"Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home" by James Tiptree Jr. is a seminal collection that showcases the range and depth of science fiction. Tiptree's stories are compelling, pushing the boundaries of the genre while diving deep into themes of identity, gender, and the human condition. Each tale is a universe unto itself, yet together they form a cohesive exploration of speculative fiction's possibilities. A must-read for any aficionado of the genre, offering both entertainment and profound insights.

This was a mixed bag for me as i did like bits of this but there were other sections that just didn't work for me. I liked the writing style for most part but there were some passages that seemed a little clunky. This wasn't a bad book, just not what i wanted in a Sci-Fi.

Started reading, but it wasn’t for me in the end. Three stars - because there’s not a ‘neither liked or disliked’ option.

I am embarrassed to admit that this was the first I had heard of Tiptree, and was delighted to read the feminist quality of the stories and later find out that Tiptree is a pseudonym! These stories really captured the core of great science fiction - looking at what makes us human by examining the way we perceive our humanness in things less than human. This is one that will definitely be added to my physical sci fi library!

Disclaimer: I would like to thank the publisher, Penguin Books, for graciously providing a review copy of this book.

The first book written by James Tiptree, Jr., "10,000 Light-Years From Home" is a collection of short stories that was originally published in 1973 by Ace Books, and currently reprinted in 2020 by Penguin Books. An inductee in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Tiptree has also received multiple Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Hayakawa, and Seiun awards. Although originally published nearly 50 years ago, the stories aged quite well. The style does have the retro feel of pulp science fiction short stories from the 50's and 60's. The breadth of stories is entertaining and creative ranging from time travel to space opera to post apocalyptic to all kinds of alien interactions. As good science fiction does, each story leaves the reader with something to ponder. What would be the impact on the human psyche of interacting with aliens? How might first, second, or third contact with highly technological civilizations affect human civilization? Especially, if they are here as missionaries? Should humans push their ideals on other civilizations? Would it be nice to never experience pain? What forms might the apocalypse take? And more. Many of these stories end with a satisfying twist of dry humor.

As a science fiction fan, I appreciated reading this classic collection, and look forward to discovering more stories written by the author.

James Tiptree Junior - real name Alice Sheldon, had such an extraordinary life, working for Army Intelligence and the CIA; careers in both painting and writing; that who she was and how she wrote is in danger of overshadowing what she wrote. This collection is a great reminder of her unique tone, and her pivotal place in sci-fi history, linking the fifties magazine style with the new wave of the sixties. Which is a way of saying that the stories here are quite diverse, and while some still pack an almighty punch others have dated.

The ones that work least successfully are a group of stories in which hard-bitten but whip-smart professionals deal with alien invasions, fixes on the galaxy’s gambling world, and the travails of trans galactic parcel deliveries. ‘Birth of A Salesman’ and ‘Faithful to Thee…’ projects a fifties world of club cars, trilbys, FedEx and PanAm into the far future. These aim for satire but too often descend into whimsy.

Then there’s a group of stories where she much more successfully flips the conventions: Beam Us Home takes the stranger in a strange land story and - as Michael Faber’s Under the Skin would do twenty years later - makes us the strangers seen through a single visitor’s eyes. Mamma Come Home has fun with gender conventions in a post-apocalypse world. The unclassifiable Painwise starts off as with a lonely explorer in a spaceship, and ends up in tragic sexual fantasy.

Finally there are a handful of stories that deserve a place in any best-ofs. ‘And I Awoke…; takes apart the idea of the ‘primal urge’ - exploring how men’s fascination with having sex with the other and the exotic would be only intensified among the stars. ‘I’m too Big But I Love to Play’ may be the best-ever star being story; ‘Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket’ wrings some devastating pathos out of the ‘younger self’ time travel trope; and ‘The Man Who Walked Home’ recalls nothing so much as La Jetee rewritten from the perspective of those who encounter the time traveller.

Sheldon - yes she really got her pen name from a jam jar label - has a reputation which is only growing and this chance to revisit her early short stories in a smart Penguin volume is extremely welcome.

“Ten Thousand Light Years From Home” is a collection of fifteen short stories that take place here on Earth and in outer space. First published in 1973 the stories were collected under a pen name: James Triptree Jr, but were written by a woman: Alice Bradley Sheldon. Sheldon is a fascinating woman, and unlike the Bronte sisters she didn’t choose a male pen name in order to be published:

“A male name seemed like good camouflage. I had the feeling that a man would slip by less observed. I’ve had too many experiences in my life of being the first woman in some damned occupation.”

Even so, many couldn’t believe that Triptree Jr was a woman. The content within these stories weren’t something that a woman wrote about in the late ’60s and ’70s (apparently). So what of the stories themselves?

Well, they’re all really rather different, but there’s a thread that runs its way through the collection. During an era where Asimov was writing tales of space exploration and Philip K. Dick (both these two are amongst my favourite authors I might add) was writing rather experimental ideas set closer to home, James Triptree Jr’s (I’ll stick to Alison Sheldon’s pen name as she chose to keep her works under that name) work feels a little more grounded. Sure a lot of it is set in outer space, aboard cargo vessels or on faraway planets and moons. But she holds back on telling the stories of exciting adventurers, here we have a collection of evolving civilizations built around failed experiments, of bureaucracy, of sex, love and just growing old, but it all still feels futuristic and far away and exciting.

This is most evident in “Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket”, a tale of time travel and falling in love and one person doing whatever they can do keep that love alive until their own passing. It’s beautifully written, incredibly moving and actually, in places, quite sexy, and it’s those notes that, again, work their way through this collection. Even when discussing the implications of a ship’s cargo not being properly documented, there’s an air of sexual tension between characters, or a developing relationship that neither character discusses but you can tell is there and its this attention to what goes unsaid that brings Triptree Jr’s characters to life. There’s an intelligence here that gives Triptree Jr the confidence to play with tropes of the genre that had already become established, and they do so in a manner that’s very tongue in cheek whilst also presenting the stories as being rather serious and forward-thinking, and overall, I came away feeling that Alice Sheldon was way before her time.

First published in 1973, this collection of 15 short science fiction stories has been reissued in a new Penguin edition. I'd previously read a few of this author's stories, in various anthologies, so was curious to experience more of her work. James Tiptree Jr was the pseudonym of Alice Bradley Sheldon but this wasn't generally known at the time of this book's publication.

The title of this collection is certainly apt, as every story is so distant from us in space or time (or both). The writing style is extraordinary, often lyrical but also with a pulp fiction feel. Unusual phrases and weird dialogue leap through the paragraphs. It can be disorientating, as quite often I wasn't sure what was going on. To me, these stories seem very advanced for the era in which they were written. Some of them explore the fluidity of gender via sexual encounters with alien species. However, the content of the stories was liable to be overshadowed by the confusing nature of the writing style.

I can't say I loved reading this book, but it was definitely an otherworldly experience.

[N.B. This book review will be published on my blog on 7th September.]

James Tiptree Jr (or Alice Sheldon if you prefer real names) is an author I have come across before, I read the collection "Her Smoke Rose up forever" and really enjoyed it. So I was looking forward to reading another story collection and I can say I wasn't disappointed.

Some of the stories in the first (And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side, "The Man Who Walked Home") feature in this one too, but that is no bad thing, they are both great stories and well worth revisiting.

The writing across the collection is gritty, pulpy and fun. This being sci-fi the entry bar for stories can be quite high, due to the nature of short stories there isn't much time for scene setting and so it can be the case that invented words and high sci-fi concepts are thrown out with little explanation, leaving it up to the reader to put the pieces together. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's worth knowing before you start reading.

As is par for the course with these things, not every story is great, for some it feels like the concept is there, but that the plot doesn't have enough time to develop, but for others there are well developed plots, ideas and worlds here condensed into 20 or 30 pages of tightly written, deep science fiction. All the stories have a few things in common though - great invention, an eye for adventure, a distinct feel; which makes reading this collection a joy. Even when the tales do fall a little flat, they are never boring.

If you like science-fiction and particularly that 60-70's sort of hard boiled sci-fi, then this collection will definitely be for you, but there should be enough here to keep an reader interested in this sort of thing satisfied.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing an arc of this.

Thanks to the publishers for giving me the opportunity to re-read this. Tiptree Jr is one of my favorite authors and this collection (her first?) is an excellent primer to the later stuff which is gritty and entertaining as well as thought provoking. I would heartily recommend it.

What a fascinating life! The author was a high ranked officer during WWII, worked for the CIA in the 50s, went back to school, achieved a bachelor of arts, and achieved a doctorate in psychology in the 60s. Unsure, what to do with it, she started publishing 1968 under her pen-name and was soon rewarded with SF's most important awards - Hugo and Nebula Awards for her shorter works.

James Tiptree, Jr. was praised as the male voice of feminism back in the 70s before fandom blew up the cover and exposed female writer Alice Sheldon behind this pen-name. This was after the first time, this collection was published - in another edition from 1975, I have a funny afterword by Dozois describing the hunt for Tiptree and speculating about the person. The collection was originally published by Ace Books 1973. It is once again brought to light in the new "Penguin Classics" series scheduled at 6.8.2020. 

The stories in this collection are all Science Fiction stories covering a range of subgenres like time travels, post-apocalyptic, first contact, or psychedelic topics. It is a testimony of its time just after the pulp fiction decades. 

Tiptree is strongest when working in the shorter form - she published novels as well, but those weren't as well received as her short works. There are a couple of gems in this collection which I recommend checking out:

And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side
The Man Who Walked Home


I didn't find any masterwork in this collection (though others praise the first story as such), but most were enjoyable.

Tiptree's unique literary voice is visibly developing, and I found a couple of stories in this collection that don't transfer well into our time. 

If you've got Tiptree's renowned collection Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, then this is a very good complementary collection, overlapping in only two stories (The Snows Are Melted, the Snows Are Gone and The Man Who Walked Home). 

If you're tending more toward the pulpier and comical side of life, then this is the Tiptree collection fitting your taste. If you prefer darker works with stronger feministic voice (like me), then go for Her Smoke Rose Up Forever.

Contents (Reviews for every story is under https://reiszwolf.wordpress.com/?p=2757):

1 • ★★★★☆ • And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side • 1972 • SF short story •
14 • ★★+☆☆☆ • The Snows Are Melted, the Snows Are Gone • 1969 • Post-apocalyptic short story •
32 • ★★☆☆☆ • The Peacefulness of Vivyan • 1971 • SF short story •
53 • ★★★☆☆ • Mamma Come Home • 1968 • First Contact SF novelette •
84 • ★★☆☆☆ • Help • 1968 • First Contact SF novelette •
115 • ★★★☆☆ • Painwise • 1972 • Psychedelic SF novelette •
143 • ★★★☆☆ • Faithful to Thee, Terra, in Our Fashion • 1969 • SF novelette •
183 • ★★★☆☆ • The Man Doors Said Hello To • 1970 • Psychedelic short story •
193 • ★★★★☆ • The Man Who Walked Home • 1972 • Time travel short story • backwards time travel •
216 • ★+☆☆☆☆ • Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket • 1972 • Time travel short story •
241 • ★★☆☆☆ • I'll Be Waiting for You When the Swimming Pool Is Empty • 1971 • Planetary SF short story •
260 • ★★★☆☆ • I'm Too Big but I Love to Play • 1970 • First contact novelette •
285 • ★★★☆☆ • Birth of a Salesman • 1968 • SF short story •
306 • ★★+☆☆☆ • Mother in the Sky with Diamonds • 1971 • Psychedelic SF novelette •
343 • ★★★+☆☆ • Beam Us Home • 1969 • SF short story •

"Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home" is a collection of sci-fi stories written by James Tiptree Jr. - who was actually a woman called Alica Sheldon (in case you didn't know). Most of the stories are like (I imagine) weird drug-fueled dreams, and the over-all feeling is just of plain weirdness (which is fun). There are some real gems in this collection, but I won't name them. You'll need to pick up a copy and find them for yourself. Pure entertainment is to be found here.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advance copy to review. This review is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

Ten Thousand Light Years From Home is a new edition of science fiction short stories written by Alice B. Sheldon under the male pseudonym James Tiptree Jr. The stories focus on various sci fi elements, from contact with aliens to intergalactic business, with recurring themes of power, sex, and connections. Some of the most engaging stories are centred on some kind of space business, for example a planet for the fair racing of creatures from across space, which feel like wry looks at difference, power, and trade.

However, some of the stories were quite difficult to get into and not very engaging. I wanted to read this review copy after reading online about Sheldon and being intrigued by her life, even though I don't usually read a huge amount of sci fi. Some of the stories were good and clever, and there's some interesting points about power and sex and gender, but other stories I found myself skimming through.

I am a fan of Sci Fi and I have to say that james is unquestionably one of the best writers in the genre. Right from the intriguing writing style to the well planned plot the book is a perfect read.

A big YES to all those thinking of buying this book. I can't wait for its realease