The James Tiptree Award Anthology 1

Rating:
Summary: groundbreaking, provocative, and hot
Review: The Tiptree Award is given to speculative fiction (fantasy and science fiction) that pushes the boundaries of gender. The award was named for a writer (James Tiptree, Jr.) extolled for masculine writing, who was later revealed to be a woman (Alice Sheldon). The Tiptree bake sales were created to be an ironic source of funding for the award. Hence the tag line of this subversive anthology: "Sex, the Future, and Chocolate Chip Cookies."

In "Birth Days" by Geoff Ryman, a geneticist trying to cure homosexuality discovers reproductive freedom. It's a sweet, surpising and pointed story. Richard Calder's "The Catgirl Manifesto," is a faux-academic piece in which Lolita-like catgirls cause social havoc with their deadly allure -- sexy and creepy as hell. Ursula K. Le Guin weighs in with a characteristically wry essay, "Genre: A Word Only a Frenchman Could Love." She points out that Margaret Atwood's THE HANDMAID'S TALE is actually a science fiction novel, but that Atwood's publishers were terrified to bill it as such, given the reputation of the genre.

In a clever juxtaposition, three versions of the "The Snow Queen" fairy tale are included, inlcuding the original Hans Christian Andersen version in a new translation (not at all as you remember it!); "Lady of the Ice Garden" by Kara Dalkey, set in feudal Japan; and Kelly Link's "Travels with the Ice Queen," which has a distinctly modern (ok, postmodern) spin, and may be one of the best fairy-tale retellings I've ever read.

These excellent stories and essays are from the 2003 winner of the Tiptree Award (Matt Ruff for SET THIS HOUSE IN ORDER), and the short-listed selections (which are announced at the same time as the winner, and given almost equal billing). Other contributors include Karen Joy Fowler, Joanna Russ, Suzy McKee Charnas, and Pat Murphy.

This is a thoughtful, entertaining, and frankly long-overdue anthology. If you like sexy, challeging, and utterly captivating writing, this is the book for you.


Rating:
Summary: An anthropological account of a woman linguist
Review: The Tiptree Awards honor fiction which explore and expand gender - and the award winners chosen for this first anthology reflect such notable masters of the art as Tiptree herself, Joanna Russ, Ursula LeGuin and other notable writers of science fiction and fantasy. From boys stolen from their homes to lead new wild lives in a strange world to an anthropological account of a woman linguist on another world, anticipate involving, gender-breaking stories which always offer the unexpected in plot and twist of action.