Alien Plots: Female Subjectivity and the Divine in the Light of James Tiptree's A Momentary Taste of Being' (Liverpool University Press - Liverpool Science Fiction Texts & Studies)

At the heart of this stimulating and provocative study is a science fiction story by James Tiptree. Jr. (Alice Sheldon-Bradley, 1916-1987) about a brother and a sister (and 58 other human beings) who encounter an alien while on a starship travelling to discover a habitable planet. The book includes an outline of Tiptree's work and of her remarkable life as the only child of jungle explorers, as a painter, an American agent during and after World War II, an experimental psychologist, and a female science fiction writer in male disguise.0.

Taking the science fiction story about an encounter with an alien as a pivot, Spek (religion and literature, U. of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) explores the remarkable life of Alice Sheldon-Bradley (1916-87), who wrote science fiction under the name of Tiptree. She also was the only child of jungle explorers, a painter, a US agent during and after World War II, and an experimental psychologist. The treatment is interdisciplinary, drawing on literary, theological, and cultural theory. Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR