Northshore

The Awakeners #1

by Sheri S. Tepper

Pamra Don, a member of the Awakeners, with Thrasne, a river man, Lady Kesseret, and Treeci, decides to challenge the dominance of the powerful World River

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Collections, Religion, Speculative Fiction, Science Fiction Fantasy

248 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 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

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favorite author's earlier books. I like more descriptive writing than this - & her style became more so in later books - but she still has an uncanny ability to create a world without providing much detail. Of course, you're dumped right into the world, & it takes you 1/2-way into the book to figure out what the hell's going on...but somehow it's not annoying when Tepper does it.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this but just couldn't get along with it. It read like someone had read a Patricia McKillip novel and then attempted to write their own, building a complex world as they went with no prior planning of plot or final destination.

This is a short book of roughly 250 pages but despite this I kept having to check characters and names, it quickly became confusing and my attention wasn't engaged enough to recall. New characters are added even late into the book which grated on me.

I'm not sure I'll bother to read the second book or not. This novel just felt too much like icing on a not so robust cake - lots of creativity and ideas and not much plot or strong narrative.

[Yve · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to respect The Awakeners because unlike the other Tepper novels I've read it comes right out there with the really weird shit instead of waiting a couple hundred pages to make you comfortable first. It's set on a planet where there's a mysterious interdiction against travelling East, there's a strange disease called Blight that turns people into wood, there are alien bird-people offices with threatening names like Awakeners and Laughers, and most importantly, as soon as we meet the boatman Thrasne we learn that he's into... oh, just normal dude stuff: looking at wildlife, crafting, lusting after tiny women he's carved out of wood. It's only natural that he'd fish out the petrified body of a woman who committed suicide by Blight and keep her in his room!

I appreciated all the crazy stuff but this book got unpleasantly confusing at times, and in the end it felt far too long and did not leave me wanting to read Part Two.

[Nestor Pires Filho · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how many times I have read this book - and its complement, Southshore. They make an amazing story! But I must confess that, most probably due my eagerness and certain lack of English knowledge, the first time I've read this book it took me almost to the middle of it to realize that the Servants of Abricor were birds (I did misread "flier" by "flies") and had to come back all the way from the beginning.
But - believe me! - the image of the carrion eaters being giant "flies" is scary enough!

[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 sequel Southshore

[Spirit · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read Northshore a few years ago - it is utterly bizarre; relationships in the book are frankly disturbing (and a bit nonsensical). The age gap is pretty darn concerning with the final couple we're left on to be honest (it's really just plain gross). A good hunk of the strangeness that comes from this book is simply do to the world its written in, but boy is it a unsettling place. From what I remember the book is beautifully written, and it's a very intriguing read; to me this interest wasn't in the world, characters or plot but rather the way everything boiled over into one mass of absurdity. I kept turning the page to see how much more weirdness could be added into the story by the end. A lot of the things that happen in the story don't make sense or serve as a proper plot point (these add ons are typically the most odd things that happen in the book).

It's too weird for me, but is a fun story to try and describe to others.

[Meg Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredible and imaginative world building, as usual. I appreciate that Tepper introduces biological details, uses, and cultural contexts for the flora/fauna/tools/etc she invents with slow, unfolding care when she could easily bombard the reader with information as if she were writing a field guide (although I've enjoyed this approach in other writers' hands, in the past).
My main complaint with this is there is a steady rhythm jumping from the perspective of character to character, which keeps things dynamic and engaging, until about two thirds in, when each chapter suddenly becomes a free-for-all of new names, new bureaucracies , and new intrigues that felt piled onto the third act in a race to finish the book in order to get to the next in the series (which I will hopefully be able to acquire in this current crisis).

Also, ****spoiler**** , but Tepper really knows how to write an inter-species romance.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Without question one of the weirdest books I have ever read. It's all world building, and what a world. Original and intriguing - like nothing I've encountered before. Even with the focus on world building, I was still plenty confused. Unfortunately the world building left no time for character development. I didn't feel any of the characters were real or sympathetic - everyone was just a piece of the world building. Cruel and beautiful, disturbing and very religious.

It was well written in that I couldn't stop reading it. I've enjoyed mysteries written by Sheri S. Tepper under other names, which is why I picked this one up when I saw it on the free book shelf at the train station. I'm glad I read it but will not go seeking part 2.

[Myridian · Rating 5 out of 5]

So good. Just so good. Tepper is one of the great under appreciated writers of the genre. The way she weaves together the threads of the story without ever giving too much away but keeping you enthralled and gradually putting the pieces together throughout. I am very much looking forward to Southshore

[S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just read everything that she wrote.

[Francie McQuarrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not one of her best, a little verbose. Too many characters.

[Ruth]

[print]
Tepper is above any review.

[Lacey Louwagie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Riot Read Harder Challenge Item: Read a Book Published in the Decade You Were Born

One of the women in my book club told me this was the weirdest book she had ever read, and I was like, "Holy crap, I have that book!" so I ran home and bumped it to the top of my TBR.

And it is a weird book. The world it is set in is incredibly bizarre from page one, where a sailer strikes up an imaginary relationship with what is essentially a corpse, and you only find out the further you read how dark the underpinnings of this society really are. It is less ambitious and overtly political than Sheri S. Tepper's later works, but that makes it easier to just let yourself get lost in the book's strange atmosphere.

The book started to falter around the halfway point for me -- for such a slim volume, it felt like there were too many characters and perspectives and I started to lose track (and didn't realize until much later that there was an appendix to help in the back, d'oh!) Still, it was a worthwhile enough read that I immediately hunted down the sequel, which I will read after I get it back from the woman who told me this was the strangest book she'd ever read. :)

[Nadine in NY Jones]

Oh what a surprise, a Sheri Tepper book about an oppressive religion on an alien planet that hides ... SECRETS. This is a theme the author clearly is fond of.

Okay, I'm being sarcastic, and this book doesn't deserve that - I can see it's going to be a great book. Sadly, I did not finish it before I had to return it to the library, and it turns out that the entire county library system does not have the second part of the Awakeners um, duology? (what do you call a series of TWO?????) (Southshore), and I think they really need to be read as a set, and it's $18 on Amazon, so I'm not sure what I'll do ... I think Amazon has some decent prices listed on used copies, maybe I'll pursue that (and then offer it to my library! it's really unacceptable that they don't have it!)

[Isabel (kittiwake) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of Sheri S. Tepper's books are a lot longer than this one and I prefer short books, so I was very pleased to receive Northshore in a Secret Santa at last years BookCrossing Unconvention. So I was peeved to find that it doesn't have a proper ending but more or less stops dead, as if a longer work was chopped in half at the point that some of the characters are about to set off in search of fabled Southshore!

Apart for that, it was an interesting story, set on an alien planet colonised by humans, where a fake religion with a taboo against travelling West has been set up to prevent them finding out about the deal that has been made with the native inhabitants, the fliers.

I would like to know what happens next so I will try to find a copy of Southshore, and I may increase my rating if I do, as it would be higher if not for the lack of a proper ending.

[Jess · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book throws you right into Tepper's brand of weirdness. It's set on a world girdled by a river 2000 miles wide with waters that can turn you into wood, a religious order called the Awakeners that raise the dead to work, and sinister winged creatures called Fliers. A guy falls in love with a carving, then fishes its doppelganger from the water and falls in love with that. An explorer comes back bringing tales of an unexplored land on the south shore of the World River. It's very weird and you won't know what's going on for a while but I enjoyed it. It's unique if nothing else.

[EverStarless · Rating 4 out of 5]

The worst thing about rearranging ones' library no matter how humble in size, the danger therein lies the task at hand will not get done running into old and near forgotten treasures...Err,emm, so not to
depart from the principal line of purpose, plot, subject,here etc. and the sake of brevity, I'll close and just say my eyes and hands hungrily wrestle to resist thru my weekend. Belated Happy 4th Americans!

Godspeed Missouri and Japan..

Ciao

[Hectaizani · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is only half of the story. To read it all you have to continue with Southshore. As usual for Tepper you get dumped right into the middle of the action and it takes a while to figure out what's going on. An alien talking bird race, a disease that turns living flesh into wood, political intrigue this book has it all.

[Sandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this before, perhaps twice. It's a wonderful fantasy book, but you can't stop with Northshore. I just can't quite remember what happens to the characters, but had to go out and download southshore to find out. I had a paperback for the first one, but found the second for free as a pdf.

[Ginger (Sproutygamer) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Made it through this one, only made it through half of Southshore... got too political for me

[Miss Ginny Tea]

creepy relationship, ftl

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

VG fantasy but only pt 1, no kind of ending, must find 2!

[Allison Denny · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous and very well done. She's set me up to feel for characters I thought I disliked. I can't wait to see where the next one goes.