He was sweating heavily, stripped to his shorts in the hotbox of what passed for a hotel room in Cuyapán. ( Log Out /  Change ). I think the story hit me particularly hard as that was the age I starting becoming aware of how many girls I knew who had been subjected to sexual harassment and abuse (I’m sure there were boys as well but that was even less acceptable to talk about so I retained some Candide-level ignorance on that point for a while). 1 The Screwfly Solution by Raccoona Sheldon: The young man sitting at 2° N, 75° W sent a casually venomous glance up at the nonfunctional shoofly ventilador and went on reading his letter. It seems like a fun bit of inclusion that fits historically and lets a science fiction great make a brief appearance in the campaign. Aliens short-circuited men’s sex drive and blurred it with violence. If “The Smell of Cherries” drew me into A Treasury of American Horror Stories, it was “The Screwfly Solution” (which oddly was picked for Michigan) that left the most lasting impression. I was a little shocked how angry some listeners became at the hosts even raising the prospect that one might see a linkage between Incels or the push-back against #MeToo and the culturally sanctioned violence against women in the story isn’t the same as saying there is a literal war against women, but I doubt we’ll relitigate that debate here. Humanity is doomed. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. Admittedly these were small steps, but I think ultimately it was an important part of growing up. | Tags: alice sheldon, book-tober. Book-tober 7: The Screwfly Solution Leave a comment. If you’ve never read it before, you can find it here. This story was recently covered by the H.P. ( Log Out /  Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. One thing nearly got me to not read it – the name of the author “Raccoona Sheldon” sounded like an absurd pseudonym. Cochliomyia hominivorax, the New World screw-worm fly. It is a great story, if simultaneously deeply awful. I don’t usually have nightmares, but I did after reading this – the sequence in the airport mostly. Axpoc Co. © 2018 - 2020   info @ readfrom.net, HP Pavilion 27 Touch Desktop 512GB SSD 5TB HD (AMD Ryzen CPU with Four Cores and Max Boost 3.70GHz, 16 GB RAM, 512 GB…, AT&T PREPAID Cingular Flip 2 Prepaid Feature Phone - Dark Gray (4 GB), HNTMAO S15 IPX8 Waterproof Bluetooth 5.0 Wireless Earbuds, 30H Playtime TWS Stereo Bluetooth Wireless Headphones for…, ViewSonic 3600 Lumens SVGA High Brightness Projector for Home and Office with HDMI Vertical Keystone and 1080p Support…, Ubiquiti Unifi Ap-AC Long Range - Wireless Access Point - 802.11 B/A/G/n/AC (UAPACLR5US). Our protagonist was one of the few survivors of the global femicide and probably one of the few people rational enough to notice that the earth’s new owners had started to arrive, all to give us that Twilight Zone turned up to 11 ending line – “I think I saw a real-estate agent.”  Damn. I was used to stories where, despite something distressing or terrifying happening, ultimately everything worked out, even if everyone did not survive. Maybe following my crush around from class to class and at after school events wasn’t cute or, as movies made it seem, romantic. Likewise I was forced to confront some of my own distorted notions about relationship and how interacted with certain people. Lovecraft Literary podcast to an unexpected amount of controversy – some listeners took umbrage that the hosts suggested readers might see parallels between elements in the story and certain contemporary social and political movements. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. It received the Nebula Award for Best Novelette (1978) and has been adapted into a television film. ( Log Out /  Both doctors who have been married and who are experiencing different sides of the epidemic where women are being murdered in … One final note – anyone running Masks of Nyarlathotep should consider including young Alice Bradley and her parents as NPCs in the Nairobi chapter. October 8, 2019 by Bret Kramer (aka WinstonP) James Tipree Jr. aka Alice Sheldon. Spoilers, obviously… Actually, just read the story. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. The apocalypse was in slow-motion but no-less total. Maybe it was creepy as hell and might make her feel unsafe. It is dark. October 8, 2019 by Bret Kramer (aka WinstonP). "The Screwfly Solution" is a 1977 science fiction short story by Raccoona Sheldon, a pen name for psychologist Alice Sheldon, who was better known by her other nom de plume, James Tiptree, Jr. I was pretty sheltered and was frankly a little naive. The Screwfly Solution by Raccooona Sheldon or James Triptree, Jr. 3 stars In "The Screwfly Solution" we follow letters being sent back and forth between Alan and Alice.