"Homestead Year" is like the description above, only more so. Judith gets into great detail about bee screens so that her guests won't be stung by some rather agressive bees, the duck house, even her "end of season" homstead tour map. It is not so detailed as to be technical.

Ted, her husband, is the rather reluctant helper, balancing his professorial duties with helping Judith with aspects of her project. He also is a dandy spaghetti sauce maker! Other members of her family are featured in stories scattered here and there through the book like glimpses through a house window.

Easy to read in a chronological manner, "Homestead Year" is a wonderful book for both country and city folk, especially on those winter nights when gardening is not far from one's mind.

Fantastic work from a very varied author!

There is quite a bit of information about the Society of Friends (Quakers) out there, but none as in a more unlikely location as Judith Moffett's "Penterra". The information she provides about the Quaker's stand on non violence, sexual mores and dealing with an entirely different lifestyle are fascinating. The book moves quickly along the lives of George Quinlan, his son Danny, the Hrossa who are allowing the Quakers to set up their colony " Swarthmore" and the new group on the planet " The Sixers". (named for the ship they arrived in on Pennterra)

Danny reaching puberty is handled well, although I blushed at some of the more "graphic" parts of this section, and I'm no prude! That Danny becomes a integral part of the next step in the Quaker/Hrossa world is only fitting to the process.

Ms. Moffett is a gifted author and her many and varied works show this.

As for the Asimov opening..I started to read it, but found it too ponderous. Judith Moffett said pretty much the same thing as Asimov, and FAR more entertaining!

A group of Quakers reach a distant planet, encounter the sentient hrossa, and work out a way to live in peace with these beings. Then they must deal with a second group of humans arriving (non-Quakers) who do not have the same penchant for peaceful co-existance. I found the study of Quaker process in an alien place a delightful unearthing of the human spirit. The hrossa are a sexy lot, and their effect on humans is fun to observe. My favorite part, however, is the unfolding of a new, dynamic, and (not so) alien theory of evolution. If peace and cooperation are your thing, you'll enjoy participating in the world of Penterra.

I agree with the first reviewer, except that I found the Quaker issues fascinating - what non-violence toward other sentient beings than humans really means, for example.

I also found the presentation of sex and society issues worthy of the best science fiction: clear yet not heavy-handed.

I recommend this book strongly to anyone who likes science fiction that makes them think.

The synopsis of this book is very dry and cold, and does not do justice to the warmth and depth of Moffett's skillful writing. This is more than just an environmental cautionary tale -- it is a tender character study, and a home for some extremely interesting, quirky inhabitants. Definitely worth a read if this type of thing appeals to you, whether you are a fan of SF or not. A shame that this is currently out of print. I hope that changes soon.

This book and the second volume, Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream, are based on the premise that humans are steadily destroying their environment, but not doing much about it. The Hefn happen to come to Earth for their own reasons, not intending to have anything to do with humans, but decide to take steps to ensure the saving of the earth ecosystem. Whether the human race survives or not depends upon cooperation of humans with the Hefn. The conflict between Hefn ways and human ways is developed in both books by the interaction between various individual Hefn and individual humans. In the second book there is more discussion of the conflict between the Hefn and human ways of thinking.

This book's characters are generally pro-intervention by the Hefn. Each chapter narrates the story of seemingly unconnected people, but they come together in the end. Each story is fascinating. In the introduction, written in 2023, a summary of the Hefn on Earth is given. In 1623 a group of Hefn crew members of a Gafr/Hefn space ship started a rebellion and earth was a convenient place to maroon them. This was meant to teach them a lesson, not to strand them permanently on earth. Mechanical difficulties and time dilation caused the ship to return about 400 years later (2006) to see if anyone survived. When they could find no one, they left but there was a shift in power aboard the ship and they returned in 2010, just after a major meltdown at Peach Bottom power plant, contaminating the Philadelphia area totally. In 2011 The Gafr (parked on the moon), through the Hefn, issue the Directive that humans must mend their ways within 9 years (by 2020) or they would sterilize the earth of human life. They must cease ecosystem-altering behavior. When any group would do something such as hurting the rain forest, their minds would be wiped from on high. In 2013, since changes were not being made quickly enough, the Gafr caused there to be no more children conceived until further notice. They also set up a school for select human youth to study the true nature of time. This is expanded upon in the second book. The various stories involve people who had been in contact with the Hefn in some way but whose minds had been wiped but eventually the memories return through a combination of events. Another character is an HIV-positive victim who has kept it secret for many years because of vigilante groups killing such persons.

In the book we discover that the Hefn are those who serve the Gafr, who are never seen and seem a bit cold. Although the Hefn seem ruthless in some cases, there is a certain kindness because they love to serve. Of interest is how the Gafr and Hefn see humans. The Hefn were astonished by human capacity for self-deception.

This book makes one think about what people are doing to this planet and the closed self-satisfied world so many people live in.

These were wonderful stories when they appeared in magazine form, the forward with the list of demands I think everybody should think about. The Hefn are aliens who think this is a wonderful world and wonder why we are so intent on destroying it.

The second time I read this book I was somewhat more disappointed than I expected. The story is very interesting as a story, but I found it a bit harder to understand than I expected. There was a lot left unsaid. I think that the reader is expected to draw certain conclusions, and I think, personally, the information given is ambiguous. Apparently this will be resolved in the third volume, if it is ever published. The story will make a lot more sense if the first book, The Ragged World, is first read.

Liam O'Hara, first an Apprentice, and then an employee for the Bureau of Temporal Physics (BTP), is a principal character in this book, but the main character is Pam Pruitt, another Apprentice at the BTP. The book is a story within a story, the internal story having been written by Pam (who has left the BTP because of personal problems) in 2026. The story is about her and Liam's experiences after their first Apprentice year, the 2012-2013 school year (when they were 14 and 15). She sends the book to him for comment. His comments are included after each chapter.

The BTP has been established to train Apprentices to locate the place in history where humanity crossed the magic line when nature and culture were in balance. However, the goal of the BTP seems to have changed somewhat by the end of the book to include the finding of hot spots or holy ground (where ley lines cross "bee lines" or electromagnetic power.) This is not very much developed in the book, but is often brought up peripherally.

Pam and Liam, in this book, go to visit Pam's favorite place, Hurt Hollow in Kentucky on the Ohio River. Liam finds out about born-again Christians and about the difference among the various Christian groups in their attitudes toward the Hefn (aliens explained, more or less, in the first book). The anti-Hefn attitude in the southern midwest is demonstrated in a number of incidents, culminating in the capture of Humphrey, a Hefn, by an anti-Hefn preacher with the help of several Klan men.

The Hefn had been trying to get humans to cooperate with their plan to save the earth through various methods that apparently worked for Hefn. This whole incident showed them that these methods, especially mind wipe, did not work well with humans-it generated a lot of resentment and anger. Because Humphrey bonded with Pam, he listened to her and tried something that worked. As a result, the Hefn started training Missionaries on cooperative farms to preach the new Gaian religion (hopefully to be further explained in Volume III).

There is also another story going on, the confrontation by both Liam and Pam of each of their own demons. We can only assume the problems are eventually resolved, based on hints given in the book.

"Irish Tenure" has some witty moments, but they are few and far between. As a matter of fact, the wittiest part of the book is the title! (Irish Tenure--tenor. Get it?) The puzzle centers on a long-lost story of G.K. Chesterton, and the political faculty catfights of academe. There are some dry little jokes scattered about, and some clever puns, but not much in the way of plot to involve us or characters to care about. In the end, it is a relief to put the book down. To phrase the final words of Ralph McInerny, "It's the only tenure that matters."

Combine Notre Dame's Knight brothers, an arrogant senior faculty member, a rare book dealer, a spurned husband, an undiscovered G.K. Chesterton "Father Brown" story, several priests, and the dead body of a young faculty member up for tenure and you have the ingredients for McInerny's entertaining mystery.

At times the book is a bit hard to follow. Set exclusively at the University of Notre Dame, the book is so detailed in this regard that anyone unfamiliar with the campus may feel like an outsider reading the book. The book is formulaic, a bit predictable, and McInerny has the habit of assuming that his readers are schooled in foreign languages as he frequently tosses in Latin and French expressions that the lay reader may find frustrating.

However,the book offers an insightful and witty look at tenure and the politics of a university campus, and takes some shots at the "political correctness" found on campuses. The author of more than 20 books, including the Father Dowling mysteries, McInerny does know how to tell a tale.

Those familiar with the University of Notre Dame, fans of McInerney's mysteries, or fans of G.K. Chesterton will find this mystery particularly enjoyable.

Ralph McInerny, best known for his Father Dowling mysteries, has here produced not so much a mystery story but rather a slice of life from the campus of Notre Dame, which he knows so well. Anyone expecting a clear-cut mystery story where someone turns up dead at the start, with the rest of the book devoted to a singleminded pursuit of the culprit, will be sorely disappointed and should look elsewhere. The murder happens very late in the book and the murderer is pretty obvious.

IRISH TENURE is more like Malcolm Bradbury than Agatha Christie. McInerny shows the dark side of academic life (even at so august an institution an Notre Dame): the catfight for tenure. The structure is loose and seems at first rambling and discursive, but McInerny winds it all together eventually. Until then, he gives subtle character studies of the sorts of people who drift into academia: those intelligent enough to be professors but somehow haven't managed into the tenure track; those who are tenured and probably shouldn't be; those who need and or deserve to be tenured; the evil necessity to publish or perish . . .

He also takes long overdue pot-shots, sometimes poignant and sometimes hilarious, at political correctness, especially regarding draconian modern ideas of sexual harrassment.

The plot, such as it is, is centered on the discovery of every Chestertonian's dream, a long-lost Father Brown story. IRISH TENURE will prove a joy for fans of G.K. Chesterton, for most of the main characters live and breathe his works. For the uninitiated, therefore, the book will doubtlessly prove confusing. Chesterton enthusiasts will find piquant prose, and enjoy spending time with like-minded characters who have found that Chesterton adds zest to life.

The main disappointment is that there is no genuine long-lost story appended to the end of the tale; but that's just as well, for McInerny's work would've suffered in the comparison. And we can be thankful that McInerny didn't attempt a pastiche.