FROM THE ARCHIVES

The Most Secretive Woman in
the History of Science Fiction



This month marks the centennial of sci-fi
author James Tiptree, Jr., a man who was
as fictional as his make-believe characters

 Alice Sheldon 

by Ted Gioia

conceptual fiction
Exploring the Non-Realist Tradition in Fiction


Who is the most mysterious sci-fi author of them all?

Maybe that fellow L. Ron Hubbard, who decided that a religion from outer
space had a better payback than stories about outer space? Or perhaps
Philip K. Dick, who was convinced he had been possessed by the spirit of
the prophet Elijah? And let’s not forget Cordwainer Smith, who apparently
believed that he lived part-time on an alien planet.

But I insist that we add James Tiptree, Jr. to this list.
August 24 marks the 100th anniversary of Tiptree's

birth, and it is an event well worth celebrating. One of
my favorite genre writers, Tiptree earned a shelf full
of major awards for short stories and novellas back
in the 1970s and 1980s. And Tiptree's fame lives
on posthumously. Three years ago, Tiptree was
inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Every
year the James Tiptree, Jr. Award is given to a work
of sci-fi and fantasy that explores gender roles.

But there never was a James Tiptree, Jr.

When Tiptree was a rising star of the science fiction
world, any fan who tried to phone the author learned
that no one by that name was listed in the directory.
No author photos could be found on the jacket sleeves of Tiptree’s books.
All requests for public appearances were declined. Influential sci-fi writers
and editors who hoped to meet Tiptree in person found their overtures
rebuffed.

David Gerrold, screenwriter for the famous "Trouble with Tribbles"
screenplay on Star Trek, even went to Tiptree's mailing address in
Alexandria, Virginia, a large rambling home in a wooded area. Knocking
on the door, he was greeted by a diminutive, middle-aged woman who
was puzzled by her visitor’s request to meet James Tiptree, Jr. She had
no idea who he was talking about.

But this absence of firsthand knowledge hardly stopped the sci-fi
community from speculating about the hot new writer on the scene.
Tiptree was "a man of 50 or 55, I guess, possibly unmarried, fond of
outdoor life, restless in his everyday existence," speculated Robert
Silverberg in his introduction to Tiptree's Warm Worlds and Otherwise.
Silverberg mentions in passing rumors that Tiptree might be a woman,
but was quick to dismiss these suggestions as "absurd"—then added:
"there is something ineluctably masculine about Tiptree's writings."

Readers who wanted the inside scoop on James Tiptree, Jr. would
have done better to skip Silverberg's introduction, and instead mull
over the title to one of the most provocative stories in the collection,
a tale named “The Women Men Don’t See.” That describes the writer
of these stories much better than any of the details in the standard
author's bio.

These smart, iconoclastic stories were actually
written by Alice B. Sheldon, who was almost sixty
years old when she won her first Hugo award for
the prescient 'virtual reality' novella "The Girl Who
Was Plugged In." Sheldon had never known anyone
named Tiptree—she found the name on a jar of
English marmalade. But it suited the debonair
persona she hoped to construct for her public image.

This wasn’t the first time Alice Sheldon had adopted
a secret identity. She had learned about secrecy from
the very best teachers while working for Army
intelligence and the CIA. In later life, she found that
these skills helped her in unexpected ways. When
she briefly left her husband in the mid-1950s, he
struggled to find any clue to her whereabouts—and
her spouse, Huntington D. Sheldon was a high-level
CIA spy! "I used my clandestine training to disappear,"
she later boasted. "In a day, I had a new name, a new bank account, had
rented a house and really destroyed all traces of my former personality."

Husband and wife later reconciled, but Alice Sheldon found that this
assumption of a new identity served as a test run for her eventual rebirth
as sci-fi author James Tiptree, Jr. She later denied any attempt to
mislead. "I can’t help what people think sounds male or female," she
complained. But Sheldon clearly put as much energy into creating the
Tiptree persona as she did into making her finely crafted stories.

 Alice Sheldon In Africa in the Pith Helmet

I can’t blame Silverberg for asserting the masculinity of Mr. Tiptree. The
men in Sheldon’s stories are macho and lustful. They spend a lot of time
looking at women, or concerned with fighting and weapons. As a
youngster, Sheldon had traveled extensively, visiting Central Africa,
Southeast Asia and other far-flung locales, and she gave Tiptree a
similarly cosmopolitan background. Readers probably envisioned Tiptree
as a kind of sci-fi Hemingway, running with the bulls or off on an African
safari. The occasional hints of espionage—Tiptree would turn down a
request for a public appearance because of “secret business”—imparted
an additional 007-ish flavor to the author’s image.

Sheldon can hardly be faulted for this charade. We are familiar with authors
who hide their gender in order to reach a larger audience. But women in
science fiction have faced perhaps the greatest obstacles in gaining
credibility among the genre’s core audience—which has traditionally
been dominated by young males.

Back in 1949, a major science fiction magazine surveyed its fan base,
and learned that only 6.7% of its readers were female. Similar surveys from
the 1970s, when Tiptree started gaining recognition in the field, suggest
that women had grown to around a quarter of the audience for sci-fi. But
female writers still struggled to find acceptance in the field—1970s surveys
of 'all-time favorite' sci-fi stories gave all the top spots to men.

By taking on the Tiptree image, Sheldon bypassed the stereotypes and
biases that might have limited her otherwise. Many of her predecessors
in the field, such as Andre Norton or C.L. Moore, had already taken
similar steps. Sheldon no doubt recognized that attitudes were changing
in the 1970s—in fact, she corresponded with Ursula K. Le Guin and
Joanna Russ, who were enjoying success with an overtly feminist brand
of sci-fi during this period. But Tiptree had a different attitude. She was
sympathetic with feminism, joined NOW and at one point started referring
to other women as "sisters." She had romantic entanglements with women,
and saw herself as essentially bisexual. But she also delighted in her ability
to convince the leading men of sci-fi that she was one of their own. Above
all, she took pride in her skill in constructing a double life, and was reluctant
to give it up.

But eventually someone penetrated behind Tiptree’s façade. Sheldon had
shared some details about her mother, whom she had described as an
explorer living in Chicago. A fan used this information to track down an
obituary from the Chicago Tribune, which identified Alice B. Sheldon as
the only survivor of Mary Hastings Bradley, a noted travel writer. The details
of the deceased matched Tiptree's account of his mother, and the author
was soon confronted with the results of this successful sleuthing.

Related Essay:
When Science Fiction Grew Up


Sheldon decided to publicly acknowledge her real identity. She wrote
'coming out' letters to Le Guin and others, taking the opportunity to
apologize for deceiving her literary friends. But like a true master spy,
Sheldon disliked having her cover blown. She continued to publish works
under the name James Tiptree, Jr. and in later days grumbled about
researchers who wanted to write her life story. She even asked her
agent whether she could charge them money for answering their questions.

Sheldon’s final years were marred by illness, both her own and her
husband's. Her 1987 death was a shocking one—the result of a suicide
pact between the couple . After first shooting her husband in his sleep,
she calmly phoned her lawyer to describe what she had done, then turned
the gun on herself. She had been talking about suicide for many years—
the note she left explaining it was dated from 1979. When the police
arrived on the scene, they found the two bodies side-by-side, holding
hands.

Tiptree’s reputation has been in the ascendancy since the author’s death.
A full-scale Tiptree/Sheldon biography was published by Julie Phillips in
2006—and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. And I suspect
a Hollywood movie will eventually bring her story to an even larger
audience. If Alan Turing and Stephen Hawking deserve a bio-pic, why
not the remarkable Alice B. Sheldon?

The centennial of this author’s birth gives us an opportunity to marvel over
the extraordinary deception practiced by the most mysterious woman in
20th century genre fiction. I hope it also gives a few readers an excuse to
get familiar with her writing. But as much as I admire these works, I can't
help concluding that the most impressive fictional character created by
James Tiptree, Jr. was the author himself.


Ted Gioia writes on books, music and popular culture. His latest book Love Songs: The Hidden
History, is published by Oxford University Press.

This essay was published on August 23, 2015