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The End of the Game #3
Jinian Star-Eye
When the world of Lom seems mysteriously bent on its own destruction, Jinian and Peter enter the Great Maze, which holds all the memories of the world, in hopes of saving their home world
239 pages, Paperback
First published October 14, 1986
About the author
Sheri S. Tepper
76 books1,086 followersSheri Stewart Tepper was a prolific American author of science fiction, horror and mystery novels; she was particularly known as a feminist science fiction writer, often with an ecofeminist slant.
Born near Littleton, Colorado, for most of her career (1962-1986) she worked for Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, where she eventually became Executive Director. She has two children and is married to Gene Tepper. She operated a guest ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She wrote under several pseudonyms, including A.J. Orde, E.E. Horlak, and B.J. Oliphant. Her early work was published under the name Sheri S. Eberhart.
Born near Littleton, Colorado, for most of her career (1962-1986) she worked for Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood, where she eventually became Executive Director. She has two children and is married to Gene Tepper. She operated a guest ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
She wrote under several pseudonyms, including A.J. Orde, E.E. Horlak, and B.J. Oliphant. Her early work was published under the name Sheri S. Eberhart.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 3, 2018
*Contains Spoilers
I read the True Game half a dozen times as a kid. Open those books and you're walking through a bright and vivid world with life & magic all around you. "Bannerwell" evokes a castle built into a mountain. You can see it above you, zoom thru its inner structures, watch an array of Gamesmen in bright costume, and look from the battlements to forests teeming with flitchhawks & bunwits. "Dorn" and "Trandilar" evoke the familiar faces of old friends - people with amazing talents and fascinating personalities.
I reread the Peter books as a 28-year-old engineer, and they absolutely hold up. Tepper shows you a surreal world and then peels back layers to reveal a step in human evolution, psychic talents, advanced technology and a damaged environment. Leaders of an advanced planet doomed by war send a team of bioengineers (along with their wives & kids) to a bright new world to study a boy who can levitate and a girl who can read minds. The boy is Tamor, first and greatest Armiger, and the girl is Didir the Demon. They mate and sire a family who use their Talents to help people. Over time the settlers lose the technology and start Great Games as population control. Fast forward a millennium and you have the Peter books, which briefly recount these events. Tepper could have expanded this story into a rich prequel trilogy. Instead she created the disappointing Jinian sequels.
As a standalone trilogy, Jinian is ok. She narrates in a clear voice that carries the tones of a real conversation. She's hardened by experience but retains her humanity and zest for life. She struggles to create a simple, clear set of ethics for a now amoral civilization. The books include vivid descriptions, fluent dialog and colorful names. If you enjoy language you'll enjoy Daggerhawk demesne, quadrumanna, etc. The problem is the disappointing plot and dropped characters.
1) Instead of suddenly manifesting an easy Talent, wizards practice for years to develop skills that borrow a little from each talent. You could view their spells (mothwings-go-spinning, inner-is-quiet) as meditation exercises that channel the small psychic talent hidden in each pawn. Its a great idea, but Tepper shatters it when she reveals that the spells are actually magic words that call on spirits to break the laws of physics. Imagine saying magic words asking father forest to bend shadows around you. This is ok as a fairy tale, but destroys the rational world of Lom.
2) Lom is now a self-aware organism. Lom made all of its children live in harmony, but now Lom is sad because people are bad and ruining everything. This ignores the fact that life on Earth is 3.7 billion years old, there were four mass extinctions, and 99.9% of all species are now extinct. This is the nature of evolution. But Lom isn't the living world of the Peter Books, its the stage of a morality play. So everything on Lom (including sentient life) appeared overnight, lived in harmony and did Lom's will. Before the bad humans.
Instead of under-equipped people bravely colonizing a new world, people (the bioengineers?) screamed in stadiums and ruined the environment. They ignored quarries and tore up ancient roads to build small, ugly structures. Because that's how scientists behave? They somehow had enough people and tech to wage massive war against the natives, but not enough resources to maintain any of it a few decades later.
3) The Talents are gifts of Lom. How did Tamor and Didir get them before they came to Lom? And why do we need Lom if Tamor is father of the physical powers and Didir is mother of the mental ones? Tepper already created a complete system of Talents springing from these two (ie, healing = moving + seeing), so why do we need the planet?
4) Lom revokes the Talents to punish people. Maybe Lom can manipulate the environment to epigenetically shut off the Talent genes. But instantly, planet-wide? Think about how much radiation you'd have to dump into the atmosphere in such a short time, how much power that takes, and how anyone could possibly survive. Again, magic instead of sci fi.
All for a dreary ending where people lose what are now portrayed as shallow Talents. Forget that Dealpas the healer was a master physician who could manipulate the body without any need for tools. Or that shifter Mavin was a master zoologist. Nope, the Talents are just flashy narcissism that people are better off losing.
5) Lom heals itself overnight. This completely ignores the integrative effects of the ecosystem, human impact on the carbon & nitrogen cycles, greenhouse effects, melting icecaps, dying soil bacteria, etc. The Peter books end with a rational, caring group of people working together to fix a wayward medieval civilization. The planet is a damaged but still vital home that needs repair. Here the planet stands in judgement of them like an Old Testament god, ready to kill everything, and we've left the healthy common sense of the Peter books far behind.
6) What happened to the Gamesmen of Barish, closer to Peter than his blood relatives? Where is Dealpas, the pouting broken-leaf spoiled by Barish? She gets one sentence. Where is charming, beguiling Trandilar? She's conveniently absent so that Sylbie can't meet her. In the first books Peter took Trandilar into his mind and she made love to Sylbie. Sylbie thinks she loves Peter but really loves Trandilar. This sets up the possibility for a complex romantic entanglement between Sylbie & Trandilar, but we don't get it. Because Trandilar, so nonviolent that she won't even watch the battle in Wizard's Eleven, is off on guard duty.
7) Great characters (Windlow, Silkhands) are missing or get tiny, bland cameos. Dorn does one very Dorn-like thing that makes you smile once in the dreary ending, and shows why Tepper inserted him so early in the Peter books. Dodir is a credit to Wafnor's line. But mostly the originals are missing or bland. Didir is off in High Demesne, a page later she's in Bright Demesne. Tepper doesn't notice. She's tired of her creation and it shows.
8) The Peter books emphasize plot while illustrating the importance of nature and women. Jinian sidelines plot for increasingly ugly ecofeminist propaganda. Peter practically tries to rape Jinian over her oath of celibacy, and only stops because Queynt and Chance are there. Peter is impulsive but this shows a brutal streak that's completely out of his character. Tepper wrote off Peter the hero to create Peter the object lesson, which is that men are knuckle-dragging brutes who can't help ourselves around women. She satirizes the pro-life group as chauvinist monsters who worship "the fruits of St Phallus", making women slave over severely retarded children. This is ugly and simplistic regardless of your stance on abortion.
Sheri Tepper is one of the few truly original fantasy authors. Her Peter books are great. I owe Tepper a big thanks for writing them. But Jinian, despite being fairly intelligent & well-written, is a disappointing sequel.
I read the True Game half a dozen times as a kid. Open those books and you're walking through a bright and vivid world with life & magic all around you. "Bannerwell" evokes a castle built into a mountain. You can see it above you, zoom thru its inner structures, watch an array of Gamesmen in bright costume, and look from the battlements to forests teeming with flitchhawks & bunwits. "Dorn" and "Trandilar" evoke the familiar faces of old friends - people with amazing talents and fascinating personalities.
I reread the Peter books as a 28-year-old engineer, and they absolutely hold up. Tepper shows you a surreal world and then peels back layers to reveal a step in human evolution, psychic talents, advanced technology and a damaged environment. Leaders of an advanced planet doomed by war send a team of bioengineers (along with their wives & kids) to a bright new world to study a boy who can levitate and a girl who can read minds. The boy is Tamor, first and greatest Armiger, and the girl is Didir the Demon. They mate and sire a family who use their Talents to help people. Over time the settlers lose the technology and start Great Games as population control. Fast forward a millennium and you have the Peter books, which briefly recount these events. Tepper could have expanded this story into a rich prequel trilogy. Instead she created the disappointing Jinian sequels.
As a standalone trilogy, Jinian is ok. She narrates in a clear voice that carries the tones of a real conversation. She's hardened by experience but retains her humanity and zest for life. She struggles to create a simple, clear set of ethics for a now amoral civilization. The books include vivid descriptions, fluent dialog and colorful names. If you enjoy language you'll enjoy Daggerhawk demesne, quadrumanna, etc. The problem is the disappointing plot and dropped characters.
1) Instead of suddenly manifesting an easy Talent, wizards practice for years to develop skills that borrow a little from each talent. You could view their spells (mothwings-go-spinning, inner-is-quiet) as meditation exercises that channel the small psychic talent hidden in each pawn. Its a great idea, but Tepper shatters it when she reveals that the spells are actually magic words that call on spirits to break the laws of physics. Imagine saying magic words asking father forest to bend shadows around you. This is ok as a fairy tale, but destroys the rational world of Lom.
2) Lom is now a self-aware organism. Lom made all of its children live in harmony, but now Lom is sad because people are bad and ruining everything. This ignores the fact that life on Earth is 3.7 billion years old, there were four mass extinctions, and 99.9% of all species are now extinct. This is the nature of evolution. But Lom isn't the living world of the Peter Books, its the stage of a morality play. So everything on Lom (including sentient life) appeared overnight, lived in harmony and did Lom's will. Before the bad humans.
Instead of under-equipped people bravely colonizing a new world, people (the bioengineers?) screamed in stadiums and ruined the environment. They ignored quarries and tore up ancient roads to build small, ugly structures. Because that's how scientists behave? They somehow had enough people and tech to wage massive war against the natives, but not enough resources to maintain any of it a few decades later.
3) The Talents are gifts of Lom. How did Tamor and Didir get them before they came to Lom? And why do we need Lom if Tamor is father of the physical powers and Didir is mother of the mental ones? Tepper already created a complete system of Talents springing from these two (ie, healing = moving + seeing), so why do we need the planet?
4) Lom revokes the Talents to punish people. Maybe Lom can manipulate the environment to epigenetically shut off the Talent genes. But instantly, planet-wide? Think about how much radiation you'd have to dump into the atmosphere in such a short time, how much power that takes, and how anyone could possibly survive. Again, magic instead of sci fi.
All for a dreary ending where people lose what are now portrayed as shallow Talents. Forget that Dealpas the healer was a master physician who could manipulate the body without any need for tools. Or that shifter Mavin was a master zoologist. Nope, the Talents are just flashy narcissism that people are better off losing.
5) Lom heals itself overnight. This completely ignores the integrative effects of the ecosystem, human impact on the carbon & nitrogen cycles, greenhouse effects, melting icecaps, dying soil bacteria, etc. The Peter books end with a rational, caring group of people working together to fix a wayward medieval civilization. The planet is a damaged but still vital home that needs repair. Here the planet stands in judgement of them like an Old Testament god, ready to kill everything, and we've left the healthy common sense of the Peter books far behind.
6) What happened to the Gamesmen of Barish, closer to Peter than his blood relatives? Where is Dealpas, the pouting broken-leaf spoiled by Barish? She gets one sentence. Where is charming, beguiling Trandilar? She's conveniently absent so that Sylbie can't meet her. In the first books Peter took Trandilar into his mind and she made love to Sylbie. Sylbie thinks she loves Peter but really loves Trandilar. This sets up the possibility for a complex romantic entanglement between Sylbie & Trandilar, but we don't get it. Because Trandilar, so nonviolent that she won't even watch the battle in Wizard's Eleven, is off on guard duty.
7) Great characters (Windlow, Silkhands) are missing or get tiny, bland cameos. Dorn does one very Dorn-like thing that makes you smile once in the dreary ending, and shows why Tepper inserted him so early in the Peter books. Dodir is a credit to Wafnor's line. But mostly the originals are missing or bland. Didir is off in High Demesne, a page later she's in Bright Demesne. Tepper doesn't notice. She's tired of her creation and it shows.
8) The Peter books emphasize plot while illustrating the importance of nature and women. Jinian sidelines plot for increasingly ugly ecofeminist propaganda. Peter practically tries to rape Jinian over her oath of celibacy, and only stops because Queynt and Chance are there. Peter is impulsive but this shows a brutal streak that's completely out of his character. Tepper wrote off Peter the hero to create Peter the object lesson, which is that men are knuckle-dragging brutes who can't help ourselves around women. She satirizes the pro-life group as chauvinist monsters who worship "the fruits of St Phallus", making women slave over severely retarded children. This is ugly and simplistic regardless of your stance on abortion.
Sheri Tepper is one of the few truly original fantasy authors. Her Peter books are great. I owe Tepper a big thanks for writing them. But Jinian, despite being fairly intelligent & well-written, is a disappointing sequel.
April 7, 2021
Hot Take
I really liked this book until it wrapped up in a baffling if likely accidental endorsement of eugenics and genocide. But, like, the connection there isn't a stretch, and it's hard to come back from something like that. Even if I still think Jinian Footseer is one of the premier books of vintage fantasy.
I wanted to post my entire review, but it is far too long for Goodreads, so you can find it on my blog, Forgotten Female Fantasy, where I review vintage, woman-authored sff.
(Note, the second star is based on the technical writing and the fact that I'm fairly sure Tepper didn't mean to endorse eugenics. If I felt specific malice, it'd have been 1 star.)
I really liked this book until it wrapped up in a baffling if likely accidental endorsement of eugenics and genocide. But, like, the connection there isn't a stretch, and it's hard to come back from something like that. Even if I still think Jinian Footseer is one of the premier books of vintage fantasy.
I wanted to post my entire review, but it is far too long for Goodreads, so you can find it on my blog, Forgotten Female Fantasy, where I review vintage, woman-authored sff.
(Note, the second star is based on the technical writing and the fact that I'm fairly sure Tepper didn't mean to endorse eugenics. If I felt specific malice, it'd have been 1 star.)
July 15, 2020
Read 20 odd years ago,found on bookshelf
June 6, 2018
I really enjoyed Sheri S. Tepper’s book Jinian Star-Eye. It was a action packed book with a weird plot twist that just made it even more exciting to read. I would recommend this book to anyone that likes fantasy adventure novels, especially if you like unique settings.
First, the setting was pretty cool you could understand what was happening around you and get a clear picture about what it looked like. The Daylight Tower was one of the many locations that changed many times and each time they were described they were describe very well. Second, how she did the point of view was really interesting because she had it in first person and switched between Jinian’s and Peter’s, the two main characters, points of view. Sheri S. Tepper had switched between characters so well that you could easily tell which one was which. I liked it because it was telling the life of Jinian on her adventure.
Third, Sheri S. Tepper had enough information about each character that it was interesting; you could visualize what they looked like you didn’t have to try hard. She did focus on Jinian more but that's because she was the main character. There was just enough info that during the whole story i got a feel about what each character would do or say, I understood their personalities. They had slowly changed and developed over the course of the story.
My favorite thing about this book was that for the ending of a trilogy it was a great way to conclude the story. One of my favorite things about this book and it’s other books was the use of powers and how vast they were. One of the powers was shapeshifting, used by one of the main characters, where you could change the shape of your body you just had to eat a lot. Me and my mom both like this book a lot and I was actually named after this book.
First, the setting was pretty cool you could understand what was happening around you and get a clear picture about what it looked like. The Daylight Tower was one of the many locations that changed many times and each time they were described they were describe very well. Second, how she did the point of view was really interesting because she had it in first person and switched between Jinian’s and Peter’s, the two main characters, points of view. Sheri S. Tepper had switched between characters so well that you could easily tell which one was which. I liked it because it was telling the life of Jinian on her adventure.
Third, Sheri S. Tepper had enough information about each character that it was interesting; you could visualize what they looked like you didn’t have to try hard. She did focus on Jinian more but that's because she was the main character. There was just enough info that during the whole story i got a feel about what each character would do or say, I understood their personalities. They had slowly changed and developed over the course of the story.
My favorite thing about this book was that for the ending of a trilogy it was a great way to conclude the story. One of my favorite things about this book and it’s other books was the use of powers and how vast they were. One of the powers was shapeshifting, used by one of the main characters, where you could change the shape of your body you just had to eat a lot. Me and my mom both like this book a lot and I was actually named after this book.
October 25, 2021
The last part of the story - which I gobbled up in just a few days. What a lucky find on the library booksale tables! even though the pages are yellow with age. I'm glad to discover that Tepper's work was strong in the beginning. Humour, poignancy, danger and death - but you'll be relieved to know that nearly everyone lives, and it's a good ending. And it leaves you hungry for more of her stories.
January 21, 2021
My fave True Game series.
November 15, 2016
This is the last book in the world of the True Game. Peter had a trilogy, Mavin had a prequel trilogy, and a Jinian trilogy that slightly overlapped with Peter's.
Lom is dying. The world has seen too much destruction and is committing suicide. Jinian and Peter enter the Maze to try to understand what is happening. In it they see Lom's memories. Ganver, an old eesty, shows them memories of the Daylight Bell and of its destruction as well as the peace and harmony that the world had before humans arrived and the devastation that happened over the next thousand years.
When they are through looking at the Maze they decide they must rebuild the tower and make the Daylight Bell whole again. There are obstacles in their path. The oracle is after Jinian, so they split up. Peter going south, first to the caverns where the hundred thousand are being resurrected and then to the High Demesne which is under siege by Huldra and Dedrina. Jinian being joined by Murzy, Cat Candleshy and the rest of her seven. The Wize-ards are eager to hear about the Maze, but Jinian says the must do it on the move. They have to rebuild the tower and must figure out a way to handle the shadows.
The part in the Maze was a bit too dreamlike for me to fully enjoy. After that a fun read. The story picked up, good action, nice twists, we cared about the characters, clever resolutions, and Jinian understanding what it is to be a Star-Eye. Nice conclusion to the series.
Lom is dying. The world has seen too much destruction and is committing suicide. Jinian and Peter enter the Maze to try to understand what is happening. In it they see Lom's memories. Ganver, an old eesty, shows them memories of the Daylight Bell and of its destruction as well as the peace and harmony that the world had before humans arrived and the devastation that happened over the next thousand years.
When they are through looking at the Maze they decide they must rebuild the tower and make the Daylight Bell whole again. There are obstacles in their path. The oracle is after Jinian, so they split up. Peter going south, first to the caverns where the hundred thousand are being resurrected and then to the High Demesne which is under siege by Huldra and Dedrina. Jinian being joined by Murzy, Cat Candleshy and the rest of her seven. The Wize-ards are eager to hear about the Maze, but Jinian says the must do it on the move. They have to rebuild the tower and must figure out a way to handle the shadows.
The part in the Maze was a bit too dreamlike for me to fully enjoy. After that a fun read. The story picked up, good action, nice twists, we cared about the characters, clever resolutions, and Jinian understanding what it is to be a Star-Eye. Nice conclusion to the series.
March 5, 2014
I think as she wrote these books, she lost something in herself at the end. Maybe she found something, but in doing so, she lost something. Either way, the books lose their sense of wonder and detail. I was bored through a lot of it. I wasn't heavily invested anymore in the characters, except Proom, and even the mystery of the daylight bell wasn't enough. I suppose it was good in a way, as I found myself satisfied at the end of the series, instead of longing for more as I often do when a series concludes.
September 4, 2022
This was the last book in the Jinian trilogy, and until Tepper's last book, the last we saw of any of the True Game characters. I loved the turnips in this book. Although there might have been many ways to fill their niche in the story, the silliness of the turnips did much to relieve the sorrow of the end of this saga. The world lost a great storyteller when Tepper died.
May 1, 2009
This is a really good series. I just love it. I never loan my books out to people cause I never get them back or they destory the book, so I have alot of these books to read again and again and again.
November 13, 2025
Good. The conclusion to this trilogy and the whole series. It does get a little bit weird at times, but that fits into the story, and it moves at quite a fast pace. It is a good conclusion and I would recommend this whole series.
August 6, 2008
The author tires of her creation and kills it off.
October 8, 2009
A different kind of fantasy. Fun stories.
June 22, 2010
a new visit with a favorite world
March 31, 2011
Jinian Footseer Trilogy in omnibus edition, BAO is key
January 18, 2016
mon édition a une bien meilleure illustration par Steve BRADBURY (CORGI 1988) Lu et relu J'adore le personnage de Jinian et cette planète vivante
November 6, 2016
I skipped the middle books, but still enjoyed it.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews