Science Fiction Book Club discussion

Who read this one? What did you think?

...here's my review.



"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."

...."After all this time I wonder why you even care."

'Grass' tries to explore some complex ethical issues relating to treatment of sentient or sapient species and scratches the surface ...but was I the only one left wondering 'where's the rest?' This book by no means justifies the 540 pages it has been bulked out with, 200 pages would have sufficed.

A story so daunting and promising that it got padded out with waffle just so we wouldn't lose our heads within the wild and deep concepts it tried to portray.



Please feel free to tear this review apart - I enjoy a good debate!

I guess I didn't think the book is "about" ethical issues regarding sentient or sapient species. That is an important part, perhaps the "message" if you want to get technical (which I don't) but for me, the book is about Marjorie Westriding Yrarier, a flesh-and-blood wife and mother who doubts her effectiveness in pretty much everything to do with her husband and children, yet is confidant about her ability to communicate with horses, with whom she has won numerous riding events.

For me, the moment when she goes into battle against the mounts with their razor-sharp spines, the humans losing, the horses exhausted, she is offered escape by a sky craft (which will save her, but not her horse) and rejects the offer, becoming, for me, a hero of the highest degree. As the book continues, she gives up old ideas of wife and motherhood and becomes an adventuress in the new--new "beings" (the Foxen) with whom she will venture into new worlds. It's not that I don't appreciate other things, especially the biology of a completely different evolving species (peeper-hounds-mounts-foxen) and, of course, Tepper's critique of organized religion, but the essence of the book (again, for me) is the courage of certain human beings in the face of adversity, i.e. heroes, and the tolerance necessary to all of us when it comes to the exploration of other worlds.

I have no answer to your theory of SF women writers being long winded whereas SF male writers are, what? More to the point? Less "padded?"(Your word, not mine) except to say that has not been my experience.