"Brightness Falls From the Air" (Tiptree)

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Brightness Falls From the Air by "James Tiptree, Jr." (Alice Sheldon) (1985)

Reading this novel and knowing something about the woman who called herself "James Tiptree, Jr." is a strange experience. It's hard to ignore the fact that she fooled everybody into thinking she was male, with a distinctly "masculine" style of writing; it's also hard to ignore the fact that, when her elderly husband went blind and became helpless, she killed him with a shotgun and then killed herself.

Brightness Falls From the Air takes place in the far future, on a distant planet. Before the story takes place, a nearby star was destroyed in a war, killing all the inhabitants of its system. The light from that explosion is about to reach the planet, creating a spectacular light show. The planet is inhabited by fairy-like aliens, who were formerly tortured by humans in order to produce a drug from their bodies. A pair of humans have been assigned to the planet to act as guardians of the aliens. They will also serve as hosts to a small number of tourists who have come to see the light show.

The first part of the novel reads like a sophisticated Star Trek novel, making use of familiar science fiction themes. The second half is full of violence, suffering, and death. One can't help seeing the author's own suicide reflected in this, her second and last novel. Although there is a "happy ending" of sorts, for some of the characters, this is a very sad book.

 

[J-Sun]

One can't help seeing the author's own suicide reflected in this, her second and last novel. Although there is a "happy ending" of sorts, for some of the characters, this is a very sad book.

I agree. On a first reading, I could accept the whole but, on a second reading, I was struck by just how radically painful the story is and I actually decided I didn't want to read it a third time. Similarly, even though it seems much lighter and has the appealing "library" interludes, The Starry Rift is also quite painful and suicidal, especially "The Only Neat Thing to Do". In reading a significant majority of her work (might be a stretch to say "almost all" but it wouldn't be far wrong), I decided that, while she was never exactly a carefree comic writer or anything, she began to lose the aesthetic balance in her work around 1980 or so. Incidentally, I think her identity "came out" around this time or maybe a little earlier. Out of the Everywhere is a much tougher collection than the earlier ones, though still superb overall. A few of the first late 60s Tiptree stories are minor, though still mostly enjoyable. 80s Tiptree is just too much for me for the most part. 70s Tiptree was mostly her at her peak. I love her other novel, Up the Walls of the World (1978), too.

As far as Brightness, it is a good book (allowing for the depression/suicide/pain imbalance or lack of "transmutation" of it into something else) - I wouldn't want to put anyone off reading it but I also wouldn't want it to put anyone off reading earlier Tiptree.