Her Smoke Rose Up Forever - Softcover

James Tiptree Jr (1915-1987) Alice Hastings Bradley Sheldon wrote most of her fiction as James Tiptree, Jr - she was making a point about sexist assumptions and also keeping her US government employers from knowing her business. Most of her books are collections of short stories, of which Her Smoke Rose Up Forever is considered to be her best selection. Sheldon's best stories combine radical feminism with a tough-minded tragic view of life; even virtuous characters are exposed as unwitting beneficiaries of disgusting socio-economic systems. Even good men are complicit in women's oppression, as in her most famous stories 'The Women Men Don't See' and 'Houston, Houston, Do you Read?' or in ecocide. Much of her work, even at its most tragic, has an attractively ironic tone which sometimes becomes straightforwardly comedy - it is important to stress that Tiptree's deep seriousness never becomes sombre or pompous. Her two novels Up the Walls of the World and Brightness Falls from the Air are both remarkable transfigurations of stock space opera material - the former deals with a vast destroying being, sympathetic aliens at risk of destruction by it and human telepaths trying to make contact across the gulf of stars. She died tragically in 1987.

Praise for Her Smoke Rose Up Forever

There is just one great collection of Tiptree’s fiction in print...Her Smoke Rose Up Forever from Tachyon Publications. It contains all of her major short stories.’”
New York Times Book Review

Tachyon’s handsomely produced catch-all collection Her Smoke Rose Up Forever is the perfect place to begin: a lovely piece of book production, from its attractive John Picacio cover art through each of its eighteen indispensable stories printed across well-laid-out pages. It’s a beaut, and you need to read it. Or to reread it.”
Strange Horizons

Her Smoke Rose Up Forever showcases what are undoubtedly the best of Tiptree’s stories.”
SF Site

The stories of Alice Sheldon, who wrote as James Tiptree, Jr. (Up the Walls of the World) until her death in 1987, have been heretofore available mostly in out-of-print collections. Thus the 18 accomplished stories here will be welcomed by new readers and old fans. The Screwfly Solution’ describes a chilling, elegant answer to the population problem. In Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death,’ the title tells the tale species survival ensured by imprinted drives but the story’s force is in its exquisite, lyrical prose and its suggestion that personal uniqueness is possible even within biological imperatives. The Girl Who Was Plugged In’ is a future boy-meets-girl story with a twist unexpected by the players. The Women Men Don’t See’ displays Tiptree’s keen insight and ability to depict singularity within the ordinary. In the Hugo and Nebula award winning Houston, Houston, Do You Read?’ astronauts flying by the sun slip forward 500 years and encounter a culture that successfully questions gender roles in ours.”
Publishers Weekly

One of the first hardbacks I ever bought and still one of my most read.”
Locus

“I can’t recommend this book enough, and we are so lucky to have had Tiptree in our genre.”
―Ventureadlaxre