Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death

Moggadeet is a spider-like creature who has decided that, since he is intelligent, he will resist the instincts which lead his species through an exceptionally violent life-cycle which they call "the Plan" — including a drop in intelligence during winter.

As the years go by, Moggadeet gradually realizes that the winters are becoming longer and longer, and it is more and more difficult for him to resist becoming an unintelligent animal. In summer, he devises a plan to break out of the cycle: he captures and stockpiles prey for himself and his mate Lilliloo to eat during the winter, while holed up in a relatively warmer zone, in an attempt to keep his intelligence. However, after Lilliloo grows bigger than Moggadeet, she eats him. This too turns out to be part of the Plan, which Moggadeet was unable to escape.

"Love is the Plan the Plan is Death" has appeared in the following collections:[3]

• The Alien Condition edited by Stephen Goldin (1973)
• Nebula Award Stories 9 edited by Kate Wilhelm (1974)
• Warm Worlds and Otherwise by James Tiptree Jr (1975)
• The Future I edited by Joseph D. Olander, Martin H. Greenberg, and Isaac Asimov (1981)
• Great Science Fiction: Stories by the World's Great Scientists edited by Isaac Asimov, Martin H. Greenberg, and Charles G. Waugh (1985)
• Byte Beautiful: Eight Science Fiction Stories by James Tiptree Jr (1985)
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume IV edited by Terry Carr (1986)
• The Best of the Nebulas edited by Ben Bova (1989)
• Her Smoke Rose Up Forever by James Tiptree Jr (1990)

"Love is the Plan the Plan Is Death" won the 1974 Nebula Award for Best Short Story and was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novelette, and was ranked 3rd in the Locus Magazine poll for Best Short Fiction.

Kirkus Reviews called it "highly lauded",[4] while Lewis Call described it as a "bizarre but beautiful alien love story", emphasizing the contrast between Moggadeet's relationship with Lilliloo, and BDSM.[5] The Washington Post considered that the "image (of) an intelligent species whose biological imperatives compel females to devour their mates (...) is dramatized with the directness of an arrow striking a bullseye".[6]

For his acclaimed 2016 video artwork, Love is the Message, the Message is Death, filmmaker and artist Arthur Jafa invoked Tiptree's story in the echoed title structure.[7] The video, an indictment of America's simultaneous love affair with black culture and murder and oppression of black people, takes on added resonance when considered alongside Tiptree's tale of cannibalistic destruction intertwined with love.

Notes

Bibliography

• Text of the story at Lightspeed
• Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Tiptree, Jr., James (2001). "Love Is the Plan the Plan Is Death". replay.web.archive.org. Internet Archive. Archived from the original on 5 December 2005. Retrieved 19 May 2011.