The Screwfly Solution

rdf:langString The Screwfly Solution

rdf:langString The Screwfly Solution

rdf:langString The Screwfly Solution

rdf:langString Print

rdf:langString June 1977

rdf:langString Analog Science Fiction/Science Fact

rdf:langString The Screwfly Solution

rdf:langString "The Screwfly Solution" is a 1977 science fiction short story by Raccoona Sheldon, a pen name for American psychologist Alice Sheldon, who was better known by her other nom de plume James Tiptree, Jr. When the story was first published in June 1977, the identity of Alice Sheldon as both Tiptree and "Raccoona" Sheldon was unknown to the public or anyone in the science fiction community; a series of events triggered by the death of Sheldon's mother Mary Hastings Bradley in October 1977 resulted in the identity behind the pen-names being revealed by the end of the same year. "The Screwfly Solution" received the Nebula Award for Best Novelette in 1978, and has been adapted into a television film. The title refers to the sterile insect technique, a technique of eradicating the population of screwflies by the release of large amounts of sterilized males that would compete with fertile males, thus reducing the native population more with each generation this is done. This story concerns a similar distortion of human sexuality with disastrous results.