The Last Flight of Dr. Ain
August 27, 2021 1:54 AM Subscribe
The Last Flight of Dr. Ain
As the enclosed biographical note reads:
As the enclosed biographical note reads:
James Tiptree, Jr., was the pseudonym of Alice B. Sheldon (1915-1987), who before turning to writing had been an artist, a newspaper art critic, a World War II photo-intelligence officer, a chicken farmer, a CIA agent, and a research psychologist. After earning her PhD in psychology in 1967, she started writing science fiction short stories...As for the story itself, dated as it is, it has a timely and sobering resonance, does it not?
I remember reading this in one of those countless bound anthologies they had at the library when I was binging on SF in junior high and high school. I'm sure I got the gist of what was going on at the time, but the memory of it doesn't feel as nightmarish as when I read it just now.
posted by ardgedee at 4:41 AM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 4:41 AM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
Solving ecocide with genocide, an evergreen idea that sometimes even pops up on the blue (usually couched in "overpopulation" concerns) and is generally rightfully shouted down. The story itself has the twist that ... the woman was the Earth all along! Which just reinforces how deeply Dr. Ain's solution is rooted in toxic masculinity.
posted by rikschell at 5:15 AM on August 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 5:15 AM on August 27, 2021 [4 favorites]
The real science fiction was Malthus.
posted by Richard Saunders at 5:21 AM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Richard Saunders at 5:21 AM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
It's a terrific, chilling story. One of her best.
"too soon" - it's one we read when COVID started up.
posted by doctornemo at 6:04 AM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
"too soon" - it's one we read when COVID started up.
posted by doctornemo at 6:04 AM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]
I'm surprised I'd never read this before. It's great!
It seems impossible to believe that this story wasn't a major influence on 12 Monkeys but I've never seen or heard such an admission, either.
posted by Western Infidels at 7:19 AM on August 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
It seems impossible to believe that this story wasn't a major influence on 12 Monkeys but I've never seen or heard such an admission, either.
posted by Western Infidels at 7:19 AM on August 27, 2021 [6 favorites]
My thought as well about 12 Monkeys!
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:06 AM on August 27, 2021
posted by drewbage1847 at 9:06 AM on August 27, 2021
Like so many of her stories, this one is compelling and intensely pessimistic. I thought about it a few times when the pandemic started.
It's worth noting in any discussion of Tiptree/Sheldon that she killed her disabled husband and herself claiming they had a death pact, but since he was shot in his sleep, it may just have been murder; there is evidence he feared she would kill him.
posted by emjaybee at 9:21 AM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
It's worth noting in any discussion of Tiptree/Sheldon that she killed her disabled husband and herself claiming they had a death pact, but since he was shot in his sleep, it may just have been murder; there is evidence he feared she would kill him.
posted by emjaybee at 9:21 AM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]
The story was published in 1969 while 12 Monkeys was an adaptation of Chris Marker's amazing 1962 movie La Jettée.
Both Marker and Sheldon were very good at picking up on wide, diffuse social anxieties so it's probably parallel evolution.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:36 AM on August 27, 2021 [7 favorites]
Both Marker and Sheldon were very good at picking up on wide, diffuse social anxieties so it's probably parallel evolution.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 9:36 AM on August 27, 2021 [7 favorites]
Thank you so much for the correction.
And off topic though it might be, here is La Jettée.
posted by y2karl at 11:33 AM on August 27, 2021
And off topic though it might be, here is La Jettée.
posted by y2karl at 11:33 AM on August 27, 2021
And oh I wish I had seen this before posting but here is filthy light thief's very masterful James Tiptree, Jr.: two decades of new wave science fiction (1968-88).
posted by y2karl at 11:47 AM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 11:47 AM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
The story was published in 1969 while 12 Monkeys was an adaptation of Chris Marker's amazing 1962 movie La Jettée.
I'm aware that's the official line, and the overall plot and time travel loop in 12 Monkeys is clearly the same as La Jettée.
But if memory serves, the apocalypse in the earlier film was a nuclear war. In 12 Monkeys, the apocalypse was caused by the deliberate, suicidal spread of a biotic weapon, by a biologist, radicalized by environmental devastation, on a round-the-world tour by air.
posted by Western Infidels at 12:10 PM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
I'm aware that's the official line, and the overall plot and time travel loop in 12 Monkeys is clearly the same as La Jettée.
But if memory serves, the apocalypse in the earlier film was a nuclear war. In 12 Monkeys, the apocalypse was caused by the deliberate, suicidal spread of a biotic weapon, by a biologist, radicalized by environmental devastation, on a round-the-world tour by air.
posted by Western Infidels at 12:10 PM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
But if memory serves, the apocalypse in the earlier film was a nuclear war.
You're absolutely right - Gilliam's movie rewrote my memory and yet the past remained unchanged and immutable, lying in wait for me like a trap.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:36 PM on August 27, 2021 [8 favorites]
You're absolutely right - Gilliam's movie rewrote my memory and yet the past remained unchanged and immutable, lying in wait for me like a trap.
posted by thatwhichfalls at 12:36 PM on August 27, 2021 [8 favorites]
In 12 Monkeys, the apocalypse was caused by the deliberate, suicidal spread of a biotic weapon, by a biologist, radicalized by environmental devastation, on a round-the-world tour by air.
I wouldn't be surprised if this story influenced 12 Monkeys or (like We and Brave New World), they were responding to similar cultural tropes/sources.
Eco-terrrorism was very much in the consciousness throughout that period. When I first saw 12 Monkeys, I immediately thought, "Unibomber!" when the scientist made his first appearance. This was before he'd been identified and I thought the scientist character (superficially) resembled the sketch circulating at the time. The idea of someone killing all humans in an attempt to save the rest of the world felt really realistic.
posted by jb at 2:17 PM on August 27, 2021
I wouldn't be surprised if this story influenced 12 Monkeys or (like We and Brave New World), they were responding to similar cultural tropes/sources.
Eco-terrrorism was very much in the consciousness throughout that period. When I first saw 12 Monkeys, I immediately thought, "Unibomber!" when the scientist made his first appearance. This was before he'd been identified and I thought the scientist character (superficially) resembled the sketch circulating at the time. The idea of someone killing all humans in an attempt to save the rest of the world felt really realistic.
posted by jb at 2:17 PM on August 27, 2021
I went to Twice Sold Tales to see what they might have in stock under any of her pseudonyms. What I found was The Color of Neanderthal Eyes by James Tiptree Jr. b/w And Strange At Ecteban the Trees by Michael Bishop — not one of the best TOR Doubles. The Tiptree was written well after her real identity was revealed and is not among her best. And Bishop's I have yet to read. All I can say for now is that is one clunky and inelegant title.
posted by y2karl at 5:47 PM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by y2karl at 5:47 PM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]
Solving ecocide with genocide, an evergreen idea that sometimes even pops up on the blue (usually couched in "overpopulation" concerns) and is generally rightfully shouted down
Gaia: "Mr.
posted by lalochezia at 6:25 AM on August 30, 2021
There's another Tiptree story that has come to mind for me, watching the later stages of the epidemic: The Screwfly Solution. It's a quick little read but sticks with you.
SPOILERS
posted by tavella at 11:24 AM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
SPOILERS
It really does sometimes feel, watching people choose deliberately not to protect themselves and inventing insane justifications for it, that someone/thing has hacked their brains.
posted by tavella at 11:24 AM on August 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
James Tiptree Jr and Cordwainer Smith: two pseudonymous science fiction authors who rank in the top echelon of 1960s and 1970s of writers thereof share in common the most extraordinary of 20th Century childhoods; working as intelligence officers in the Second World War and continuing distinguished careers in the CIA thereafter. Among other things, it makes one wonder what the spook percentage of science fiction authors of that era was. Or is now.
posted by y2karl at 1:44 PM on August 31, 2021
posted by y2karl at 1:44 PM on August 31, 2021
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posted by mbo at 3:29 AM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]