gets a new body that she controls with her mind, a new name (Delphi), and she pays her dues for her sparkly new life by advertising products without overtly advertising them, which would be against the law.
Everything’s great. Only problem is, Delphi’s genitals don’t seem to work. She doesn’t have any sensation or, presumably, get aroused down there. But that’s okay, because P. Burke’s only experience with sex is getting gang-raped at the age of twelve, so she’s not fussed about the lack of functionality. Until, yeah, she meets a guy, wants to do it, and knows Delphi’s body won’t respond if she tries.
“Feeling his arms around the body he thinks is hers, fighting through shadows to give herself to him. Trying to taste and smell him through beautiful dead nostrils, to love him back with a body that goes dead in the heart of the fire. Perhaps you get P. Burke’s state of mind? She has phases. The trying, first. And the shame. The SHAME. I am not what thou lovest. And the fiercer trying.
And then later: ”She’s sure he hates her now, all she wants is to die. When she finally understands that the fierceness is tenderness she thinks it’s a miracle. He knows—and he still loves!... it never crosses his mind as he looks down at his violated bird, sick with fury and love, that he isn’t holding all of her.”
Hello, yes, what a fucking amazing commentary on the difficulty many sexual assault victims have after their trauma. As well as the sense that their body is no longer theirs, having been claimed against their will by their attacker, and is therefore no longer their own to give as they please. Actually, scratch that, that last applies to many women, whether victims of sexual assault or not. What woman hasn’t felt that her body has been on display all her life, that it exists for others more than her, that it’s public property?
That aside, one of the best things about this story is the voice with which it’s told. It’s hard to describe but utterly unique. Brutal and cold, cynical and sneering (evident in the way the narrator derisively refers to Delphi as “little flower-face” and the like), seemingly detached yet somehow not. I can’t point to any specific evidence to this effect, but the overall impression is that the unnamed narrator is merely embittered and disillusioned by what their world has become.
There’s certainly a suppressed blend of emotion in the narrator for the heroine, P. Burke, some mix of pity and occasional disappointment and, ultimately, respect. And there’s some sense of feeling towards the reader/audience, too. The narrator’s speaking to us, people living in the present world, from the future, and behind the sneering contempt the narrator exhibits for us in our lack of knowledge and foresight, there’s also an element of apprehension on our behalf, a kind of sadness in the narrator, knowing what world we have to look forward to. And even some envy, possibly— envy because we don’t know, and because perhaps the narrator wishes they didn’t, either.
What isn’t stated is even more tantalizing than what is. It’s so elegantly done, much in the same way artists play with the negative space as much as the subject of the art.
Plus there’s just an absolutely unreal amount of world-building done for such a short novella. Nothing in the world is lingered over or much explained- things like “carbonated pool” and “Holy Zen” and “the doctor prescribed water” are mentioned without elaboration, but bit by bit they build up into a comprehensible world without tedious, artificial explanations tacked on.
Lines that made my stomach drop (they don’t make much sense out of context, I know, but you should read it and see what I mean):
It’s not often a book makes me feel like this. My mind is buzzing. Alice-Sheldon-alias-James-Tiptree-Jr is a genius. GENIUS.
I mean, this story and me? It’s pretty much dangling candy in front of a baby. 70s uberfeminist science fiction with implicit analysis of consumerism AND body/gender politics? God, I am so in, girl.
It’s about a now-familiar (thanks to films like Avatar, Surrogate, etc.) concept: a human who uses another body, using only their mind, while their birth-body remains inert. This human, Philadelphia (“P.”) Burke, is practically deformed from a medical condition, a “monster,” a “brute,” a “carcass.” And she’s pretty starry-eyed when it comes to celebrities, who are all but created, not born.
After she tries to kill herself, she’s picked to be one of these celebrities. She gets a new body that she controls with her mind, a new name (Delphi), and she pays her dues for her sparkly new life by advertising products without overtly advertising them, which would be against the law.
Everything’s great. Only problem is, Delphi’s genitals don’t seem to work. She doesn’t have any sensation or, presumably, get aroused down there. But that’s okay, because P. Burke’s only experience with sex is getting gang-raped at the age of twelve, so she’s not fussed about the lack of functionality. Until, yeah, she meets a guy, wants to do it, and knows Delphi’s body won’t respond if she tries.
“Feeling his arms around the body he thinks is hers, fighting through shadows to give herself to him. Trying to taste and smell him through beautiful dead nostrils, to love him back with a body that goes dead in the heart of the fire. Perhaps you get P. Burke’s state of mind? She has phases. The trying, first. And the shame. The SHAME. I am not what thou lovest. And the fiercer trying.
And then later: ”She’s sure he hates her now, all she wants is to die. When she finally understands that the fierceness is tenderness she thinks it’s a miracle. He knows—and he still loves!... it never crosses his mind as he looks down at his violated bird, sick with fury and love, that he isn’t holding all of her.”
Hello, yes, what a fucking amazing commentary on the difficulty many sexual assault victims have after their trauma. As well as the sense that their body is no longer theirs, having been claimed against their will by their attacker, and is therefore no longer their own to give as they please. Actually, scratch that, that last applies to many women, whether victims of sexual assault or not. What woman hasn’t felt that her body has been on display all her life, that it exists for others more than her, that it’s public property?
That aside, one of the best things about this story is the voice with which it’s told. It’s hard to describe but utterly unique. Brutal and cold, cynical and sneering (evident in the way the narrator derisively refers to Delphi as “little flower-face” and the like), seemingly detached yet somehow not. I can’t point to any specific evidence to this effect, but the overall impression is that the unnamed narrator is merely embittered and disillusioned by what their world has become.
There’s certainly a suppressed blend of emotion in the narrator for the heroine, P. Burke, some mix of pity and occasional disappointment and, ultimately, respect. And there’s some sense of feeling towards the reader/audience, too. The narrator’s speaking to us, people living in the present world, from the future, and behind the sneering contempt the narrator exhibits for us in our lack of knowledge and foresight, there’s also an element of apprehension on our behalf, a kind of sadness in the narrator, knowing what world we have to look forward to. And even some envy, possibly— envy because we don’t know, and because perhaps the narrator wishes they didn’t, either.
What isn’t stated is even more tantalizing than what is. It’s so elegantly done, much in the same way artists play with the negative space as much as the subject of the art.
Plus there’s just an absolutely unreal amount of world-building done for such a short novella. Nothing in the world is lingered over or much explained- things like “carbonated pool” and “Holy Zen” and “the doctor prescribed water” are mentioned without elaboration, but bit by bit they build up into a comprehensible world without tedious, artificial explanations tacked on.
Lines that made my stomach drop (they don’t make much sense out of context, I know, but you should read it and see what I mean):
But if the bushy Dr. Tesla had heard that single syllable his bush would have turned snow-white. Because Delphi is TURNED OFF.
+
This means that Delphi’s complaints will be endured as long as her Pop Response stays above a certain level. (What happens when it sinks need not concern us.)
+
“You have to choose. Tell them, no.”
“Paul…I w-will…”
And she does. Brave little Delphi (insane P. Burke).
+
Believe it, zombie. When I say growth I mean growth. Capital appreciation. You can stop sweating. There’s a great future there.
January 24, 2019
This is Tor Double #7, of a series of 36 double books published from 1988 to 1991 by Tor Books. It contains two novellas, bound together tête-bêche in mass market paperback – back-to-back, inverted, with two front covers and both titles on the spine. The novellas are listed here alphabetically by author; neither should be considered “primary.”
Screwtop, by Vonda N. McIntyre (1976)
This was originally published in Robert Silverberg's 1976 anthology The Crystal Ship: Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction, and was later anthologized in McIntyre's 1979 collection Fireflood and Other Stories.
Kylis, a spaceport “rat” who has spent her life stowing away aboard spaceships, is captured and imprisoned on the planet Redsun. A perpetually hot planet filled with strange parasites, fern plants, and volcanoes, Redun is powered by some form of geothermal energy. Kylis spends her day working with other prisoners removing vegetation and drilling into the planet’s crust. She encounters two disparate characters who become her friends: Jason, an imprisoned writer, and Gryf, a designed super intelligent individual culled from the DNA of four parents. A prison guard named Lizard is commanded to force Gryf to return to the life he escaped and uses Kylis affection for both Gryf and Jason as leverage. It is an emotional story about the non-traditional relationships among the prisoners, and institutional power over them.
The Girl Who Was Plugged In, by James Tiptree, Jr. (1973)
James Tiptree, Jr. was a pen name used by the American SF writer Alice Sheldon. The story was originally published in Robert Silverberg's 1973 anthology New Dimensions 3, and won the 1974 Hugo Award in the novella category. I first read it in James Tiptree, Jr.'s 1975 collection Warm Worlds and Otherwise, so this Tor Double was half a re-read for me.
The story takes place in a future where almost everything is controlled by corporate interests. Despite advertising being illegal, corporations control consumers through the celebrities they set up, and product placement. The protagonist, 17 year old P. Burke, is enlisted to become one of these celebrities. She is a cruelly deformed victim of pituitary dystrophy. A suicide attempt lands her in a hospital where she comes to the attention of corporate scouts and is chosen to become a "Remote". A series of modifications and electronic implants allow her to control another body by remote control. This beautiful female body, known as Delphi, was grown without a functioning brain from a modified embryo in an artificial womb. She is a physically perfect 15 year old girl, and is controlled through a satellite link by P. Burke's brain. The story is a platform for Tiptree to tragically illustrate the extent to which women's lives are defined by their physical appearance.
Screwtop, by Vonda N. McIntyre (1976)
This was originally published in Robert Silverberg's 1976 anthology The Crystal Ship: Three Original Novellas of Science Fiction, and was later anthologized in McIntyre's 1979 collection Fireflood and Other Stories.
Kylis, a spaceport “rat” who has spent her life stowing away aboard spaceships, is captured and imprisoned on the planet Redsun. A perpetually hot planet filled with strange parasites, fern plants, and volcanoes, Redun is powered by some form of geothermal energy. Kylis spends her day working with other prisoners removing vegetation and drilling into the planet’s crust. She encounters two disparate characters who become her friends: Jason, an imprisoned writer, and Gryf, a designed super intelligent individual culled from the DNA of four parents. A prison guard named Lizard is commanded to force Gryf to return to the life he escaped and uses Kylis affection for both Gryf and Jason as leverage. It is an emotional story about the non-traditional relationships among the prisoners, and institutional power over them.
The Girl Who Was Plugged In, by James Tiptree, Jr. (1973)
James Tiptree, Jr. was a pen name used by the American SF writer Alice Sheldon. The story was originally published in Robert Silverberg's 1973 anthology New Dimensions 3, and won the 1974 Hugo Award in the novella category. I first read it in James Tiptree, Jr.'s 1975 collection Warm Worlds and Otherwise, so this Tor Double was half a re-read for me.
The story takes place in a future where almost everything is controlled by corporate interests. Despite advertising being illegal, corporations control consumers through the celebrities they set up, and product placement. The protagonist, 17 year old P. Burke, is enlisted to become one of these celebrities. She is a cruelly deformed victim of pituitary dystrophy. A suicide attempt lands her in a hospital where she comes to the attention of corporate scouts and is chosen to become a "Remote". A series of modifications and electronic implants allow her to control another body by remote control. This beautiful female body, known as Delphi, was grown without a functioning brain from a modified embryo in an artificial womb. She is a physically perfect 15 year old girl, and is controlled through a satellite link by P. Burke's brain. The story is a platform for Tiptree to tragically illustrate the extent to which women's lives are defined by their physical appearance.
January 25, 2018
A novella (depending on the edition about 50 pages long) set in a cyberpunk world where advertising is prohibited. Corporations use celebrities for product placement, but as "real" humans are too unpredictable, they grow themselves perfectly beautiful brainless celebrity-bodies. P. Burke, a deformed, ugly, suicidal girl who lives in the gutter is offered to be the remote control for the body of new celebrity "Delphi". She gladly accepts.
A story about the power of the media, how corporations control our decision, a person's worth in society, female embodiment and gender roles.
Unbelievably this story is from 1973, it could easily be contemporary.
A story about the power of the media, how corporations control our decision, a person's worth in society, female embodiment and gender roles.
Unbelievably this story is from 1973, it could easily be contemporary.
April 7, 2016
Novella vincitrice del premio Hugo nel 1974, La ragazza connessa parla di un’entità organica, Delphi, il cui cervello è contenuto all’esterno del corpo; per la precisione, dentro al corpo mostruoso della giovane P. Burke. Delphi è come un Golem, è un corpo coltivato da una multinazionale, che si considera proprietaria di Delphi. Quando è Delphi, P. Burke non sa di non esserlo davvero; e, in effetti, lo è.
La vicenda affronta varie questioni legate all’identità, alla coscienza e alla percezione, ma parla soprattutto di capitalismo e società dei consumi, e di ciò che essi fanno ai nostri corpi. Questo è il lato più lungimirante del testo, che vede Delphi utilizzata come sponsor pubblicitario in quello che sembra l’antesignano dell’odierno reality show.
Il punto di vista è radicale, e anche femminista; suona un po’ ridicolo pensare che all’epoca molti credessero che James Tiptree (nome d’arte di Alice Sheldon) fosse davvero un uomo, arrivando a scandalizzarsi quando qualcuno sosteneva il contrario.
Lo stile è quello più funambolico di certa sci-fi anni ’70, con la scelta di un indicativo presente e di una seconda persona singolare, un tu narrante che – a me personalmente – spesso suona fastidioso, e col passare del tempo ha accumulato quella patina da antichità post-moderna (con tutto il bene che le si pu�� volere). È però uno stile rocambolesco, scoppiettante, che racconta la storia spezzando le distanze tra lettore e racconto.
Non sono riuscita a reperire il racconto di Vonda McIntyre, per cui la mia recensione è solo per Tiptree.
La vicenda affronta varie questioni legate all’identità, alla coscienza e alla percezione, ma parla soprattutto di capitalismo e società dei consumi, e di ciò che essi fanno ai nostri corpi. Questo è il lato più lungimirante del testo, che vede Delphi utilizzata come sponsor pubblicitario in quello che sembra l’antesignano dell’odierno reality show.
Il punto di vista è radicale, e anche femminista; suona un po’ ridicolo pensare che all’epoca molti credessero che James Tiptree (nome d’arte di Alice Sheldon) fosse davvero un uomo, arrivando a scandalizzarsi quando qualcuno sosteneva il contrario.
Lo stile è quello più funambolico di certa sci-fi anni ’70, con la scelta di un indicativo presente e di una seconda persona singolare, un tu narrante che – a me personalmente – spesso suona fastidioso, e col passare del tempo ha accumulato quella patina da antichità post-moderna (con tutto il bene che le si pu�� volere). È però uno stile rocambolesco, scoppiettante, che racconta la storia spezzando le distanze tra lettore e racconto.
Non sono riuscita a reperire il racconto di Vonda McIntyre, per cui la mia recensione è solo per Tiptree.
July 26, 2012
(This review is just for The Girl Who Was Plugged In, since I'm going to give a miss to the trashy looking space-prison item published in the other half of this edition.)
The Girl Who Was Plugged In is one of the Tiptree novellas I kept hearing referenced as a classic, and I see why, especially given when it was published. Celebrity and consumerism and bodies (and women's bodies!) and corporations and the self, in a funky scifi package.
The writing was sometimes so stylized it was frustratingly hard to follow (I literally do not understand what was supposed to have happened in the last few sentences; time travel?), but I'd still rather read it written this way than in the hands of one of the fluffy-YA authors of scifi you'd see writing the same idea today. (Sorry, Scott Westerfeld. Kind of.) And generally the stylistic tics worked for the subject matter (and also reminded me of Phillip K Dick, fwiw). Fast, interesting read that left me thinking about it and wanting more.
The Girl Who Was Plugged In is one of the Tiptree novellas I kept hearing referenced as a classic, and I see why, especially given when it was published. Celebrity and consumerism and bodies (and women's bodies!) and corporations and the self, in a funky scifi package.
The writing was sometimes so stylized it was frustratingly hard to follow (I literally do not understand what was supposed to have happened in the last few sentences; time travel?), but I'd still rather read it written this way than in the hands of one of the fluffy-YA authors of scifi you'd see writing the same idea today. (Sorry, Scott Westerfeld. Kind of.) And generally the stylistic tics worked for the subject matter (and also reminded me of Phillip K Dick, fwiw). Fast, interesting read that left me thinking about it and wanting more.
February 24, 2014
"The Girl Who Was Plugged In" is so relevant today in our days of facebook, google, youtube advertising.
I'm a huge Don Delillo fan, but this story blows him out of the water.
I'm a huge Don Delillo fan, but this story blows him out of the water.
January 13, 2024
I'm not normally a fan of books written in dialect or slang, but the story in The Girl Who Was Plugged In was compelling enough that it stopped bothering me after the first 10 pages or so. It's a very interesting piece that is noteworthy for a lot of reasons -- its accurate prediction of social media influencers 40 years before the fact, for one.
The writing in Screwtop was more technically competent (you can tell Star Trek novels are Vonda McIntyre's bread and butter) but the story wasn't quite as interesting -- it felt unfinished, like maybe it was an excerpt from a larger work.
The writing in Screwtop was more technically competent (you can tell Star Trek novels are Vonda McIntyre's bread and butter) but the story wasn't quite as interesting -- it felt unfinished, like maybe it was an excerpt from a larger work.
June 20, 2024
7/10
3.5/5
Screwtop
I think the author does a great job of fleshing out the setting of this prison as well as depict just how much brutality the characters had to endure. Certain twists could have been delivered in a punchier way though and the ending felt just a smidge flat though it did end on a hopeful note which was nice, especially for reading this on a beach!
3.5/5
Screwtop
I think the author does a great job of fleshing out the setting of this prison as well as depict just how much brutality the characters had to endure. Certain twists could have been delivered in a punchier way though and the ending felt just a smidge flat though it did end on a hopeful note which was nice, especially for reading this on a beach!
April 15, 2024
I quite enjoyed both stories/novellas but I was surprised to find I actually enjoyed Screwtop more than the Hugo-Award-winning The Girl Who Was Plugged In. Both were excellent though!
July 20, 2015
((This is for Triptree only))
Oh, this was delicious delicious cyberpunk old school at its best. I devoured it under an hour (even if it is a long novella) and god, I wish I could keep reading. I will definitely see if Triptree has more books, because jesus, that had all the beauty and pain of a razorblade kiss. It made me hope, it made me smile, it made me laugh and cry and cringe.
While it was mostly predictable, it was so in a good way: the constant struggle of humanity for love, and the lies we tell ourselves to sleep at night, and how true love can be not that true, and focus also on the looks.
It's heartbreak in written form.
Oh, this was delicious delicious cyberpunk old school at its best. I devoured it under an hour (even if it is a long novella) and god, I wish I could keep reading. I will definitely see if Triptree has more books, because jesus, that had all the beauty and pain of a razorblade kiss. It made me hope, it made me smile, it made me laugh and cry and cringe.
While it was mostly predictable, it was so in a good way: the constant struggle of humanity for love, and the lies we tell ourselves to sleep at night, and how true love can be not that true, and focus also on the looks.
It's heartbreak in written form.
August 31, 2015
A short story written in 1976, "Screwtop" describes the lives of three prisoners on an alien planet. I had a difficult time with this story. I felt no connection to Kylis, the young female prisoner, or the two males she partnered with. Gryf is a tetra-something, a hybrid genetic mish-mash sent to the prison planet because he refuses to obey his family - whatever that means. And Jason is a mysterious writer of subversive freedom texts, some Sakharov-type, imprisoned but no one really knows he's there. The story just had too many 'huh?' elements for me to fully engage, and I didn't really connect with any of the characters.
April 29, 2015
This is mostly about The Girl Who Was Plugged In--in many ways, it's horrifying. But it's because of that that it's so heartbreaking. I have no hesitation in declaring it one of the greater cyberpunk tales ever written; it has such a vivid voice and thoughtful questions about the self, especially with the relationship between the body and the mind. I love it when stories like these bring up these concerns and explore what they might mean to the characters without giving us answers. It feels much more genuine that way.
December 1, 2011
2 stars for Screwtop: it is an ordinary prison drama that happens to take place on an alien world.
3 stars for the Tiptree story: She presages 'cyberpunk' with a 'cyberjazz' style that uses an unnamed narrator who scats & bebops around this ugly-duckling story until he/she settles into a groove during the last third.
3 stars for the Tiptree story: She presages 'cyberpunk' with a 'cyberjazz' style that uses an unnamed narrator who scats & bebops around this ugly-duckling story until he/she settles into a groove during the last third.
August 30, 2014
The Girl Who Was Plugged In: Read to discuss on the SFFaudio podcast. It's okay, but really not my kind of thing. See my review of Software and Wetware.
June 15, 2013
Tiptree is my jam.
April 13, 2020
I already reviewed "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" separately: this is for "Screwtop", by Vonda Mcintyre. The two came together in a once-popular format in which you turned a paperback over and flipped it upside-down and voila, another story! Why publishers felt the need for this, beyond the chance to have two separate title pages, is quite mysterious.
"Screwtop" has a moderately interesting setup, with our heroes — a writer of books on freedom, a member of a guild of space stowaways, and a genetically enhanced superman who refused to go along with the state’s plan for him — immured in the penal colony where the superman’s world sends anybody who runs afoul of its rules to build geothermal energy plants. The camp is unescapable and the sentences seem to be more or less indefinite, always assuming that you survive the unrelentingly harsh labor and the sadistic prison guards, who are led by a man called “The Lizard”. All this seems to be preparing us for adventure: why advertise the unescapable prison if not to have your heroes escape it? But instead McIntyre opts for something about the importance of persistence through suffering, a moral that would be a lot more believable if Kylis, the spacer and our central character, didn’t decide to kill herself shortly after realizing that she had to prevent herself from succumbing to madness for the sake of the others. Politically, the takeaway seems to be that the only hope is that one day the elites will have sympathy with the oppressed masses, which at the very least makes for an unsatisfying ending.
"Screwtop" has a moderately interesting setup, with our heroes — a writer of books on freedom, a member of a guild of space stowaways, and a genetically enhanced superman who refused to go along with the state’s plan for him — immured in the penal colony where the superman’s world sends anybody who runs afoul of its rules to build geothermal energy plants. The camp is unescapable and the sentences seem to be more or less indefinite, always assuming that you survive the unrelentingly harsh labor and the sadistic prison guards, who are led by a man called “The Lizard”. All this seems to be preparing us for adventure: why advertise the unescapable prison if not to have your heroes escape it? But instead McIntyre opts for something about the importance of persistence through suffering, a moral that would be a lot more believable if Kylis, the spacer and our central character, didn’t decide to kill herself shortly after realizing that she had to prevent herself from succumbing to madness for the sake of the others. Politically, the takeaway seems to be that the only hope is that one day the elites will have sympathy with the oppressed masses, which at the very least makes for an unsatisfying ending.
November 28, 2020
I didn’t enjoy Vonda McIntyre’s “Screwtop”. There were interesting ideas but they were never developed.
James Tiptree Jr.’s “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” had a fantastic premise but the beginning and end suffered from the writing style. Too experimental? Too clever? There was a point where the story was climaxing with Paul, P. Burke, and Delphi that was masterful, but then the ending reverts to the ‘too clever by half’ writing style of earlier.
So, 1 star for Screwtop and 3 for Tiptree’s story (should have been a 4 easily and could have been a 5).
Overall, since these Tor volumes are hard to rate, I’ll go with 3. If I was just rating the Tiptree piece, I’d probably go for 3.5 or 4 stars.
James Tiptree Jr.’s “The Girl Who Was Plugged In” had a fantastic premise but the beginning and end suffered from the writing style. Too experimental? Too clever? There was a point where the story was climaxing with Paul, P. Burke, and Delphi that was masterful, but then the ending reverts to the ‘too clever by half’ writing style of earlier.
So, 1 star for Screwtop and 3 for Tiptree’s story (should have been a 4 easily and could have been a 5).
Overall, since these Tor volumes are hard to rate, I’ll go with 3. If I was just rating the Tiptree piece, I’d probably go for 3.5 or 4 stars.
September 12, 2024
2.75 Stars. Half of this book is worth reading. The McIntyre novella is excellent. The Tiptree novella/novelette is terrible. Too bad they’re paired together, lowering the rating. Would’ve rather had a longer Screwtop story. Individual ratings/reviews below…
Screwtop by McIntyre:
4.5 Stars! Excellent. Would love a sequel novella to find out more. The world building and characters were excellent.
"You haven't changed ... you haven't changed me." (p68)
The Girl Who Was Plugged In by Tiptree:
1 Star. DNF again. Still stinks. Still don’t really get it and the writing is terrible. Really not a fan of cyberpunk. Too bad this one is paired up with the other, which is excellent.
Screwtop by McIntyre:
4.5 Stars! Excellent. Would love a sequel novella to find out more. The world building and characters were excellent.
"You haven't changed ... you haven't changed me." (p68)
The Girl Who Was Plugged In by Tiptree:
1 Star. DNF again. Still stinks. Still don’t really get it and the writing is terrible. Really not a fan of cyberpunk. Too bad this one is paired up with the other, which is excellent.
September 1, 2024
The Girl Who Was Plugged in is to me an impressive cyber-something novella that predates Gibson's Neuromancer by a decade or so.
I found it to be a fast paced, fun read.
Also it is less time locked, jargon-wise than Gibson's novel.
The reverse side novella, Vonda McIntyre's Screwtop from 1976 I also enjoyed. I reads like an intense prison escape with a twist. I will be looking out for more from her.
I found it to be a fast paced, fun read.
Also it is less time locked, jargon-wise than Gibson's novel.
The reverse side novella, Vonda McIntyre's Screwtop from 1976 I also enjoyed. I reads like an intense prison escape with a twist. I will be looking out for more from her.
September 10, 2018
I found this book to be fascinating. A quick read that I finished on a flight this past weekend. Even though it was written in the 70s, I feel as though the book relates so much to the social media culture we live in now and how products are advertised through people. Definitely a must for a lover of dystopian fiction.
July 7, 2022
Purchased this for the famous feminist spec fic novella The Girl Who Was Plugged In, and while this story and the author have an earned their rightful place in literature history and criticism I found ScrewTop to actually be the more compelling of the two. Quick, affordable, and thought provoking reads- def recommend.
June 11, 2025
The Girl Who Was Plugged in is so ahead of its time - if PKD is the grandfather of cyberpunk, Tiptree deserves to be named the grandmother. Screwtop isn’t as prescient, but rather it shows how little the penal system has changed.
April 6, 2018
The Girl Who Was Plugged In is free to read online. This is the second novella I've read by Tiptree and she writes very thought provoking pieces.
September 22, 2019
a+++ review mainly for james tiptree jr who is a l e g e n d.
December 22, 2021
The Girl Who Was Plugged in was like a 3.5 and Screwtop like a 2.
March 26, 2022
I can see why these were interesting... in 1976. I can see why they were republished this way... in 1989 But, all I can really say now is, I'm glad they were short.
April 10, 2023
A good story about a prison planet, where inmates are forced to work long shifts in a mine.
June 22, 2024
The Girl Who Was Plugged In - James Tiptree, Jr.: 5 stars
Screwtop- Vonda McIntyre: 1.5 stars
Screwtop- Vonda McIntyre: 1.5 stars
Displaying 1 - 30 of 45 reviews