Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS) (81 page)
Read Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (S.F. MASTERWORKS) Online
Authors: James Tiptree Jr.
“You believe that there is nothing, no way?”
“Ahead lies only the irreversible long decline. For the first time
we know there is nothing beyond ourselves
.”
After a moment the lutroid’s gaze dropped and the two beings let silence enshroud them. Outside the galaxy was twisting by, unseen, enormous, glittering: a finite prison. No way out.
In the aisle behind them something moved.
The child Rovy was creeping stealthily toward the screens that looked on no-space, his eyes intent and bright.
“And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill’s Side” copyright © 1972 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
, March 1972.
“And I Have Come upon This Place by Lost Ways” copyright © 1972 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Nova 2
, edited by Harry Harrison.
“And So On, and So On” copyright © 1971 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Phantasmicom
, June 1971; first published as “And Shooby Dooby Dooby.”
“The Girl Who Was Plugged In” copyright © 1973 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
New Dimensions 3
, edited by Robert Silverberg.
“Her Smoke Rose Up Forever” copyright © 1974 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Final Stage
, edited by Edward L. Ferman and Barry N. Malzberg.
“Houston, Houston, Do You Read?” copyright © 1976 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Aurora: Beyond Equality
, edited by Susan Janice Anderson and Vonda N. McIntyre.
“The Last Flight of Doctor Ain” copyright © 1969 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Galaxy
, March 1969.
“Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death” copyright © 1973 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
The Alien Condition
, edited by Stephen Goldin.
“The Man Who Walked Home” copyright © 1972 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Amazing Stories
, May 1972.
“A Momentary Taste of Being” copyright © 1975 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
The New Atlantis
, edited by Robert Silverberg.
“On the Last Afternoon” copyright © 1972 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Amazing Stories
, November 1972.
“The Screwfly Solution” copyright © 1977 by Alice B. Sheldon for
Analog Science Fact/Science Fiction
, June 1977; published under the pseudonym Raccoona Sheldon.
“She Waits for All Men Born” copyright © 1976 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Future Power
, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois.
“Slow Music” copyright © 1980 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Interfaces
, edited by Ursula K. Le Guin and Virginia Kidd.
“We Who Stole the
Dream
” copyright © 1978 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Stellar 4
, edited by Judy-Lynn del Rey.
“With Delicate Mad Hands” copyright © 1981 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
Out of the Everywhere and Other Extraordinary Visions
.
“The Women Men Don’t See” copyright © 1973 by James Tiptree, Jr., for
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction
, December 1973.
“Your Faces, O My Sisters! Your Faces Filled of Light!” copyright © 1976 by Alice B. Sheldon, for
Aurora: Beyond Equality
, edited by Susan Janice Anderson and Vonda N. McIntyre; published under the pseudonym Raccoona Sheldon.
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Alice Hastings Bradley Sheldon was born in 1915 and wrote most of her fiction as
James Tiptree, Jr
– she was making a point about sexist assumptions and also keeping her US government employers from knowing her business. Most of her books are collections of short stories, of which
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
is considered to be her best selection. Sheldon’s best stories combine radical feminism with a tough-minded tragic view of life; even virtuous characters are exposed as unwitting beneficiaries of disgusting socio-economic systems. Even good men are complicit in women’s oppression, as in her most famous stories ‘The Women Men Don’t See’ and ‘Houston, Houston, Do you Read?’ or in ecocide. Her two novels
Up the Walls of the World
and
Brightness Falls from the Air
are both remarkable transfigurations of stock space opera material – the former deals with a vast destroying being, sympathetic aliens at risk of destruction by it and human telepaths trying to make contact across the gulf of stars. She died in 1987.
NOVELS
Up the Walls of the World (1978)
Brightness Falls from the Air (1985)
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home (1973)
Warm Worlds and Otherwise (1975)
Star Songs of an Old Primate (1978)
Out of the Everywhere and Other Extraordinary Visions (1981)
Byte Beautiful: Eight Science Fiction Stories (1985)
Tales of the Quintana Roo (1986)
The Starry Rift (1986)
Crown of Stars (1988)
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (1990)
Meet Me at Infinity (2000)
A full list of SF Masterworks can be found at
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A Gollancz eBook
Text copyright © Jeffrey D. Smith 2004
Introduction copyright © Graham Sleight 2014
Introduction II copyright © John Clute 1990
All rights reserved.
Individual story copyright information can be found at the back of this book.
The right of James Tiptree, Jr. to be identified as the author of this work, and the right of Graham Sleight and John Clute to be identified as the authors of the introductions, has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2014 by Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper Saint Martin’s Lane
London, WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 473 20325 9
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
