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Crown of Stars
A race of octopoid aliens visits earth to restore man's dying beliefs, with spaceships containing the very Gods themselves. In the future the rich are allowed a four week holiday - into their own futures. A soldier wounded at the front finds his memories too terrifying to live with once his government-approved drugs are withdrawn. A young girl is convinced that mother-earth is male and dedicates her life to consummating her love for him. God is dead and the Devil makes an offer for the real estate of heaven...
These dark visions of the future by James Tiptree Jr. are a vivid, sometimes frightening foretelling of what may happen.
These dark visions of the future by James Tiptree Jr. are a vivid, sometimes frightening foretelling of what may happen.
267 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 25, 1990
8 people are currently reading
349 people want to read
About the author
James Tiptree Jr.
244 books588 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
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 10, 2015
This collection brings together the last work Sheldon turned out before she died in 1987 with her husband Huntington. The challenges she was facing with her husband's degrading health and her own depression resulted in some of the darkest work I've read by any author. Even so, this is not pure anger on display. One of the greatest facets of Sheldon's gargantuan imagination was a refusal to settle for one direction in any of her work. Where there is abysmal nihilism, the artists still finds the strength to write stories about it, wrestling with the burdens of life in an act of expressing how the soul itself is smoldering. Some of the finest speculative conditions are thrown to their highest possibilities here: the Devil scheming to literally buy heaven, the Earth itself as a wrathful and personal lover, and corporate cannibalism are all marched out to some of the most heart-rending and shocking conclusions one can think of. Sheldon's bravery was obvious to the end, never relinquishing a crown that, while never appearing in the text, is more than well-earned as a title to this final work.
October 13, 2012
The other is a book of short stories. Two of them stuck in my head as real punches to the gut: "Morality Meat" and "Yanqui Doodle." She says that she stopped or slowed down writing after a while because she was digging so deep into emotional territory that really hurt, and wow. The despair and visceral horror at what Tiptree imagines for society just rolls off the pages. Looking forward to re-reading this eventually (which is the test of a 5-star book for me).
October 16, 2012
Even if she was only a PHD CIA OSS Army proto-hippie debutante child African explorer, she was also a damn fine scifi writer.
January 4, 2017
I keep starting and stopping this review, because I should talk about the stories, but the truth is I have a hard time reading this as anything other than a 340-page suicide note, and oh god Tiptree why did you have to do it? Why?
So, okay. The stories. As many before me have noted, these late-career works are far from Tiptree's strongest. (Depression, it turns out, is not always a good muse.) Themes of death and inevitability always shadow Tiptree's work, but here she often sets subtlety aside and lets the theme swallow the story; three stories, for example, are literally set in the afterlife ("Our Resident Djinn," "Last Night and Every Night," and "In Midst of Life"). "Morality Meat" and "Yanqui Doodle," meanwhile, are both a little didactic for my taste, while "Come Live with Me" features a bizarrely upbeat ending that feels out of place with the collection and indeed with Tiptree's work as a whole. "Second Going" and "The Earth Doth Like a Snake Renew" both have promise but feel overlong. By far the strongest story in the collection is "Backward, Turn Backward," with an ending that hits like a punch. The collection is worth it just for this story--but oh, god, Tiptree. Why?
So, okay. The stories. As many before me have noted, these late-career works are far from Tiptree's strongest. (Depression, it turns out, is not always a good muse.) Themes of death and inevitability always shadow Tiptree's work, but here she often sets subtlety aside and lets the theme swallow the story; three stories, for example, are literally set in the afterlife ("Our Resident Djinn," "Last Night and Every Night," and "In Midst of Life"). "Morality Meat" and "Yanqui Doodle," meanwhile, are both a little didactic for my taste, while "Come Live with Me" features a bizarrely upbeat ending that feels out of place with the collection and indeed with Tiptree's work as a whole. "Second Going" and "The Earth Doth Like a Snake Renew" both have promise but feel overlong. By far the strongest story in the collection is "Backward, Turn Backward," with an ending that hits like a punch. The collection is worth it just for this story--but oh, god, Tiptree. Why?
May 19, 2021
After Her Smoke Rises Up Forever, I read this book with restrained expectations, to avoid disappointment. Short story collections are not my forte, but that seems to be the realm where Tiptree achieved excellence. Her writing is so very different from any other science-fiction, crisp, clear, emotionally charged and laden with the conflicted themes of life and death and sex.
The questions which emerge in these stories are profound and far reaching. These are the life experiences and unknown mysteries brimming below the surface of all human life and experience. Some of the tales only barely extend into the realm of science fiction, but the message unveiled in the last paragraph or last sentence hits like a punch. Unquestionably a 5 star book.
The questions which emerge in these stories are profound and far reaching. These are the life experiences and unknown mysteries brimming below the surface of all human life and experience. Some of the tales only barely extend into the realm of science fiction, but the message unveiled in the last paragraph or last sentence hits like a punch. Unquestionably a 5 star book.
October 21, 2019
Maybe my expectations were too high because I've enjoyed some of Tiptree's other works, but the stories collected in this volume just didn't resonate with me overall. There were only two I would say that I enjoyed. The others ranged from tolerable to skim-my-way-through.
December 25, 2024
Though many think that Tiptree's best work is all pre 1977, I still have liked a lot of her later stories. Three stories here - Morality Meat, Yanqui Doodle, and The Midst of Life - are, in my opinion, among her best. And most of the others are still very good. "The Earth Doth Like a Snake Renew" and "Backwards, Turn Backwards" are both rather strange and ambitious if a bit uneven. "Second Going," Resident Djinn," and "Come Live with Me" are all very interesting.
I think one thing Tiptree captures in some of these stories that isn't as present in her other more fantastical stories is the banality of living a life that bores you, or that you loath. This is a very strong theme in "Backwards" and "Midst," with both of these reading - in the former case, disturbingly - partially autobiographical. Particularly in the latter half of this collection, especially if you are aware of Tiptree/Sheldon's suicide in 1987, despair practically drips of the pages. But surprisingly, despite the fact that actual suicide is depicted in it, I found "The Midst of Life," strangely touching. Particularly because it is probably the last story Tiptree ever wrote. The main character in it lives on beyond death. And though the land beyond death is gray and formless, there is still more life to live, perhaps even joy to be had in it. All is not lost. It is a very touching story to read from an author who often ends her stories (including many in this collection) in total annihilation - of either an individual or a species. Yet in this final story before her own chosen death, things go on, and perhaps that is not too bad. After reading through most of Tiptree's fiction these past three months (only "Meet Me at Infinity" to go!) it almost made me cry.
I think one thing Tiptree captures in some of these stories that isn't as present in her other more fantastical stories is the banality of living a life that bores you, or that you loath. This is a very strong theme in "Backwards" and "Midst," with both of these reading - in the former case, disturbingly - partially autobiographical. Particularly in the latter half of this collection, especially if you are aware of Tiptree/Sheldon's suicide in 1987, despair practically drips of the pages. But surprisingly, despite the fact that actual suicide is depicted in it, I found "The Midst of Life," strangely touching. Particularly because it is probably the last story Tiptree ever wrote. The main character in it lives on beyond death. And though the land beyond death is gray and formless, there is still more life to live, perhaps even joy to be had in it. All is not lost. It is a very touching story to read from an author who often ends her stories (including many in this collection) in total annihilation - of either an individual or a species. Yet in this final story before her own chosen death, things go on, and perhaps that is not too bad. After reading through most of Tiptree's fiction these past three months (only "Meet Me at Infinity" to go!) it almost made me cry.
March 5, 2021
For the most part, I loved these stories, though a few didn't quite work for me. Tiptree is so smart about gender and identity and how terrible humans can be to each other. And other things, but my mind is all jitter and wax, so that's all you get kiddos for this review.
August 5, 2024
The more I read of each story, the less I liked any of them. There were somewhat interesting ideas, but it got to feel like there was 40-50 percent fluff built in that didn't do much to move the story along.
August 11, 2021
Collection of ten short stories. Imaginative and interesting premises, but I didn't find the writing particularly propulsive. The most impactful stories were Morality Meat, Yanqui Doodle, and Backward, Turn Backward. The rest I liked okay and/or were a bit meh.
December 11, 2020
"A masculine Earth? Her beautiful mother would have gurgled like the nightingale; she had wild talents and knew that Earth was a ball of rock inhabited by a). baboons and b). English literature."
July 1, 2021
A few of the stories I did not like that much but most were enjoyable and all were OK. At first I thought I was not going to like them but they grew on me.
May 15, 2023
Mary Woods (the author's real name) came with some times extremely grim and others highly comical stories - some are both to a strange an excellent height.
Hard to sing it any higher praise.
Hard to sing it any higher praise.
May 6, 2024
This was way darker than I was expecting.
April 7, 2019
These stories are... incredible.
Not for the faint of heart.
Angry.
Powerful.
Passionate.
Dark.
Clever.
Very Tiptree.
Not for the faint of heart.
Angry.
Powerful.
Passionate.
Dark.
Clever.
Very Tiptree.
May 7, 2023
L’ultima raccolta pubblicata vivente Alice Sheldon è una panoramica dei suoi temi più cari, ma anche della varietà dei suoi registri stilistici. Purtroppo mai tradotta integralmente in italiano; ringrazio Sandro Pergameno per avermi consigliato il testo e Umberto Rossi, oltre che il gruppo Solarpunk Italia, per aver risvegliato il desiderio di lettura.
Altri lettori hanno definito questa raccolta “l’addio di un suicida lungo 300 pagine”, ma per quanto brillante questa definizione sarebbe incompleta e inadeguata.
Incompleta, perché qui vediamo tutto il ventaglio dei temi della Sheldon: dal femminismo all’ecologia, a una biologia dove mostra competenze degne di Farmer.
Inadeguata, perché i racconti presenti hanno idee e struttura degne di concorrere ai premi Hugo e Nebule: non si tratta certo di vaneggiamenti..
“Second Going”, “Our Resident Djinn”, “All this and heaven too” sono fantasie filosofiche dove recitano come personaggi Natura, Destino, Entropia; oppure si confronta un modello di sviluppo distruttivo con un modello basato sull’equilibrio ambientale, che cerca di difendersi dal precedente: “morality tales” che fanno pensare alle “Operette morali” leopardiane, ambientate in un Aldilà di fantasia o in regni medievali di fiaba.
Con “Morality meat”, che potremmo tradurre “La carne del moralismo”, si cambia registro. E' forse la visione più cupa che abbia mai letto: un urlo contro l’aborto, simmetrico forse alle “Pre-persone” di Dick, ma anche la descrizione dettagliata e partecipata di un mondo in cui, dietro le finzioni sociali, ogni uomo, senza distinzione di classe ed etnia, è uno stupratore potenziale, ma spesso effettivo e organizzato per natura in branco, ovvero in bande malavitose di basso, alto e altissimo livello; le donne quasi tutte destinate a essere stuprate e a doverlo nascondere a proprie spese, tranne qualcuna complice degli uomini.
Segue “Yanqui Doodle”, pugno nello stomaco e gran racconto (come il precedente forse “un po’ didattico”, come ha notato la lettrice argyr su Goodreads, ma entrambi riusciti) in cui una situazione idilliaca costruita dal potere viene smascherata mostrandone la reale mostruosità. Lettura dolorosa per chi ancora ricorda bene gli anni ’80 delle guerriglie e controguerriglie in Sudamerica: il racconto fu scritto proprio allora. Forse ottimistico il finale?
Dopo tanta cupezza, “Come live with me” è quasi una fiaba: un “primo contatto” narrato dal punto di vista di un essere simbiotico che si imbatte in una pattuglia di esploratori umani; la sua complessa biologia farà sì che due specie così diverse riusciranno a rendersi enormi favori (non parliamo di parassitismo, ma di simbiosi!), e ad avviare forse un proficuo incontro di civiltà.. un racconto solarpunk, in cui gli uomini accettano di cambiare, evolvere, accogliere addirittura un ospite nel corpo e nella mente?
Dopo “Last Night and Every Night”, tanto breve quanto truce nonostante risalga al 1970 (sempre sul tema di un criminoso sfruttamento sessuale), “Backward, turn backward” è il capolavoro della raccolta, ma anche il racconto più tragico in assoluto. Tiptree sembra riprendere l’antica favola della rana e dello scorpione, in un racconto che usa un’originale modalità di viaggio nel tempo e un ben costruito mondo post-catastrofe per ribadire la sua fede nel peggio: non si impara dai propri errori, l’arroganza innata a molte persone (soprattutto quelle della classe capitalista dominante e chi smania di entrarvi) riusciranno sempre a distruggere, per la loro ambizione, quel poco di bene che le persone di buona volontà avevano saputo mettere insieme; e lo faranno a costo di distruggere sé stesse nel tentativo. Magistralmente narrato, senza quel tocco di didascalico (e di manicheismo “uomini contro donne”) di “Morality meat”.
Nonostante il tono più leggero degli ultimi due racconti, è questo forse il testamento della Tiptree: un racconto memorabile, come del resto la raccolta nel suo complesso, per rivivere una appunto leopardiana “strage delle illusioni” (in questo caso quelle della fantascienza): utile a vedere poi se davvero sarà possibile costruire qualcosa di solido; magari affidandosi ai pochi lampi di speranza che anche qui emergono.
Altri lettori hanno definito questa raccolta “l’addio di un suicida lungo 300 pagine”, ma per quanto brillante questa definizione sarebbe incompleta e inadeguata.
Incompleta, perché qui vediamo tutto il ventaglio dei temi della Sheldon: dal femminismo all’ecologia, a una biologia dove mostra competenze degne di Farmer.
Inadeguata, perché i racconti presenti hanno idee e struttura degne di concorrere ai premi Hugo e Nebule: non si tratta certo di vaneggiamenti..
“Second Going”, “Our Resident Djinn”, “All this and heaven too” sono fantasie filosofiche dove recitano come personaggi Natura, Destino, Entropia; oppure si confronta un modello di sviluppo distruttivo con un modello basato sull’equilibrio ambientale, che cerca di difendersi dal precedente: “morality tales” che fanno pensare alle “Operette morali” leopardiane, ambientate in un Aldilà di fantasia o in regni medievali di fiaba.
Con “Morality meat”, che potremmo tradurre “La carne del moralismo”, si cambia registro. E' forse la visione più cupa che abbia mai letto: un urlo contro l’aborto, simmetrico forse alle “Pre-persone” di Dick, ma anche la descrizione dettagliata e partecipata di un mondo in cui, dietro le finzioni sociali, ogni uomo, senza distinzione di classe ed etnia, è uno stupratore potenziale, ma spesso effettivo e organizzato per natura in branco, ovvero in bande malavitose di basso, alto e altissimo livello; le donne quasi tutte destinate a essere stuprate e a doverlo nascondere a proprie spese, tranne qualcuna complice degli uomini.
Segue “Yanqui Doodle”, pugno nello stomaco e gran racconto (come il precedente forse “un po’ didattico”, come ha notato la lettrice argyr su Goodreads, ma entrambi riusciti) in cui una situazione idilliaca costruita dal potere viene smascherata mostrandone la reale mostruosità. Lettura dolorosa per chi ancora ricorda bene gli anni ’80 delle guerriglie e controguerriglie in Sudamerica: il racconto fu scritto proprio allora. Forse ottimistico il finale?
Dopo tanta cupezza, “Come live with me” è quasi una fiaba: un “primo contatto” narrato dal punto di vista di un essere simbiotico che si imbatte in una pattuglia di esploratori umani; la sua complessa biologia farà sì che due specie così diverse riusciranno a rendersi enormi favori (non parliamo di parassitismo, ma di simbiosi!), e ad avviare forse un proficuo incontro di civiltà.. un racconto solarpunk, in cui gli uomini accettano di cambiare, evolvere, accogliere addirittura un ospite nel corpo e nella mente?
Dopo “Last Night and Every Night”, tanto breve quanto truce nonostante risalga al 1970 (sempre sul tema di un criminoso sfruttamento sessuale), “Backward, turn backward” è il capolavoro della raccolta, ma anche il racconto più tragico in assoluto. Tiptree sembra riprendere l’antica favola della rana e dello scorpione, in un racconto che usa un’originale modalità di viaggio nel tempo e un ben costruito mondo post-catastrofe per ribadire la sua fede nel peggio: non si impara dai propri errori, l’arroganza innata a molte persone (soprattutto quelle della classe capitalista dominante e chi smania di entrarvi) riusciranno sempre a distruggere, per la loro ambizione, quel poco di bene che le persone di buona volontà avevano saputo mettere insieme; e lo faranno a costo di distruggere sé stesse nel tentativo. Magistralmente narrato, senza quel tocco di didascalico (e di manicheismo “uomini contro donne”) di “Morality meat”.
Nonostante il tono più leggero degli ultimi due racconti, è questo forse il testamento della Tiptree: un racconto memorabile, come del resto la raccolta nel suo complesso, per rivivere una appunto leopardiana “strage delle illusioni” (in questo caso quelle della fantascienza): utile a vedere poi se davvero sarà possibile costruire qualcosa di solido; magari affidandosi ai pochi lampi di speranza che anche qui emergono.
September 9, 2015
Despite several stories that had fascinating premises (most of all "Backward, Turn Backward," and also "The Earth Doth Like a Snake Renew"), the writing style wasn't very gripping and I skimmed a bit in every story. I'm hoping her more famous stories are of better quality.
Some great ideas here, but not so great execution.
Some great ideas here, but not so great execution.
January 18, 2014
So hard to rate this one. Some stories really hit hard, others not so much. Second Going and Backward, Turn Backward will be with me forever. Like all her work it's dark, and many stories have political overtones.
August 3, 2012
Loved it. I can't believe I never ran across Tipton when I was inhaling classic sci-fi in junior high and high school. Now I want more.
March 14, 2016
Great collection! Sometimes the language/character dialogue felt old-timey to me, but it is older Sci-Fi. Each story was great in its own way, and they will all stick with me.
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews