The Voice That Murmurs in the Darkness
by James Tiptree, Jr.
Alice Sheldon, who found fame using the pseudonym James Tiptree, Jr., left behind a body of short fiction, much of it uncollected or out of print. The Voice That Murmurs in the Darkness, co-edited by Jeffrey D. Smith and Karen Joy Fowler, collects Tiptree’s stories spanning her career. These were primarily selected from a list made by Sheldon which she called “the cream of Tiptree,” none of which were included in Her Smoke Rose Up Forever.
Featured stories include:
- In “Excursion Fare,” Dag and Philippa are about to be lost at sea in the wreckage of their balloon Sky-Walker, their grand adventure a failure, when a hospice ship called Charon rescues them, and they find themselves on a cruise exclusively for the dying—which may be carrying far stranger passengers.
- A surreal evening ensues in “The Man Doors Said Hello To,” when a tall man enters a bar, carrying miniature girls as tenants in his pockets, and takes the narrator with him on a strange rescue mission through secrets hiding in the corners and ledges of the city.
- At nineteen, Jolyone Schram cries out in “Time-Sharing Angel,” despairing when she glimpses a vision of overpopulation and resulting planetary devastation, only to be heard by an interstellar angel who produces a shocking, simple fix that affects children across Earth and changes the future.
- In “Yanqui Doodle,” a soldier undergoes a harrowing detox treatment from specialized drugs given to soothe the conscience during combat—a process that might itself be as painful as the memories of atrocities committed under their influence—and grows ever more unstable.