What do you think?
Rate this book
Singer from the Sea
Locus magazine has called Sheri S. Tepper "one of SF's most distinctive voices." Few writers in any genre possess her astonishing ability to combine intelligence, imagination, humor, and humanism in equal measure. Her latest novel is yet another remarkable feat of world-building that employs uncommon insight, literary creativity, and truth to say much about our own sphere. An accomplished student and heiress to a great title, Genevieve has been well brought up to be a Proper Young Lady on the isolated, seemingly backward planet of Haven. She has been carefully instructed in the Covenants - the inflexible laws governing the women of her class - and knows she must soon take up the time-honored responsibilities of adult to marry a nobleman of her father's choosing in her mid-twenties and to bear a child at age thirty. There is another Genevieve, however, who does not wish to be proper - a Genevieve who longs to heed the call of the sea, though she has never even seen the vast waters that cover most of her planet's surface. For she remembers the stories and secret knowledge she learned from her mother, now long-dead. And Genevieve questions in silence what is forbidden her to why noblewomen must wait until thirty to have children...why so many like her die in childbirth while commoners thrive into their eighties...and, especially, why she must wed the horrid Prince Delganor, whom she detests, rather than the wonderful - if common - Colonel Aufors, whom she adores. But the simple customs that rule and confine her life are merely a smokescreen masking a terrible truth, one that Genevieve is fated to uncover. For an unheard voice crying out across the centuries must be answered. And a forgotten destiny - something inborn passed for untold generations from daughter to daughter-must be fulfilled. If not, the entire civilization of Haven is doomed to be swept away on a cosmic sea of oblivion; to vanish without a trace, as if it had never been.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
38 people are currently reading
919 people want to read
About the author
Sheri S. Tepper
74 books1,081 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
February 2, 2014
A fairly conventional sci-fi story of a colony world seeking to save itself and redeem its inhabitants. Haven is an interesting world, earth-like enough to attract sympathy and foreign enough to be mysterious. There are some entertaining characters, too, though mostly they fall into typical categories - lonely heroine, selfish bastard father, corrupt politicians, kooky minor characters who keep the plot going forward. While I enjoy considering the philosophical questions these types of stories raise, I can't say I necessarily agree with the philosophy/theology this book espouses, and I take issue with the straw-man argument set up for it. I'd have to say the plot is the strength of this story - the mystery of the missing women and the secret of Haven kept me turning the pages, even when I found the major characters flat or annoying from time to time. (Not that the mystery was very surprising in the end; it is too formulaic a story to be very surprising. But the formula does not bother me.) The end was somewhat disappointing - a few things were (too neatly) explained, and the great unanswered questions that should arise from social upheaval were just set aside. As though the characters themselves were not interested in them. All in all, I think it's a story that's been told many times before, and this particular telling is enjoyable, if not perhaps very memorable.
Currently reading
November 8, 2010Ms. Tepper is starting to repeat herself, but I couldn't possibly care. Her bizarre, post-apocalyptic feminism is my lullaby.
December 26, 2016
Not Tepper's best but still excellent; has definite feminist, environmentalist, anti-racism, and anti-classist vibes. My favorite quote from it:
"...[Each] world has a song that is begun with the first life on a world, a song that sounds within the world to foster life and variation. All living creatures are a part of the song which shall be sung forever, until the last star goes out...[But] sometimes living creatures do not wish to be part of the song; they do not hear it; they rise up against it; they cry that they are larger than the song and more important than the music, and when their words drown out the song, then the world begins to die. Within the song, we are an immortal resonance. Outside it, we are like the tinkle of a tiny bell, gone quickly into nothing."
"...[Each] world has a song that is begun with the first life on a world, a song that sounds within the world to foster life and variation. All living creatures are a part of the song which shall be sung forever, until the last star goes out...[But] sometimes living creatures do not wish to be part of the song; they do not hear it; they rise up against it; they cry that they are larger than the song and more important than the music, and when their words drown out the song, then the world begins to die. Within the song, we are an immortal resonance. Outside it, we are like the tinkle of a tiny bell, gone quickly into nothing."
December 26, 2014
I grabbed this from my shelves of to-read books for a trip I'd spend largely at sea. I've read many Tepper novels over the years, and I'm starting to see some repeating themes - the future post-technology fantasy worlds where people have reverted back to nature, yet there are people from other worlds involved and usually some kind of fantastical creature. This isn't as bad as it was in A Plague of Angels and The Waters Rising, which felt like she had thrown every possible theme or trope ever invented into one epic quest story, but not as successful as the smaller worlds of Grass or The Gate to Women's Country. I like her feminism, but sometimes it gets messy.
For this novel to be better, I would have preferred more sea-people and less spice! The reverting back to nature element is fascinating and it is a shame we really only get to that after 400 pages of spice and competing male rulers of two different planets.
For this novel to be better, I would have preferred more sea-people and less spice! The reverting back to nature element is fascinating and it is a shame we really only get to that after 400 pages of spice and competing male rulers of two different planets.
December 30, 2023
great feminist scifi/fantasy!!
July 8, 2008
I read this book last summer, at the beginning of June. I felt I deserved a moment's rest, and I wanted to return to some of Tepper's novels.
This book was much better than many of her works.
It takes the same form I'd seen in Grass and Gate to Women's Country. It's a science fiction novel and yet it is a mystery. The setting is the distant future on a world surrounded by water, and a mystery drives the action and the characters.
One of the reasons why I like to read Tepper is that she challenges my world view. Many of her male characters are terrible human beings. Some of her female characters are stupid. This combination is always bad, and the situation is always and only saved because the heroine is a wise, practical woman who figures out the mystery. Well, okay, usually not in time to save everyone, so the story is always tense, too.
This book was particularly enjoyable, perhaps because the bad male characters are so incredibly awful, the stupid women are so familiar - oops, I mean, they resonate, and the heroine is fun and chick-novel smart. She is easy to identify with, and the mystery keeps on getting worse and worse. Finally, this is one of the novels where Tepper gives her readers a fine male character. He doesn't get to be perfect - I suspect that Tepper is incapable of making a perfectly admirable human male character! - but it gives a chance to enjoy the heroine even more.
So, add another characteristic to her novels: Sf, mystery, feminist!
This book was much better than many of her works.
It takes the same form I'd seen in Grass and Gate to Women's Country. It's a science fiction novel and yet it is a mystery. The setting is the distant future on a world surrounded by water, and a mystery drives the action and the characters.
One of the reasons why I like to read Tepper is that she challenges my world view. Many of her male characters are terrible human beings. Some of her female characters are stupid. This combination is always bad, and the situation is always and only saved because the heroine is a wise, practical woman who figures out the mystery. Well, okay, usually not in time to save everyone, so the story is always tense, too.
This book was particularly enjoyable, perhaps because the bad male characters are so incredibly awful, the stupid women are so familiar - oops, I mean, they resonate, and the heroine is fun and chick-novel smart. She is easy to identify with, and the mystery keeps on getting worse and worse. Finally, this is one of the novels where Tepper gives her readers a fine male character. He doesn't get to be perfect - I suspect that Tepper is incapable of making a perfectly admirable human male character! - but it gives a chance to enjoy the heroine even more.
So, add another characteristic to her novels: Sf, mystery, feminist!
May 8, 2024
This novel is a strongly-stressed parable about consuming: eating, spoiling, using up and undervaluing resources from nature and human society.
The base story is engaging; as we follow an upper-crust maiden through her “prep-school” training and her debut at court, we learn the Genevieve has powers not possessed by other girls in her society. Its foundational tale is almost like a Regency novel, complete with evil old suitors for the young girl’s hand, a deceased mother and an heroic (though unqualified) young man who strives to help Genevieve as he falls in love with her.
One by one, the author pours additional, darker flavors into this stew: a king collects precious treasures, then consigns them to a rubbishy pile; men are made widowers over and over as each wife dies tragically; an addictive substance consumes more and more of the attention and prosperity of the land.
Tepper’s work is always richly seasoned with ecological, religious, sociological and feminist arguments. It is ironic, then, that The Singer from the Sea can be read as a warning of the dangers of fetal stem cell research.
The desire to live longer and better lives is a basic human yearning. Tepper’s story warns us that “mining” the wombs of women and the lives of our children to sate the hunger for long life will lead us, in the end, to barrenness and death.
The base story is engaging; as we follow an upper-crust maiden through her “prep-school” training and her debut at court, we learn the Genevieve has powers not possessed by other girls in her society. Its foundational tale is almost like a Regency novel, complete with evil old suitors for the young girl’s hand, a deceased mother and an heroic (though unqualified) young man who strives to help Genevieve as he falls in love with her.
One by one, the author pours additional, darker flavors into this stew: a king collects precious treasures, then consigns them to a rubbishy pile; men are made widowers over and over as each wife dies tragically; an addictive substance consumes more and more of the attention and prosperity of the land.
Tepper’s work is always richly seasoned with ecological, religious, sociological and feminist arguments. It is ironic, then, that The Singer from the Sea can be read as a warning of the dangers of fetal stem cell research.
The desire to live longer and better lives is a basic human yearning. Tepper’s story warns us that “mining” the wombs of women and the lives of our children to sate the hunger for long life will lead us, in the end, to barrenness and death.
March 19, 2018
There is one moment in this book, toward the end, where it all comes together and I actually got a little thrill from the wish fulfillment of it all. Tepper is telling a story about women literally finding their voice, and saving a world in the process, and on a very grand scale - and she pulls it off completely.
This falls somewhere on the scale between McKinley's Hero and the Crown - where you wish the whole time that you WERE her - and Tanith Lee's the Heroine of the World, where you are rather glad NOT to be her. Terrible and dangerous things are happening to Genevieve - some nice things too - but there's never a point when you'd like to disengage from the story, please...
Highly recommend. Is it a book about the evils of the patriarchy and ecological genocide? Oh my yes. But dressed up so beautifully and originally, I didn't mind.
This falls somewhere on the scale between McKinley's Hero and the Crown - where you wish the whole time that you WERE her - and Tanith Lee's the Heroine of the World, where you are rather glad NOT to be her. Terrible and dangerous things are happening to Genevieve - some nice things too - but there's never a point when you'd like to disengage from the story, please...
Highly recommend. Is it a book about the evils of the patriarchy and ecological genocide? Oh my yes. But dressed up so beautifully and originally, I didn't mind.
March 5, 2012
The classic horror tale, "Good Lady Ducayne" meets "Whale Rider." On an alien planet.
Yep, that about sums it up!
This was a re-read - I couldn't remember if I'd read it before, but it'd been long enough that it was still very enjoyable. This is Sheri Tepper, so, as one might expect, planets have sentient spirits, women are oppressed in creepy and disturbing ways by evil and powerful men, and a heroine fights for social justice and the environment.
If you enjoy stories that have vampires and mermaids, you will probably like this book. Not that it HAS vampires or mermaids, technically... but, sorta.
Yep, that about sums it up!
This was a re-read - I couldn't remember if I'd read it before, but it'd been long enough that it was still very enjoyable. This is Sheri Tepper, so, as one might expect, planets have sentient spirits, women are oppressed in creepy and disturbing ways by evil and powerful men, and a heroine fights for social justice and the environment.
If you enjoy stories that have vampires and mermaids, you will probably like this book. Not that it HAS vampires or mermaids, technically... but, sorta.
January 11, 2023
more sf should make bold and brave claims like "whales evolved full sentience on land but chose to go back into the ocean and think about philosophy for a while because they decided they weren't ethically evolved enough to have opposable thumbs", or "if a planet had a soul it would be a huge glowy gold amorphous fish thing that can communicate by singing and also got a woman pregnant that one time". unfortunately the blatant islamophobia did knock this one down a star for me.
March 19, 2022
Usually, when I finish a book, I write the review right away. That's how I always do it, really... until this book. This book...
This book was so bad I didn't know what to say.
I still don't, really.
And it makes me sad because Tepper has some really great books (The Gate to Women's Country for one). But I have been mentioning as I've gone along reading her books that they were less and less good.
The real issue is that her books are mostly all the same. They are all made of the same ingredients. And there are a lot of things you can do with, say, potatoes but, after awhile, you're tired of potatoes, no matter how they're prepared. This book is no different and has all of the usual ingredients:
1. Female protagonist
2. with some sort of secret mental ability
3. that she has no knowledge of before the story starts.
4. The fate of the world is in the hands of the protagonist.
5. There either has been or about to be some sort of global catastrophe.
6. Aliens are involved in some way and often have some sort of connection the "spirit of the world"
7. which is somehow connected to the protagonist.
8. There is some mystery to be solved, usually dealing with why and how the protagonist has these special powers.
optional ingredient: There is a prophecy involved.
Thinking about all of that, now, as I wrote it down, The Gate to Women's Country is the only book of hers that I have read that doesn't have all of this stuff in it. Some of it but not all.
To make matters worse with Singer, it's like Tepper couldn't decide what story she actually wanted to tell. There is one story being told at the beginning of the novel, and I was enjoying that one well enough, though I hadn't really been "grabbed" by it, but about 1/3 of the way in, the story completely changes. Abruptly. The protagonist is told almost out of the blue "you need to run for your life," and she takes off and the whole tone and structure of the story changes. It was like the main character stepped into a different book. And it happened again later, too. It's not that this kind of thing doesn't happen in books sometimes but, when it does, the author usually has some kind of reason and ties it back in later. I think Tepper tried to tie it all together at the end, but it really felt forced and like she started one story, realized she wanted to tell a different story, and just switched mid-book, leaving the opening story attached.
The mystery in this book is solved less by the characters trying to solve than by them stumbling upon things randomly and/or accidentally, accompanied by huge leaps of logic that the character had no legitimate reason to make. But, then, Tepper acted in this book as if when one character discovered something, then all of the characters magically knew that piece of information. Authors do this sometimes, but it's lazy storytelling. "I don't feel like getting this piece of information from character A to character B, so everyone will just know everything."
Oh, and at the end of the book, the protagonist suddenly has gills and can breathe under water. That's when I really wanted to throw the book across the room. Seriously, what the fuck? She already has special powers and, now, you're going to just toss in gills because it's convenient to what you want to do in the story? ugh
I could never in good conscious suggest that anyone should read this book. I've read a lot of bad books in my time, and this is right down there with the worst of them. Go get yourself a copy of The Gate to Women's Country and read that -- it really is a great book -- but don't go farther than that with Tepper, no matter how much you're tempted. It's all downhill from there.
This book was so bad I didn't know what to say.
I still don't, really.
And it makes me sad because Tepper has some really great books (The Gate to Women's Country for one). But I have been mentioning as I've gone along reading her books that they were less and less good.
The real issue is that her books are mostly all the same. They are all made of the same ingredients. And there are a lot of things you can do with, say, potatoes but, after awhile, you're tired of potatoes, no matter how they're prepared. This book is no different and has all of the usual ingredients:
1. Female protagonist
2. with some sort of secret mental ability
3. that she has no knowledge of before the story starts.
4. The fate of the world is in the hands of the protagonist.
5. There either has been or about to be some sort of global catastrophe.
6. Aliens are involved in some way and often have some sort of connection the "spirit of the world"
7. which is somehow connected to the protagonist.
8. There is some mystery to be solved, usually dealing with why and how the protagonist has these special powers.
optional ingredient: There is a prophecy involved.
Thinking about all of that, now, as I wrote it down, The Gate to Women's Country is the only book of hers that I have read that doesn't have all of this stuff in it. Some of it but not all.
To make matters worse with Singer, it's like Tepper couldn't decide what story she actually wanted to tell. There is one story being told at the beginning of the novel, and I was enjoying that one well enough, though I hadn't really been "grabbed" by it, but about 1/3 of the way in, the story completely changes. Abruptly. The protagonist is told almost out of the blue "you need to run for your life," and she takes off and the whole tone and structure of the story changes. It was like the main character stepped into a different book. And it happened again later, too. It's not that this kind of thing doesn't happen in books sometimes but, when it does, the author usually has some kind of reason and ties it back in later. I think Tepper tried to tie it all together at the end, but it really felt forced and like she started one story, realized she wanted to tell a different story, and just switched mid-book, leaving the opening story attached.
The mystery in this book is solved less by the characters trying to solve than by them stumbling upon things randomly and/or accidentally, accompanied by huge leaps of logic that the character had no legitimate reason to make. But, then, Tepper acted in this book as if when one character discovered something, then all of the characters magically knew that piece of information. Authors do this sometimes, but it's lazy storytelling. "I don't feel like getting this piece of information from character A to character B, so everyone will just know everything."
Oh, and at the end of the book, the protagonist suddenly has gills and can breathe under water. That's when I really wanted to throw the book across the room. Seriously, what the fuck? She already has special powers and, now, you're going to just toss in gills because it's convenient to what you want to do in the story? ugh
I could never in good conscious suggest that anyone should read this book. I've read a lot of bad books in my time, and this is right down there with the worst of them. Go get yourself a copy of The Gate to Women's Country and read that -- it really is a great book -- but don't go farther than that with Tepper, no matter how much you're tempted. It's all downhill from there.
May 11, 2018
I started off enjoying this book. The first few chapters were intriguing, with an engaging main character, Genevieve is a thoughtful, serious, loyal girl, and I was looking forward to following her story. But pretty soon the story changed and became something that felt very like a first draft. Exposition, long, slow, repetitive exposition with patches of over-wrought description, and lashings of didactic allegorical preaching.
I'm not fond of the sci-fi / fantasy trope where entire worlds or entire peoples share characteristics - for example the hyper-masculine arians, and the hugely problematic faux arabian tribe with the evil sounding call to prayer who treat "their" women badly. I mean- how does that society work at all? How do the boys learn to speak, if the women aren't allowed to speak the men's language? I kept being pulled out of the story by the unbelievable world building.
The story uses my all time least favourite fantasy trope, that of the BIG SECRET that the hero / heroine must uncover, with everyone in the know being as cryptic and unhelpful as possible for no particular reason, and then treating the hero / heroine like an idiot for not knowing the things they never told them.
I'm not sure why I finished it, other than that I've run out of library books and had nothing else to read.
I'm not fond of the sci-fi / fantasy trope where entire worlds or entire peoples share characteristics - for example the hyper-masculine arians, and the hugely problematic faux arabian tribe with the evil sounding call to prayer who treat "their" women badly. I mean- how does that society work at all? How do the boys learn to speak, if the women aren't allowed to speak the men's language? I kept being pulled out of the story by the unbelievable world building.
The story uses my all time least favourite fantasy trope, that of the BIG SECRET that the hero / heroine must uncover, with everyone in the know being as cryptic and unhelpful as possible for no particular reason, and then treating the hero / heroine like an idiot for not knowing the things they never told them.
I'm not sure why I finished it, other than that I've run out of library books and had nothing else to read.
January 26, 2018
This is a classic sci-fi/fantasy and I really enjoyed the style. It's basically a well written environmental fantasy hiding inside a feminist story.
Right from the beginning we know there is some mysterious bad thing going on, and Genevieve, our heroine, will be the one to find out what it is and stop it.
At about 50% we pretty much know what it is, and it's so outrageous that I thought "no on would do that", but then I think of the many cruel and selfish things that we do because we are one or more steps removed from the immediacy of it, that I began to think "what would humanity NOT do for greed and power?"
The heroes of this book very much reflect the culture of New Zealand, and I would not be surprised if the author grew up there.
Recommended (if you ignore the stupid cover)
Right from the beginning we know there is some mysterious bad thing going on, and Genevieve, our heroine, will be the one to find out what it is and stop it.
At about 50% we pretty much know what it is, and it's so outrageous that I thought "no on would do that", but then I think of the many cruel and selfish things that we do because we are one or more steps removed from the immediacy of it, that I began to think "what would humanity NOT do for greed and power?"
The heroes of this book very much reflect the culture of New Zealand, and I would not be surprised if the author grew up there.
Recommended (if you ignore the stupid cover)
November 7, 2018
loved this book. the writing and the characters were vivid and I felt drawn in throughout the entire book
May 4, 2016
Having asked my husband to take the kids to the library for me, my daughter Grace (who is 11) decided to pick a book out for me to read, all on her own. When I read the flap, I wasn't all too keen on it, since I felt I had left fantasy books behind long ago.
But boy, am I glad she chose this one! Now I remember why I loved fantasy novels when I was a young girl. This novel is sweeping and epic and vivid. At first, it's a little difficult to determine who's who and what exactly is going on, but once Tepper gets going, she weaves a stupendous yarn.
I found it unique and refreshing that Tepper chose to make her heroine a descendant of the Maori tribe here on Earth, and while I am not familiar with the mythology or culture of the Maoris, it seems as though she may have borrowed quite a bit from them. I am all for more inclusive stories. Ultimately, this book is a retelling of the classic flood narrative, which I also found interesting.
This is definitely my favorite kind of fantasy/sci-fi novel. Here is a world with limited technology that we learn later was colonized by people escaping the total destruction of Earth, which brings to mind the books of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. But at the same time, this new world and its neighboring worlds are also facing eradication, though there's a little bit of religion and mythology thrown in, with the idea that each world has its own spirit that keeps it alive.
My only real objection was the characterization of the men. While the ladies of the book had more gumption and uniqueness, the men tended to fall into specific tropes, which detracted from the story a bit. Also Tepper's overuse of the exclamation point became distracting at times.
All in all, this is a lovely foray back into fantasy for me. I definitely enjoyed it.
But boy, am I glad she chose this one! Now I remember why I loved fantasy novels when I was a young girl. This novel is sweeping and epic and vivid. At first, it's a little difficult to determine who's who and what exactly is going on, but once Tepper gets going, she weaves a stupendous yarn.
I found it unique and refreshing that Tepper chose to make her heroine a descendant of the Maori tribe here on Earth, and while I am not familiar with the mythology or culture of the Maoris, it seems as though she may have borrowed quite a bit from them. I am all for more inclusive stories. Ultimately, this book is a retelling of the classic flood narrative, which I also found interesting.
This is definitely my favorite kind of fantasy/sci-fi novel. Here is a world with limited technology that we learn later was colonized by people escaping the total destruction of Earth, which brings to mind the books of Pern by Anne McCaffrey. But at the same time, this new world and its neighboring worlds are also facing eradication, though there's a little bit of religion and mythology thrown in, with the idea that each world has its own spirit that keeps it alive.
My only real objection was the characterization of the men. While the ladies of the book had more gumption and uniqueness, the men tended to fall into specific tropes, which detracted from the story a bit. Also Tepper's overuse of the exclamation point became distracting at times.
All in all, this is a lovely foray back into fantasy for me. I definitely enjoyed it.
May 12, 2022
I remember really enjoying this book primarily because it is water related. I'm a water baby and love stories with mermaids, sirens, kraken, etc. I find looking back at many of Ms. Tepper's books is that she writes for niche group. Many of them are similar in vein . . . social-economical commentaries mixed in with a secret society of women determined to protect mankind. If you liked her Women's Gate book, this one may be one you enjoy too.
To read the rest of my review, click on the image below to see it on my website.
To read the rest of my review, click on the image below to see it on my website.
July 26, 2007
I enjoyed this one, especially the first parts. The end is a little tidy, but I sympathize with where she's coming from. Julie, you may find this one annoying, at least as it progresses. But before that, there's a fair amount of mystery - what exactly is happening to the women in this icky patriarchal system? you know it's something sordid, but it's creepy as you wait to find out exactly what.
June 12, 2009
I've read a few books by Tepper and aside from Gate to Women's Country, I don't think they're particularly great. They start out *wonderfully*. Decent mystery, great characters, well-developed world, etc. Then it just falls and the last third of the book is exposition and the characters are suddenly whiny and irritating. It's almost as though Tepper is getting as annoyed by the book as I am.
August 1, 2011
Very very clever, as is usual with Tepper's books. Also, too long and too languid in its pacing, which is why I got bored waiting for something to happen, started dipping around, got the idea, read the last two chapters, and closed the book.
September 27, 2008
Again, not asgood as Grass, but better than Raising the Stones.
September 24, 2013
Reread 9/23/13: I really enjoy the ocean element in this book and kind of wish Teller had included more of Haven's future.
November 18, 2014
I'm starting to get the impression that Tepper is like the band AC/DC, she generally writes about the same topics repeatedly and if you like her style you're generally going to like everything she's done, although maybe not to the same extent from one book to the next. Sometimes she goes a little harder on the environmental issues, sometimes it's all feminism all the way, sometimes she intermingles the two. I tend to find her more SF oriented novels (as opposed to the ones set in the "real world" but suffused with hints of what can only be described as a well intentioned magical realism) more appealing in general, if only because she has a good sense of world building and is able to come up with interesting societies, even if those societies all seem destined to meet the same fate.
Which is sort of the problem with her. She drives the same issues into the ground over and over again until the trench is so deep you don't really get a chance to see all the lovely construction she's created around her usual concerns. Once you've been put down in a hole, all holes tend to start appearing the same after a while. But even if she insists the using the same cultural building blocks, her imagination for the various places we may live in far in the future far outstrips what you might imagine from someone who tends to write all the time about how men stink.
And this time out men do indeed stink. We venture out to the world of Haven where as usual in a Tepper world, the men are manly men and being that they're in charge, it's their mandate to make women miserable. The society is arranged along aristocratic lines, with rules set up by a Covenant that was decided long ago by the original settlers. The Covenant rules are never truly explained but most of them seem to boil down to "women should do what they're told and be out of sight when they're not being told what to do." Despite being apparently educated, everyone goes along with this. Most of the ladies are groomed to be wives someday and have lots of babies, which seems to be a dangerous proposition since most of the noblemen are on wife three or four. Into all this setup, we get Genevieve, a young lady who is learning to be a lady and is being raised by her father since her mother passed away some time ago. Her father is a Marshall, and as such would like her to marry up and have lots of babies as well. She's not so okay with this but then he wouldn't be so okay if he knew she was having visions of the ocean and other, more disturbing visions that seem to imply the bedrock of this society is built upon something not so pleasant. Cue the running in place until it's time for revelations!
The same basic elements seem to crop up in her SF novels, especially in how the worlds are arranged, which can make for some amusing fun in trying to figure out which novels are ripping each other off. Thus, much like "Grass", we have a planet that seems to be doing okay while the rest of the colonies surrounding it aren't doing so hot. Also, like that novel, we have a world where a function of the world itself is part of what's keeping women down, mostly because it's being utilized by men who are using it to take advantage of the situation. And, also much like that novel, the ultimate reason that it needs to be women makes very little sense unless your novel requires it to be women in order for your thematic point to come fully across. In the early stages of this novel, all of that actually works quite well. Since Genevieve has absolutely no clue what's going on, the tiny revelations that something isn't quite right come across as sinister eruptions, giving the impression that something is Very Wrong without any obvious answer on how to make it right. And while she's appealing, gradually finding her footing in her own world of the wretched nobility even as she starts to twig that the odds aren't exactly stacked in her favor, being naive allows other characters to come to the forefront and do some of the heavy lifting, like stud Aufors, who is capable without the usual "See, he has all the traits of a woman!" that we normally see in men who are decent enough to survive a Tepper novel.
It's a rather delicate balancing act, stringing along the revelations in pace with the character development, and it's no surprise based on past experience that she can't sustain it. The wheels start to come off toward the middle of the book, where endless chase scenes bleed into conversations that seem to go over the same points over and over again. By the time the invaders start arriving and we meet another society that lives with the land like every Tepper society should, much of the menace and mystery that marked the early chapters of the book have been sucked out and a certain inevitability starts to seep in. It may be because I'm becoming a veteran of these novels, but after a certain point it held no surprises at all (again, this may be because it nicks a lot of its structure from the far superior "Grass") and it's merely a waiting game for the proverbial lady chickens to come to roost as the planet itself decides what's best for everyone. Tepper indulges in one of her favorite tropes here, the Morally Selective Massacre, which you may not notice because you've been gobsmacked by Genevieve's final revelation, which comes so out of left field it may as well hail from another game entirely. It's about the equivalent of reading for pages about someone being cornered by an army and then when all looks lost, he uses the giant gun that the book forgot to tell you he had the whole time to save himself. Meanwhile, the plot quietly mops up and packs itself away for a nice vacation while we get lectured on the superiority of dolphins from people who are on a planet far in the future that presumably wouldn't have dolphins.
It's frustrating. There is a perfectly good coming-of-age/let's bring down this corrupt society plot in here somewhere but as usual it has to be drenched in concerns that wouldn't know shades of grey even if the whole thing was transmitted in monochrome. There's nothing wrong with using SF/fantasy as a means of discussing real life serious topics while cloaked in the typical metaphors of the genre. It could even be subversive if done properly. But her refusal to deviate from her norms means that her novels become a kind of Sherri Tepper Mad Libs, the same setpieces and characters simply uprooted and made to perform the whole play over again in another setting. It adds an element of sameyness to every proceeding and proves that if you keep photocopying yourself, eventually you're going to obscure what made the original idea so appealing in the first place.
Which is sort of the problem with her. She drives the same issues into the ground over and over again until the trench is so deep you don't really get a chance to see all the lovely construction she's created around her usual concerns. Once you've been put down in a hole, all holes tend to start appearing the same after a while. But even if she insists the using the same cultural building blocks, her imagination for the various places we may live in far in the future far outstrips what you might imagine from someone who tends to write all the time about how men stink.
And this time out men do indeed stink. We venture out to the world of Haven where as usual in a Tepper world, the men are manly men and being that they're in charge, it's their mandate to make women miserable. The society is arranged along aristocratic lines, with rules set up by a Covenant that was decided long ago by the original settlers. The Covenant rules are never truly explained but most of them seem to boil down to "women should do what they're told and be out of sight when they're not being told what to do." Despite being apparently educated, everyone goes along with this. Most of the ladies are groomed to be wives someday and have lots of babies, which seems to be a dangerous proposition since most of the noblemen are on wife three or four. Into all this setup, we get Genevieve, a young lady who is learning to be a lady and is being raised by her father since her mother passed away some time ago. Her father is a Marshall, and as such would like her to marry up and have lots of babies as well. She's not so okay with this but then he wouldn't be so okay if he knew she was having visions of the ocean and other, more disturbing visions that seem to imply the bedrock of this society is built upon something not so pleasant. Cue the running in place until it's time for revelations!
The same basic elements seem to crop up in her SF novels, especially in how the worlds are arranged, which can make for some amusing fun in trying to figure out which novels are ripping each other off. Thus, much like "Grass", we have a planet that seems to be doing okay while the rest of the colonies surrounding it aren't doing so hot. Also, like that novel, we have a world where a function of the world itself is part of what's keeping women down, mostly because it's being utilized by men who are using it to take advantage of the situation. And, also much like that novel, the ultimate reason that it needs to be women makes very little sense unless your novel requires it to be women in order for your thematic point to come fully across. In the early stages of this novel, all of that actually works quite well. Since Genevieve has absolutely no clue what's going on, the tiny revelations that something isn't quite right come across as sinister eruptions, giving the impression that something is Very Wrong without any obvious answer on how to make it right. And while she's appealing, gradually finding her footing in her own world of the wretched nobility even as she starts to twig that the odds aren't exactly stacked in her favor, being naive allows other characters to come to the forefront and do some of the heavy lifting, like stud Aufors, who is capable without the usual "See, he has all the traits of a woman!" that we normally see in men who are decent enough to survive a Tepper novel.
It's a rather delicate balancing act, stringing along the revelations in pace with the character development, and it's no surprise based on past experience that she can't sustain it. The wheels start to come off toward the middle of the book, where endless chase scenes bleed into conversations that seem to go over the same points over and over again. By the time the invaders start arriving and we meet another society that lives with the land like every Tepper society should, much of the menace and mystery that marked the early chapters of the book have been sucked out and a certain inevitability starts to seep in. It may be because I'm becoming a veteran of these novels, but after a certain point it held no surprises at all (again, this may be because it nicks a lot of its structure from the far superior "Grass") and it's merely a waiting game for the proverbial lady chickens to come to roost as the planet itself decides what's best for everyone. Tepper indulges in one of her favorite tropes here, the Morally Selective Massacre, which you may not notice because you've been gobsmacked by Genevieve's final revelation, which comes so out of left field it may as well hail from another game entirely. It's about the equivalent of reading for pages about someone being cornered by an army and then when all looks lost, he uses the giant gun that the book forgot to tell you he had the whole time to save himself. Meanwhile, the plot quietly mops up and packs itself away for a nice vacation while we get lectured on the superiority of dolphins from people who are on a planet far in the future that presumably wouldn't have dolphins.
It's frustrating. There is a perfectly good coming-of-age/let's bring down this corrupt society plot in here somewhere but as usual it has to be drenched in concerns that wouldn't know shades of grey even if the whole thing was transmitted in monochrome. There's nothing wrong with using SF/fantasy as a means of discussing real life serious topics while cloaked in the typical metaphors of the genre. It could even be subversive if done properly. But her refusal to deviate from her norms means that her novels become a kind of Sherri Tepper Mad Libs, the same setpieces and characters simply uprooted and made to perform the whole play over again in another setting. It adds an element of sameyness to every proceeding and proves that if you keep photocopying yourself, eventually you're going to obscure what made the original idea so appealing in the first place.
August 11, 2022
Sheri S. Tepper, “Singer From The Sea”, 2001
Had this book sitting in my pile for some years, so finally got round to reading it. For much of its length (512pp) I was getting rather frustrated with the slow pace of the plot, then about the 400 page mark, it suddenly takes off and the rest of the book is hectic. There’s a certain ‘Dune’ feel about the plotline, right down to the desert kingdom with a particular mysterious anti-agathic drug that everyone wants, both on their home planet and elsewhere. However, there is also an underlying ecological plotline which comes to the fore in those last frenetic pages, tipping the balance of power away from the drug producers and users. It’s a shame the novel isn’t better paced, as the longeurs of the significant chunk of the book is off-putting.
Had this book sitting in my pile for some years, so finally got round to reading it. For much of its length (512pp) I was getting rather frustrated with the slow pace of the plot, then about the 400 page mark, it suddenly takes off and the rest of the book is hectic. There’s a certain ‘Dune’ feel about the plotline, right down to the desert kingdom with a particular mysterious anti-agathic drug that everyone wants, both on their home planet and elsewhere. However, there is also an underlying ecological plotline which comes to the fore in those last frenetic pages, tipping the balance of power away from the drug producers and users. It’s a shame the novel isn’t better paced, as the longeurs of the significant chunk of the book is off-putting.
October 23, 2017
Sheri S. Tepper ended her career in the 2010s by revisiting her 1993 A Plague of Angels and giving it two sequels that submerged the first novel's world—and its inhabitants—beneath rising oceans that covered its landmasses. It's interesting to remember, though, that the author had already explored the very same aquatic territory in 1999's Singer from the Sea.
And done so more elegantly, I'm afraid to say. Singer from the Sea is a much more lucid go at the twice-used theme. In fact, it's one of Tepper's more cohesive works, made into an engrossing page-turner by its swift plotting, cast of compelling heroes and grotesques, and fairytale-like tone.
And done so more elegantly, I'm afraid to say. Singer from the Sea is a much more lucid go at the twice-used theme. In fact, it's one of Tepper's more cohesive works, made into an engrossing page-turner by its swift plotting, cast of compelling heroes and grotesques, and fairytale-like tone.
October 11, 2024
Sheri S. Tepper wrote the books I've longed to read all my life! I'm so glad I found her. This book floored me just as thoroughly as " The Gate to Women's Country". An eco-feminist sci-fi fantasy adventure mixing noble intrigue, desert oasis and off planet interference. And deep caverns full of wonders! Animals in stasis and rugs and giant lizards!! A story of life. I'm shocked she isn't as well known as Ursula K Le Guin!
"Our teachers tell us each world has a song that is begun by the first life on a world...All living creatures are part of the song which shall be sung forever, until the last star goes out."
"Our teachers tell us each world has a song that is begun by the first life on a world...All living creatures are part of the song which shall be sung forever, until the last star goes out."
November 12, 2024
There is always a part of Sheri Tepper's stories that sticks with me. Sometimes it's the world, sometimes it's the characters, and sometimes it's the spirit of a place.
In this book, I enjoyed the settings, characters, and hidden secrets. Truth revealed and natural mysteries. All on a made up world (with striking similarities to parts of our own).
In this book, I enjoyed the settings, characters, and hidden secrets. Truth revealed and natural mysteries. All on a made up world (with striking similarities to parts of our own).
August 5, 2021
It's standard Tepper (a strange planet with ominous cultural quirks and odd things going on outside human ken that gets transformed when a woman who refuses to accept her place and all the truths come out), but that doesn't mean it's not an enjoyable read.
December 10, 2018
I found this to be one of Tepper's weaker books but still enjoyed it a lot. Her gender politics and world-building are always interesting.
May 11, 2020
Another instance of The Man oppressing women. (And the one woman destined to topple the pinnacles of power. Also, sentient algae.)
November 13, 2022
Lovely.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews