These 18 darkly complex short stories and novellas touch upon human nature and perception, metaphysics and epistemology, and gender and sexuality, foreshadowing a world in which biological tendencies bring about the downfall of humankind. Revisions from the author's notes are included, allowing a deeper view into her world and a better understanding of her work. The Nebula Award–winning short story Love Is the Plan, the Plan Is Death, the Hugo Award–winning novella The Girl Who Was Plugged In, and the Hugo and Nebula Award–winning novella Houston, Houston, Do You Read? are included. 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 insured 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 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.

Space-opera heroines, gender-bending aliens, post-apocalyptic pregnancies, changeling children, interplanetary battles of the sexes, and much more: a groundbreaking new collection of classic American science fiction by women from the 1920s to the 1960s Warning: the visionary women writers in this landmark anthology may permanently alter perceptions of American science fiction, challenging the conventional narrative that the genre was conceived mainly by and for men. Now, two hundred years after Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, SF-expert Lisa Yaszek presents the best of the female tradition in American science fiction, in the most comprehensive collection of its kind ever published. From Pulp Era pioneers to New Wave experimentalists, here are over two dozen brilliant writers ripe for discovery and rediscovery, including Leslie F. Stone ("The Conquest of Gola," 1931), Judith Merril ("That Only a Mother," 1948), Leigh Brackett ("All the Colors of the Rainbow," 1957), Kit Reed ("The New You," 1962), Joanna Russ ("The Barbarian," 1968); Ursula K. Le Guin ("Nine Lives," 1969), and James Tiptree Jr. ("Last Flight of Dr. Ain," 1969). Imagining strange worlds and unexpected futures, looking into and beyond new technologies and scientific discoveries, in utopian fantasies and tales of cosmic horror, these women created and shaped speculative fiction as surely as their male counterparts. Their provocative, mind-blowing stories combine to form a thrilling multidimensional voyage of literary-feminist exploration and recovery. Contents: Introduction / Lisa Yaszek -- The miracle of the lily / Clare Winger Harris -- The conquest of Gola / Leslie F. Stone -- The black god's kiss / C. L. Moore -- Space episode / Leslie Perri -- That only a mother / Judith Merril -- In hiding / Wilmar H. Shiras -- Contagion / Katherine Maclean -- The inhabited men / Margaret St. Clair -- Ararat / Zenna Henderson -- All cats are gray / Andrew North -- Created he them / Alice Eleanor Jones -- Mr. Sakrison's halt / Mildred Clingerman -- All the colors of the rainbow / Leigh brackett -- Pelt / Carol Emshwiller -- Car pool / Rosel George Brown -- For sale, reasonable / Elizabeth Mann Borgese -- Birth of a gardener / Doris Pitkin Buck -- The tunnel ahead / Alice Glaser -- The new you / Kit Reed -- Another rib / John Jay Wells & Marion Zimmer Bradley -- When I was Miss Dow / Sonya Dorman -- Baby, you were great / Kate Wilhelm -- The barbarian / Joanna Russ -- The last flight of Dr. Ain / James Tiptree Jr -- Nine lives / Ursula K Le Guin -- Biographical notes.