First published in 1976, reading from Her Smoke Rose Up Forever, The Great Years of James Tiptree Junior, 1990, Arkham, House, NY, pages 168-222

Doc Lorimer is the mission scientist who thinks of the other two members of the Sunbird’s crew as ‘slow-minded mesomorphs’. Doc is essentially a geek among jocks, and, they are all three under the effect of a drug that has them—or Doc at least—speaking of their deepest fears and darkest impulses. Unfortunately, there state is not part of a post-operative debriefing or a training simulation. Doc, Dave and Bud have been drugged by the aliens that rescued them, aliens who wish to ascertain the true nature of these three primitive astronauts.

The Sunbird’s mission was to circle the sun. Then they got hit by a solar flare and suffered damage. When they came out from behind the far side of the sun signaling Mission Control at Houston, they picked up transmissions from Luna and two solar craft. The voices were all female, the remains of the human race. A defect in the human genome, caused perhaps by the very solar flares that sent the Sunbird hundreds of years into the future, has reduced humanity to about a million clones of a hundred or so women.

Doc, Dave and Bud are being debriefed, debriefed by an essentially alien strain of humanity in the process of deciding whether or not there is a place for two jocks and a geek on a female planet earth. The weightless dialogue between Doc, his conscience, his memory, his fellow astronauts, and the quirky feminauts, has a dark psychedelic quality to it that leaves an echo in the reader’s mind. This is Sheldon at her unlevel best.

The plot and dialogue structure of Houston, Houston, Do You Read? shares numerous elements with the sci-fi movie classic Planet of the Apes. Sheldon, writing as James Tiptree Junior, demonstrates a level of balance in considering gender roles and perspectives that could not possibly be considered in the Nazi States of America circa 2014 by those who dominate the debate in fiction and nonfiction. It is actually shocking how much farther advanced Sheldon’s perspective on gender is than anything in literature or public discourse today.

Houston, Houston, Do You Read? is a must read for any science-fiction enthusiast who has not yet done so. However, if you are a feminist or a ‘masculinity advocate’, than do your peace-of-mind a favor and avoid this hopelessly balanced dialogue, appropriately conducted in the void.