It’s probably long past time I acknowledge Tiptree as one of my favourite genre writers, given I’ve read almost everything she wrote and will happily reread many of her stories. I’d also classify some of her fiction as stone-cold genre classics.

Crown of Stars (1988, USA), a posthumous collection, is an odd book. Especially given how Tiptree died. The contents are a mixture of science fiction and fantasy and, to be honest, the fantasy ones feel more like extended jokes than actual fiction. Not that the sf stories are all entirely serious. They are all, however, pretty dark. 

Telepathic aliens visit Earth but go away disappointed there are no gods. Poor single mothers give up their babies for adoption in a future where only the super-rich can afford “meat”. Heaven has gone bankrupt so Satan offers it space in Hell. A soldier on battle-drugs is sent to detox but finds a stash of the drugs and breaks out. A young woman is convinced the Earth is male and does her best to attract his interest. The most poignant story, however, has a teenage girl swap lives with herself at seventy, only to discover her family’s wealth had been lost, the USA consists of gated communities but is otherwise lawless, and in her attempt to make her life when she swaps back better, she inadvertently makes it worse.

These are quality stories, although none are perhaps as memorable as Tiptree’s best. ‘The Earth Like a Snake Doth Renew’, which is clearly in conversation with Tiptree’s own ‘The Last Flight of Doctor Ain’, is perhaps the top story here, or at least showcases those elements in her fiction for which she was most admired. To anyone new to Tiptree, I’d suggest starting somewhere else, perhaps her first anthology, Ten Thousand Light-Years from Home (1973, USA), or one of the later best of collection, such as Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (1990, USA), but exploring her oeuvre is certainly worth doing.