James Tiptree Jr: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon

James Tiptree Jr. burst onto the science fiction scene in the late 1960s with a series of hard-edged provocative stories. He redefined the genre with such classics as Houston Houston Do You Read? and The Women Men Dont See. For nearly ten years he wrote and carried on intimate correspondences with other writers--Philip K. Dick Harlan Ellison and Ursula K. Le Guin though none of them knew his true identity. Then the cover was blown on his alter ego: he was actually a sixty-one-year-old woman named Alice Bradley Sheldon. A feminist she took a male name as a joke--and found the voice to write her stories.. Based on extensive research exclusive interviews and full access to Alice Sheldons papers Julie Phillips has penned a biography of a profoundly original writer and a woman far ahead of her time.