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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!decwrl!chabot@miles.DEC (All God's chillun got guns)
From: chabot@miles.DEC (All God's chillun got guns)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: Silverberg, Tiptree, and author's sex.
Message-ID: <311@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 4-Sep-85 16:58:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.311
Posted: Wed Sep  4 16:58:39 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Sep-85 10:57:07 EDT
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Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
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> I don't know about any "of course", but I do recall reading "Houston, Houston,
> do you read" and thinking "this guy has some serious problems". It is obvious
> in retrospect that Alice Sheldon has had very little experience with men who
> haven't been "putting on a show" for her benefit. There are other female
> authors who have this problem (Anne McCaffrey being a notable example), and of
> course mail authors with the opposite problem (Heinlein, for example).
 
> It never occurred to me that James Tiptree Jr was a woman, probably because
> after reading "Houston, Houston, do you read" I put the collection down and
> never picked it up again, never gave it another thought. Then when I heard,
> it became obvious what was wrong.

Gee, I know some pretty interesting stories by Harlan Ellison that have just
the same problem with depicting the show-off behavior of males in distasteful 
ways!  What's "wrong" with Harlan Ellison?  Is, perhaps like Sheldon, he a 
woman??  (He doesn't look like one.  I've even seen him write a story, so unless
he's got a real talent for memorizing he must not have a ghost-writer.)
Is it possible he's undersocialized with other males??  But, well, gee, he
claims he's friends with Robert Silverberg and several other male (and
reputedly heterosexual) authors--is it possible they only show him their
show-off behavior?? 

Many "mail" authors have a lot of problems, though.  I don't know about 
Heinlein--I've never received any letters from him.

L S Chabot   ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot