Houston, Houston, Do You Read? was originally published in Aurora: Beyond Equality, edited by Susan Janice Anderson and Vonda N. McIntyre and published by Fawcett Gold Medal in May, 1976. It won the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award. Houston, Houston, Do You Read? is the second of three Tiptree stories to be published in the Tor Doubles series, with only three female authors previously published in the series (four, if you include Joanna Russ in this volume), Tiptree is the first woman to have a second story included.

Major Norman “Dave” Davis, Captain Bernhard “Bud” Geirr, and “Doc” Orrin Lorimer are completing a year-long mission to orbit the sun in a spacecraft, the Sunbird. Upon nearing Earth, they are surprised, and annoyed, to hear women’s voices on the channels normally reserved for Mission Control in Houston. It becomes clear to the readers, if not the characters, that they have entered a Buck Rogers situation. Their orbit around the sun has resulted in their spaceship being catapulted into the far future.

Houston, Houston, Do You Read? begins slowly, partly because the characters don’t understand the situation. Tiptree is clearly attempting to build up a sense of ambiguity about the situation before she provides the resolution, but it gives the opening of the story a slow start before any real action can take place. He slowness of the characters to figure out what is happening demonstrates that they are set in their ways and not open to change, which raises questions about their place on a mission that is billed as scientific in nature, although it may be indicative of the perception (rightly or wrongly) in the mid-1970s of the type of man who was selected by NASA for the astronaut corps. (The first female astronauts, Anna. Fisher, Shannon Lucid, Judith Resnik, Sally Ride, Margaret Seddon, and Kathryn Sullivan wouldn’t be selected by NASA until 1978, two years after this story’s initial publication.)

Tiptree’s story is one in which the reader understands the situation well before the characters understand it. Lorimer’s realization that they are in a future in which men have become an extinct gender comes almost as an anticlimax since the reader has already figured it out. There are some surprises for the reader that are slowly revealed as the crew of the Sunbird and the women who have rescued them on board the Gloria.

Although Tiptree has created a complex and interesting society based on cloning with different genetic lines, cultures, and specialties, she only shows how the society works through the relatively small sample of the women who the crew of the Sunbird come into contact with. However, Tiptree describes the society as a whole and allows her characters to discuss it in familiar terms which brings it to life even if it isn’t depicted directly. Even if the three men don’t understand the implications of the future in which they have found themselves, the reader does understand it.

Eventually, the men begin to realize that the world in which they find themselves is as different for them as the world in which Charlton Heston’s George Taylor found himself in Planet of the Apes, even if it isn’t as obvious since it appears to be inhabited by the same types of women they all knew. Unfortunately, Dave and, especially Bud, are products of their own time. Even if Tiptree was writing a decade before the term “toxic masculinity” was coined, she describes it in Dave and Bud’s actions, even if Dave’s is tempered by the religious faith he professes.

For Dave and Bud, their actions are normal, and even Lorimar sees them as normal, even if he doesn’t condone them and understands them to be wrong. For the women of the rescue crew, their knowledge of men is tempered by the centuries since the last male walked the earth. Men are mythical beings and while there are warnings about their behavior, there is a distance that makes the warnings almost mythical in nature.

Tiptree introduces several female characters, the two Judys, Connie, Margo, and Myda. They are competent and intelligent, demonstrating the qualities and cultures of the different cloning lines. At the same time, some of them, but by no means all, demonstrate a naiveté that provides the opportunity for the male time-space travelers to abuse their hospitality.

The story is told through Lorimer’s eyes. It is clear that his atypical lack of toxic masculinity makes Bud view him as less than a real man and as Bud plots to take his rightful place in society as a man, he ignores any idea that Lorimer could offer him any real competition. Dave, who as commander, might be seen as someone who can help keep the situation under control uses his faith to conjure up visions of a biblical role in the post-pandemic world. At the same time, Lorimer’s more evolved views give him the potential for being the only one of the three men who could possibly find a place in the new world in which they find themselves while, at the same time, almost guarantees that he wouldn’t take advantage of that potential in any way.

Souls was originally published in F&SF  in February, 1982. It was nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, winning the former as well as the Locus poll and SF Chronicle poll.

While the novellas published in the Tor series up to this point have clearly been science fiction or fantasy, Souls, by Joanna Russ, reads, for the majority of the novella, like a straight historical novel. It details a Viking raid on a religious community. Told as a reminiscence of a man who remembered the raid from this childhood when he would hand around the community and help out in any way he could, the story focuses on how the abbess, Radegunde, attempted to assuage and mitigate the impact of the Viking raid.

From the very beginning of the story, Russ makes it clear that Radegunde is not a normal nun or abbess.  Precocious as a child, she was given the best training possible, sent to various monasteries and Rome to learn everything she would need to know before returning to take up her position as abbess. Once her credentials are established, Russ is able to throw a wrench into her life, with the arrival of the Vikings.

After giving instructions for her charges to lock the monastery doors and go into hiding, Radegunde goes to parlay with the Vikings. Although she greets one of the Vikings, Thorvald Einarsson, by name, the Viking points out to his men that she could easily have heard them calling to him. Radegunde states, however, that she has heard of Thorvald because she knew his nephew, Ranulf, when she lived in Rome and recognizes his name.

Although Radegunde makes a connection with Thorvald and extracts promises out of him by listening to him, taking him seriously, and treating him like a human with hopes and aspirations, she can’t fully stop Thorvald’s men from attacking the monastery and the people who live there, especially Thorfinn, who is not taken in by Radegunde’s manner and fears and hates her and the Christian god she represents.

Souls offers an exploration of how treating people with courtesy and, in the case of Radegunde, using the virtues that are taught by her religion and applied to everyone, including enemies, could make the world a better place. It offers a speculative fiction world in which religion is treated with respect and is shown as a force for good.

Labeling a story science fiction or fantasy, whether overtly, or because of where it has been published, either as half of a Tor Double, in the pages of Fantasy and Science Fiction, or noting it has been nominated for science fiction awards, gives the reader certain expectations in a which which can weaken the story’s impact. In the case of Souls, the story, as noted, reads like a straight historical fiction story. Radegunde may be preternaturally capable, intelligent, and educated. Seeming coincidences may help her cause, but little is outside the realm of possibility. At the same time, the reader is expecting something fantastic to happen.

It eventually does, although the actual science fictional element feels muted. At the same time, it puts Souls into a category of science fiction that includes Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade or perhaps Patricia Keannely-Morrison’s The Keltiad. What really makes the story work is not its science fictional elements, but the humanity with which Russ imbues Radegunde. She is viewed through the eyes of a man-boy-at-the-time-the-story-took-place, who practically worshipped her, making anything out of the ordinary the fault of his memory and feelings about her. Other characters, also seen from his point of view, are only shown with as much individuality as necessary, so Thorfinn, Radegunde’s antagonist, is seen as an unrepentant raider, Sister Sibihd is seen as his victim, dealing with her trauma, and Thorvald is a Viking leader with the potential for enlightenment. Russ’s narrator, however, is essentially non-reliable.

Although the science fictional aspect of Souls is important to the ending of the story, it almost feels as if Russ could have written the story without that addition without changing her story or its message too much. Radegunde’s abilities would have been out of the ordinary, but still explainable and, perhaps, the story would have been a slightly stronger affirmation of the power of faith, although it certainly would have changed the perception of the story and what happens in it.

The cover for Souls was painted by  Dieter Rottermund. The cover for Houston, Houston, Do You Read? was painted by Ron Walotsky.

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Steven H Silver is a twenty-one-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.