Author profile: James Tiptree, Jr.

Note: In the Readerville forum, I've written a few profiles of science fiction authors, some of which might also be of interest to others. Once in a while I'll post one of them here.

James Tiptee Jr. (1915 - 1987)

Tiptree is the man to beat this year.
Wilhelm is the woman to beat, but Tiptee is the man.

Thus wrote Harlan Ellison in his introduction to the story "The Milk of Paradise" in Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). Little did he know that Tiptree was a pseudonym for the psychologist Alice Hastings Bradley Sheldon. Her identity was kept a secret until 1977, when it was exposed because of some remarks Tiptree made; she referred to the death of her mother with enough details for people to figure out who her mother was.

Alice Sheldon was the daughter of Mary Hastings Bradley, who was a well known geographer and author of 35 books. She was born in Chicago, but spend much of her childhood in India and Africa. She worked in the US Government for many years, including some time at Pentagon and the CIA, which she left in 1955 for college, acquiring a PhD in experimental psychology in 1967.

Under her real name, she published a non-sf story, "The Lucky Ones", in The New Yorker in 1946, but her first story as James Tiptree Jr., "Birth of a Salesman", was published in Astounding Science Fiction in 1968.
Her best writing occured between 1979 and 1977 though, and short story collections covering that time frame are probably well worth getting (not that I've gotten around to getting any such yet). Especially of note are the stories "The Women Men Don't See " (1973), "The Girl Who Was Plugged In" (1973, Hugo winner), and "Houston, Houston, Do You Read?" (1977, Nebula and, shared, Hugo winner).

The Life of Alice Sheldon had a sad ending. She had married Huntington Sheldon in 1945, and in the 1980s he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. In 1987 Alice Sheldon first shot her husband, and then killed herself.

Sources:
The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction by John Grant & Peter Nicholls
Again, Dangerous Visions edited by Harlan Ellison.

Since I originally wrote this short profile of James Tiptree Jr., a biography of her has been published. Julie Phillips' James Tiptree, Jr. - The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon describes the life of the subject from a somewhat feminist viewpoint, and quite deservedly won a Hugo this year. I highly recommend it.

Author profile: C.L. Moore

Note: In the Readerville forum, I've written a few profiles of science fiction authors, some of which might also be of interest to others. Once in a while I'll post one of them here.

Catherine Lucille Moore (1911-1987)

They found me under a cabbage plant in Indianapolis on the 24th of January, 1911, and was reared on a diet of Greek mythology, Oz books and Edgar Rice Burroughs, so you can see I never had a chance"

Thus starts C.L. Moore her "An Autobiographical Sketch of C.L. Moore" (Fantasy Magazine, June 1936), she then goes on to tell how she left college without a degree during the depression, and then starts talking about her characters, a subject she appears more at ease writing about. The interesting part of reading that short autobiography, is that nowhere does she mention that she is a woman - something quite common back in those days, as female science fiction writers couldn't sell.

Her first sale was "Shambleau" to Weird Tales (November, 1933), which was the first of 13 stories about the outlaw Northwest Smith roaming the spaceways. In the October 1933 issue of Weird Tales, the story "The Black God's Kiss", with the character Jirel of Joiry, appeared. Many acknowledges Jirel of Joiry as the first female role model of the sword and sorcery sub-genre, perhaps of all fantasy, and Marion Zimmer Bradley appropriately dedicated the first Sword and Sorceress anthology to her and her creator.

In 1940 C.L. Moore married Henry Kuttner (April 7, 1915 - February 3, 1958), and much of their work after that were collaborations. Their marriage ended all to shortly, when Kuttner died of a heart attack in 1958.
This marked the end of Moore's writing career. After that she more or less left the science fiction field, only making a few appearances at conventions.

None of Moore's works I've read, be it solo or in collaboration with Kuttner, are what I'd call spectacular writing, but like so much other stuff from back then, they are entertaining light reads, and the Jirel of Joiry stories are interesting from a historical perspective.

C.L. Moore was one of the few female pioneers in science fiction and fantasy, and like her contemporaries Leigh Brackett and to a lesser degree Andre Norton, she is too often forgotten when the pioneers are discussed, or she is just mentioned as an appendix to her husband's name. This is unjust, and I hope that in time she'll be given the respect she deserves.

Sources:
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy by John Clute & John Grant
Echoes of Valor II edited by Karl Edward Wagner (contains among other items "An Autobiographical Sketch of C.L. Moore")

Author profile: H.P. Lovecraft

Note: In the Readerville forum, I've written a few profiles of science fiction authors, some of which might also be of interest to others. Once in a while I'll post one of them here.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890 - 1937)

The Name of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, obscure during his lifetime except to a select circle of devotees, has acquired a measure of posthumous fame.

Thus began J. Vernion Shea his, or her, article "H.P. Lovecraft: The House and the Shadows" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - May, 1966). What held true four decades ago, certainly holds true today, perhaps largely due to August Derleth (1909 - 1971), founder of the Arkham Press, of which Shea says:

August Derleth refers to [Lovecraft] as "The late great H.P. Lovecraft" ... Derleth's viewpoint is perhaps partisan, for he was a friend and correspondent of Lovecraft for many years, and is now the executioner of his estate.

H. P. Lovecraft do appear to split his readers into two bipolar groups - Damon Knight (1922 - 2002) referred to him as "a neurasthenic recluse, scholarly, fastidious, and prim".

Perhaps surprisingly, I fall in neither camp. I like Lovecraft's works, and I think he shows flashed of brilliance, but I won't go out of my way to read his works. On the other hand, Lovecraft has become such a part of the sf/fantasy/horror pantheon, that you nearly have to read him; at least to understand all the references to The Great Old Ones and Cthulhu.

H.P. Lovecraft had a very unusual childhood. His mother treated him like a girl until he was at least six, and his father went mad when Lovecraft was two, and died five years later. Unsurprisingly Lovecraft had many problems throughout his life. He started at school when he was eight, but was withdrawn after a year for medical reasons. This didn't happen before he discovered Edgar Allan Poe (1809 - 1849) though.

In high school, Lovecraft had a nervous collapse after 2½ years, and was again withdrawn. Following this, he more or less spent his life at home writing stories, most of which (perhaps luckily) weren't published. He stayed living with his mother until she died when he was 31. A couple of years after her death, in 1924, Lovecraft married Sonia Greene, 7 years his senior, but the marriage broke up in 1926. As The Encyclopedia of Fantasy puts it: "the fact that she was Jewish and he was prone to antisemitic rants cannot have helped".

In 1924 Lovecraft rewrote a story by one C.M. Eddy, "The Loved Dead", for Weird Tales (a magazine founded because of the founder's love of Edgar Allan Poe, and which Lovecraft apparently declined to become editor of). It was a story about a necrophiliac who becomes a sex murderer, and it caused an uproar, forcing Weird Tales to withdraw the issue from the newsstands. Human nature being what it is, the next issue of Weird Tales sold out within hours, inadvertently saving Weird Tales from bankruptcy, which the magazine had been close to, even before the lost sales from the Lovecraft issue.

In his, now famous, short story, "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928), Lovecraft created his now well known myths about the powerful, but evil, beings called The Great Old Ones (or alternatively The Ancient Old Ones) - not to be confused with the two other Lovecraftian groups of beings: The Old Ones and The Great Ones, which I guess proves that whatever Lovecraft's merits, naming ancient powerful races in distinctive ways is not one of them.

Gradually as he grew older, Lovecraft's stories turned less grim, though I doubt anyone would call them light-hearted. This change took away much of the drive behind his stories, and he seemed to be heading towards less spectacular mainstream fantasy, until his early death of cancer March 15, 1937, put an end to that.

After Lovecraft's death, August Derleth published his works under the Arkham house imprint, gradually making Lovecraft a household name in the fantasy/horror genre.

Lovecraft was in many ways typical of many of the authors in the genres at his time. Compare his story with Robert E. Howard (1906 - 1936), and you'll find many similarities, though Lovecraft's upbringing was certainly more weird than mosts'. Not surprisingly many of the authors of the time wrote together, and I've heard and read that Lovecraft's letters (which has been collected) should be well worth the effort reading.

There are several different Lovecraft collections out there, and if you cannot get hold of any containing his complete works, I'd suggest focusing on collections of his stories about The Great Old Ones.

Sources:
The Encyclopedia of Fantasy by John Clute and John Grant.
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction - May, 1966