Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
Our sixth podcast for January is “Her Smoke Rose Up Forever” written by James Tiptree Jr. and read by Kate Baker.
Originally published in Final Stage: The Ultimate Science Fiction Anthology, edited by Edward L. Ferman and Barry N. Malzberg.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Multiple Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author James Tiptree, Jr. was the pseudonym of the late Dr. Alice Sheldon, a semi-retired experimental psychologist and former member of the American intelligence community who also wrote occasionally under the name of Raccoona Sheldon. Dr. Sheldon's tragic death in 1987 put an end to "both" careers, but not before she had won two Nebula and two Hugo Awards as Tiptree, won another Nebula Award as Raccoona Sheldon, and established herself, under whatever name, as one of the very best science fiction writers of our times. As Tiptree, Dr. Sheldon published two novels, Up the Walls of the World and Brightness Falls From the Air, and nine short-story collections: Ten Thousand Light Years From Home, Warm Worlds and Otherwise, Starsongs of an Old Primate, Out of the Everywhere, Tales of the Quintana Roo, Byte Beautiful, The Starry Rift, the posthumously published Crown of Stars, and the definitive posthumous retrospective collection, Her Smoke Rose Up Forever.
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ISSN 1937-7843 Clarkesworld Magazine © 2006-2019 Wyrm Publishing. Robot illustration by Serj Iulian.
Sue wrote on February 10th, 2019 at 6:05 pm:
I'm listening to the back issue podcasts that I missed (wish I could find an easy way to jump from issue to issue) and its great to hear an Alice Sheldon (Tiptree) story as I've read most of them.
Check out her story "Birth of a Salesman". I found it in her first collection of short stories ("Ten Thousand Light Years from Home"). It is funny - and very aptly named.
Her first collection was the funniest. I read four of her collections and noticed that her stories became sadder and more disturbing as time when on. "Her Smoke Rose Up Forever" is in the second to last. Some of her stories are hard to take but her writing is always kick-@ss. I'm not big on learning about the background of the people I read, but the more I read about Sheldon the more I want to reread all her stories.
P.S. I'm so sad that Gardner Dozois has died. I always look out for anthologies that he edited.