Southshore

The Awakeners #2

by Sheri S. Tepper

Pamra Don, a member of the Awakeners, rallies Northshore to confront the Protector of Man with the evil done in his name

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Collections, Science Fiction Fantasy

250 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Sheri 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.

Reviews

[Sas astro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sheri S Tepper has long been one of my favourite authors so I've decided to revisit some of her books. Yes her books have a recurring themes re oppression, man's inhumanity to anything different, environmental concerns, the oppression caused by religion etc but all done in a way that makes you (or me at least) stop and think. She creates worlds and peoples them with entirely believable species and drops you straight in there. I enjoyed this and it's prequel Northshore.

[S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just read everything that she wrote.

[Myridian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book picks up where Northshore left off and allows us to follow to their ends the main characters introduced in that book. This felt like a wonderful example of how you balance taking a third person view while also keeping the story intimate and having a deep understanding of the characters, their motivations, and their foibles. I can't praise this book too highly. It is so beautifully written and at once so immersive and so strange. It renewed my sadness that Tepper is no longer with us.

I imagine her with the Strangeys.

[Katherine Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very satisfying read, full of so many things I like--bizarre places and creatures, and widely diverse characters. Also powerful messages our world would do well to heed, but rarely does. Tepper illuminates the flaws and failings of our species.

[Ruth]

[print]

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

First, a quick word of advice: read this soon after reading Northshore! It picks up exactly where that one leaves off, with very little explanation of characters and situations. They are essentially two volumes of the same story, not separate narratives on their own. Also, coming to this without having read Northshore would be meaningless.
I ultimately enjoyed this series a lot, and found that it has a lot of what I think of as Tepper's trademarks: wildly overstuffed plots and world-building; evil elites who literally feed off of the rest of society for immortality; fascinating aliens who often oppose the humans but whose motivations make sense for themselves; grotesque villains whose appearances and descriptions verge on body horror. So if you like all that, you'll like this!
As for Southshore itself, it started out slowly for me and I almost debated not finishing it. The early part of the book has a lot of scenes in the Chancery, which is the least interesting part of this series for me and which has too many uninteresting and unpleasant characters (seriously, if you can keep track of Bossit, Jorn, Feynt, etc., and all their plotting against each other, you're a much better reader than me). But as the novel goes on the focus shifted to better characters like Medoor Babji, and the ending somewhat surprisingly given all that was going on, tied up the story nicely.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

very satisfying. everything I love about Sheri Tepper.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

true value of dead warriors--very sad