The groundbreaking and fantastical tales of Alice B. Sheldon, written under the pen name James Tiptree Jr., are some of the best science fiction short stories of the twentieth century, depicting dystopian chases, alien sex, and the loneliness of the universe.
"What her writing offered to the genre was a blend of poetry and ingenuity, as if some poet had rewritten a number of deftly written science fiction standards and then passed them on to a psychiatrist," said one reviewer. ( )

This was Tiptree's first published anthology, a collection of her early SF stories; it's a shame that I'd previously read a collection of her outstanding later work, because these suffer by comparison. Tiptree's work is known for its sharp, sometimes blistering takes on power structures, especially sexual, chauvinistic, or military-industrial, but these stories here just hint at that with wisps of playfulness (ie, "I'll Be Waiting For You When the Swimming Pool is Empty"), or pathos ("Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket"), or tragic consequences ("The Peacefulness of Vivyan"). Worse, the pacing and editing of most of these are so typical of late-'60s/early-'70s SF mags that there's not much to set these above any workaday stories by some anonymous writers (apologies to Harrison, Pohl, and whoever else was editor of the day). These are fine taken for what they are, but these stories just do not stand proud above the heap. It's clear that Tiptree really honed her craft through the 1970s, but I'm a bit let down by the more humble beginnings. Go for a later collection instead, such as "Out of the Everywhere." ( )

Like so much of the science fiction from this era (the 1960s and ’70s) Ten Thousand Light-Years From Home is a diverse and imaginative collection of stories. If there is a theme tying all fifteen together, perhaps it’s simply that there’s nothing special, nothing unusual, about planet Earth—it’s the entire Universe that’s nuts.
   ‘Tiptree’ (Alice Bradley Sheldon) had hit the ground running, selling her first few short stories almost before the ink was dry, and from the ones here I can see why magazine editors snapped them up. The writing itself is terrific: razor-sharp, it rattles along, often funny, comic-book fast but absolutely sure-footed, not a word out of place. The ideas aren’t bad either, and here are just a few:

• Sex with aliens as like an addictive drug, and humans as the helpless sex-junkies of the Galaxy: ‘…some Sirians had come in. That was my first look at Sirians in the flesh, if that’s the word. God knows I’d memorised every news shot, but I wasn’t prepared. That tallness, that cruel thinness. That appalling alien arrogance. Ivory-blue, these were. Two males in immaculate metallic gear. Then I saw there was a female with them. An ivory-indigo exquisite with a permanent faint smile on those bone-hard lips…’
• There are two stories in which we humans are more like seventeenth-century South-Sea Islanders, peering out to sea, uncomprehending, as a four-master looms into view on the horizon—except that, here, it’s a starship of course. First to arrive are traders after ore on the Moon (or are they really after something more ominous?) The second ship, a few years later, turns out to be full of missionaries instead, bringing to Earth their dotty alien religion.
• There’s a satire about the nature of civilisation: ‘progress’ is fine (particularly, for instance, if it stops people dropping babies down wells to appease their gods); but, beyond that, what is it all for?
• There are several stories about the pull of home, about being stranded or lost and trying to find your way back. For example, out at the centre of a kilometer-wide crater in what was formerly Idaho, on the exact same spot and at precisely the same time each year, something—a ‘monster’—appears for a few moments. Superstitions grow up around it, and elaborate rituals; people travel hundreds of miles to see it and make offerings. As the centuries go by though, and with the arrival of a more scientific outlook, there’s a slow dawning of understanding as to who this ‘monster’ is and what is happening to him. Just brilliant.

Alice Sheldon led a fairly extraordinary life herself, and among her many and varied accomplishments was a doctorate in experimental psychology. My guess is that, with this in her background and with her SF-author’s hat on too, she spent more than a little time ruminating on the word ‘alienation’. It’s another theme here: a sense of wrongness, of not belonging, of never feeling quite at home in this world—and the wish that a giant hand (or spaceship more like) will come down out of the sky some day and yank you out of all this…or beam you up. But that’s just a childish fantasy, wishful thinking. This feeling of wrongness is everywhere: no matter where you go in this Alice-in-Wonderland Universe, you always feel ten thousand light-years from home. ( )

This was my first book by Tiptree. I have mixed feelings about this book. She is writes in many styles. She has a habit of titling her stories with an idea that gives you no clue about the story itself. Lots of interesting short stories that are vastly different from each other.

This collection has 15 short stories:

And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side - Amazing
The Snows Are Melted, the Snows Are Gone - Vary Good
The Peacefulness of Vivyan - Pointless
Mamma Come Home - Good Story
Help - Good Story
Painwise - Pointless, bad story
Faithful to Thee, Terra, in Our Fashion - Fun story
The Man Doors Said Hello To - Good story
The Man Who Walked Home - Interesting idea
Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket - Good story
I'll Be Waiting for You When the Swimming Pool Is Empty - Interesting idea
I'm Too Big but I Love to Play - Pointless
Birth of a Salesman - Fun space story
Mother in the Sky with Diamonds - Didn't like it
Beam Us Home - Didn't like it

Even so, I will look for her novels. ( )

Like most collections a lot of very good stories, and a few mediocre ones. One story alone justifies buying the entire book 'And I Awoke and Found Me Here on the Cold Hill's Side'; one of the very rare completely original looks at alien-human contact. ( )