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This is a superb collection, eighteen of Tiptree/Sheldon’s finest short stories and novellas. The collection does not make for easy reading. Powerful, moving, and thought provoking, but not easy. As opposed to Up the Walls of the World, which I found to be a fundamentally optimistic work, most of these stories offer a very dark view of humanity and our destiny.

The collection runs from some of her earliest published work to some of her final published work, and in some ways you can see her mature as a writer as the stories progress. But even the earliest of the stories, “The Last Flight of Dr. Ain” (which by the way clearly must have been an influence on the script for the movie Twelve Monkeys) demonstrates a remarkable ability to establish an emotional connection to the reader in just a few short pages.

Most of the stories deal with gender issues either directly, or implicitly. With a few exceptions, men are pigs. For the most part, the characters in these stories are doomed by some combination of genetic coding and/or the crushing environment in which they try to survive. There is a fair amount of sex, some of which is fairly brutal. But there is nothing voyeuristic about these scenes. As reader, you feel the pain and trauma and violation of the victim.

My favorites were “The Last Flight of Doctor Ain,” “The Girl Who Was Plugged In,” “Houston, Houston, Do You Read?,” “We Who Stole the Dream,” and “Her Smoke Rose Up Forever.” ( )

This collection of short stories by Tiptree will make you cringe with horror at the envisioned fates of the human race. "The Screwfly Solution" is the most powerful story in the book - a few pages that really cause you to cringe. Do not read it just before going to sleep though, you'll have freaking weird dreams for weeks. ( )

It is difficult to exaggerate the brilliance of James Tiptree Jr's science-fiction writing. Her sophisticated plots address profound issues in an absorbing way while not forsaking imagination or entertainment value. Read this anthology and discover why the best science-fiction stories have a greater claim to literary merit than most will ever give them credit for. ( )

A seminal collection. Some of the most important stories ever written. Strange, funny (really funny in a dark sort of way), necessary stories. ( )