The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2 edited by Karen Joy Fowler, Pat Murphy, Debbie Notkin and Jeffrey D. Smith
01/06/2006 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Tachyon Publications. 252 page enlarged paperback. Price: $14.95 (US). ISBN: 1-892391-31-7. Buy The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2 in the USA - or Buy The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2 in the UK  check out website: www.tiptree.org and www.tachyonpublications.com
When I started reading this book, I did wonder if I was the right sex. I mean, the James Tiptree Award is aimed at stories which explore gender and I'm, last time I looked, strictly hetero. Come to that, so was Alice Sheldon the real person behind the James Tiptree Jr. persona but she did have a tendency to not be restricted too much when writing her own stories. There's an interesting feature on her life and why she adopted the James Tiptree Jr pseudonym. Not necessarily because it made selling her work easier but because she was already famous as Sheldon.
This is the second book covering the award winners and some of those short-listed as the judges don't like to place anything second, which must make it difficult putting anything in an anthology. This book contains two novel extracts, seven short stories and a couple articles. Maybe its just my own outlook on life but I didn't really see anything that novel about gender issues here that would make them stand out in any other collection. Even in Ursula LeGuin's 'Another Story Or A Fisherman Of The Inland Sea', where there was a hint of bi-sexuality, it was practically ignored against the Hainish regarding accidental time travel. Even Jaye Lawrence's slightly humorous 'Kissing Frogs' is an unlikely bedfellow (perhaps that's the wrong word here) for changing gender. The super-human school of 'The Gift' by L. Timmel Duchamp would have been a winner in any category. If anything, the sexuality of the characters doesn't really have much to do with the overall stories and if you are turned on by such things, there is nothing graphic to get excited over.
The one piece that I was most impressed with was Nalo Hopkinson's article 'Looking For Clues'. This is a semi-biographical piece about growing up and not being able to perceive colour of writers on the printed page and her discoveries as she grew up. This needs to be read by anyone with an interest in perception and gave me much to think about.
The most major thing I discovered about myself from this book is that I tend to see things outside of gender and colour and go purely by talent. Maybe this book will adjust your perception the same way or provide some other revelation. If anything, it's a rather puzzling situation that so few authors look at these issues in their stories to give this panel of judges something more akin to their viewpoint. Then again, I'd probably take issue with Samuel Delaney over his quote that people with no viewpoint on colour aren't on his side. If we can all be demonstratively nonchalant them we are the example that others might learn from and maybe we can leave racism behind.
GF Willmetts |
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