Flying Cups & Saucers: Gender Explorations in Science Fiction & Fantasy

NOW BACK IN PRINT: purchase here.

Ever wonder what happened to the rest of the tea party when the saucers went off into space? Here’s your chance to find out! What would it be like to go to a club where you could buy an injection of sexiness? To grow up in a world where you didn’t know what gender you would be until puberty — and the discovery could be painful? To find yourself and your secret pitted against the entire United States government?

The James Tiptree, Jr. Award has been recognizing science fiction and fantasy novels and stories that explore and expand gender for the past six years. Although the award itself is given to one or two works of fiction a year, each jury also produces an “honor list“ of notable works that the jurors read while they were selecting the award.

This first anthology contains almost all of the short fiction that either won or was honor-listed (then called “short-listed”) in the first five years of the award. Contributors include Ursula K. LeGuin (“The Matter of Seggri” and “Forgiveness Day”), Eleanor Arnason, L. Timmel Duchamp, Carol Emshwiller, Kelley Eskridge, Graham Joyce and Peter F. Hamilton, R. Garcia y Robertson, Delia Sherman, and more.

“Selected for their provocative takes on sexuality, these 13 gender-bending tales of outre amour shock, amuse and call on basic human sympathy…. A fantasy-tinted look at human relationships and identity … nimbly traces the charting of new territory.” —Publishers Weekly

“This is an anthology of short stories that deal with the nature of “gender,” but from so many viewpoints that the common thread of this theme anthology is a welcome slender one. It’s also filled with excellent writing … so many good stories that it would be unfair to single out one or two. Buy yourself a copy and choose your own best; there’s a lot of potential choices here and the book provides plenty of bang for your buck.” — Science Fiction Chronicle

$22.00, trade paperback, 594 pages

Contents

Introduction, Debbie Notkin

And Salome Danced, Kelley Eskridge

The Lovers, Eleanor Arnason

Chemistry, James Patrick Kelly

Forgiveness Day, Ursula K. Le Guin

Some Strange Desire, Ian McDonald

Venus Rising, Carol Emshwiller

Eat Reecebread, Graham Joyce and Peter F. Hamilton

Motherhood, Etc., L. Timmel Duchamp

The Other Magpie, R. Garcia y Robertson

Food Man, Lisa Tuttle

Young Woman in a Garden, Delia Sherman

Grownups, Ian R. MacLeod

The Matter of Seggri, Ursula K. Le Guin