While entertaining this book lacked the depth of Ms. Tepper's other works. I was a bit disappointed

Mavin's trilogy is a prequel to Sheri Tepper's stories of the lands of the True Game. When we meet the famous shape-changer in the other six novels, she is a grown adult. We know her as Peter's mother and Himaggery's sometimes lover, but mostly she is an occasional actor whose critical importance to the series only flowers at the end. However, Mavin is a spectacular person all on her own, and with this novel we start with her beginnings in Danderbat keep.

Shape-changer culture is more than a little odd. The ability to be almost anything creates a certain tricksy attitude and a need for a very different set of rules than apply to other gamesmen. In Danderbat, female shape-changers are rare, and their lot is to bear children for the keep before they can find their own freedom. This is not a very pleasant fate, and Mavin's sister Handbright, unable to conceive, has been thoroughly worn down by the pressures of being an available resource. When Mavin's talent finally surfaces, she has no desire to take Handbright's place. Instead, she works her sister's release, and then escapes with Mertyn, her brother.

On her way to another shifters' keep, Mavin falls in with the entourage of the seer Windlow who is gathering students for the school he is starting at High Demesne. A stop at Pfarb Durim on the way exposes Mertyn to ghoul-plague, which has been released by Blourbast. He is a gamesman of extremely indelicate tastes whose demesne is Poffle, called Hell's Maw by most. Blourbast's hunger for the Shadowpeople is the source of the infection. And since Healers refuse to come to Poffle or Pfarb Durim, only the Shadowpeople can undo the infection.

But for them to do that they need the return of a special token, a gift from the Ganver the Eestie. Mavin to the rescue, of course. But not without several unnerving experiences and a great deal of self-discovery. The shape-changer's unorthodox mind defamiliarizes what was already the unpredictable world of the True Game.

Readers of the first six books in this series will find many old friends (and enemies) who appear here (pre-appear here?) for the first time. Prepare for the appearances of Huld and Huldra, Proom, the Wizard Himaggery, Mertyn, Windlow and countless others too numerous to name. The tale's richness comes from its connections to the earlier tales that follow it as well as its own narrative uniqueness. It can almost stand alone, or be read first, but the story relies on some experience of the True Game to make complete sense.

Everybook in this series is excellent. I have read this entire series more times than I can remember and enjoyed every word. These are the books I want in my coffin (with a light) in case eternity gets boring! It doesn't matter whether you are 5, 15 or 55, these books have a story for you.

A demon curse, a vicious but beautiful woman, a cult that specializes in killing virgin children-- sounds like typical horror fare. Only this isn't typical horror. This is typical horror written by Sheri S. Tepper. From the moment that you realize that the main character's name is "Badger" to the introduction to a coven of good witches, the book manages to deviate from genre in all kinds of remarkable ways.

If you're a Tepper completist, this is well worth reading to see how many of the threads that are so identifiable in her writing show up even in a very early pure genre play like this one. If you're a horror fan, _Blood Heritage_ should manage to give you what you're looking for, with just enough extra spice to keep it from being banal.

Blood Heritage as one of Sheri S.Tepper's earlier works is a nicely written horror story with a happy ending, read in conjunction with her other works the beginnings of some of the common threads in Tepper's writing are evident. The ability to create characters with enough whimsy to endear and enough humanity to identify with is part of what makes all Sheri Tepper books worth reading and re-reading.

This is the third in The Chronicles of Mavin Manyshaped. Himaggery is missing, and Mavin seeks him. Another enjoyable addition to the series, but again with a more linear story than the True Game trilogy of Peter. This story also provides the background on which the trilogy of Jinian will build.

It takes a special kind of author to manage the writing of a nine volume series. And an even rarer author who can write a long series that will stand up to intensive reading. Sheri Tepper is once such author that has the knack. When the volumes of the Lands of the True Game first came out Tepper was a little known writer, breaking into the world of science fiction and fantasy. By the writing of this volume, the last in the series, Tepper was an established writer with a loyal audience.

It is hard to point to any one volume, character or idea and say that this is what made the work so successful. And perhaps that is part of Tepper's secret, her ability to shift point of view and narrator, introduce new and spectacular characters, and add layer upon layer to a complex world. Through her three protagonists, Peter, Jinian and Mavin we explore a world where both magic, science, ecology and witchcraft happily blend together without a single hitch.

This is Mavin's last tale, finally come to fulfill her promise to Himaggery and meet him after 20 years in the city of Pfarb Durim. Quite a lot has gone into get there again, and Mavin is stunned to find that Himaggery is not to be found. That eight years earlier the wizard set out and a quest and was eaten up by it. Windlow the Seer knows that his friend is not dead, but all efforts to find him have failed. Now Himaggery's quest must become Mavin's quest as she slowly retraces his steps to uncover betrayal and mystery in a story full of old friends and new enemies.

This is Mavin's greatest test. Not because it takes great courage or incredible wits to survive, but because Mavin find's herself facing her real issues as a woman and a shifter. Finding Himaggery and returning the wizard to himself turn out to be to separate and difficult thinks. Maven's need for freedom and independent conflict with her commitment, and she begins to find that responsibility is a lump thing about which one must always make difficult choices. Finding that she has managed to conceive Himaggery's child introduces another layer of complication, and forces her to discover that Mavin need not shift to be Mavin.

But who Mavin really is and how she will save both Himaggery and herself is the crux of the book. Even more so than it is a tricksy tale of harpies and shadows. Mavin's trilogy does much to open of the Tepper's world to the reader and lay the groundwork for the other stories in the series. It is a world that will remain on my shelves forever, waiting for the next time I need to follow the Eesties road.

While I found this book confusing at first, as I persevered the story gradually crystalized. That's an appropriate way of putting it, as the book is set on a planet filled with lovely but fractile crystal structures that shatter, killing foot travellers. The trip singers have created soothing musical sounds to play to each structure, which allow passage. But are the singers commuicating with the crystals and are the crystals a new form of intelligent life? If so, planetary exploitation can be halted.

Tepper has a great imagination and creates believable situations that speak into our own time and lives as well.

I was ultimately caught up in the dilemma and found the conclusion immensely satisfying. Worth hanging on through the initially confusing stages, for the characters are ultimately well developed and the reader cares what happens to them.

"The Bones" is the sequel to Tepper's earlier horror story, "Blood Heritage". It is very similar to the earlier volume, and while not as biting or ascerbic (although rather more gory) as Tepper's more mainstream eco-feminist output, it is every bit as well-written, and certainly very gripping!

While this book dates from fairly early in her output (1987), Tepper brings her considerable imagination and inventiveness to bear in her own inimitable way and manages (as usual) to put her particular spin on a subject that one feels ought to be hackneyed by now but which somehow, in Tepper's hands, proves not to be at all!

This is a horror story for people who do not normally read horror stories, and all established Tepper fans should try to hunt a copy down!

Jason Lynx, the antique dealer/puzzle solver of this series, was trying to avoid talking to an obnoxious acquaintance when he walked past him in the park. It was not until he was trying to creep past the sleeping figure again that Bela, his dog, set up a howl that he realized that Fred was dead.

Jason also knew Fred's sister, who asked him to use his puzzle solving skills to help her find out what happened to her brother.

The deeper Jason dug, the more people appeared who had reason to kill Fred. The theme of this book is the importance of families, what they do to one another and for one another. Jason also gives some great tips on how to decorate a guest room.

Definitely well worth reading although the ending may not satisfy the mystery purist.

Out of all of Sheri S. Tepper's books that I've read, this and _The Gate to Women's Country_ remain my favorites. While the writing in _The Revenants_ may not be as confident nor as polished as in her later works (e.g. _The Gate to Women's Country_, _Grass_, _Sideshow_, _A Plague of Angels_, _Six Moon Dance_, etc.) I find it friendlier, less bitter, and warmer. I *liked* most of the characters in this book. I enjoyed hearing them talk, watching their struggles, and empathized with their pain. In some of Tepper's other books, I found the characters boring or annoying.

The world of _The Revenants_ hurtles towards the ultimate in Separation: myth from reality, race from race, nation from nation, village from village, everyone forced into vanishingly smaller pigeonholes, until they are altogether Separated into extinction. Black-robed Keepers speed the process by exacting a harvest of young men and women.

A few individuals struggle to remain free. Jaer is at the heart of this struggle: Jaer embraces male and female, myth and reality, and by the end, all of humanity, the living opposite of Separation. Jaer is on a Quest, and so are Jaer's companions. Tepper gives us an interesting "behind the scenes" look at Quests, fairy tales, and prophecies.

Jaer's Quest is a garbled mish-mash partially made up in jest by the two old men who were Jaer's foster parents. They die before explaining it to Jaer. Prince Medlo's Quest is a politically motivated, veiled assassination attempt. Jasmine's Quest was also engineered to get her out of the way. Thewson's Quest is fueled by a young man's ambition to be King. Leona's Quest is a mission to save the life of an ailing friend. All the quests are rendered meaningless by Separation and the murderous, destructive Keepers; yet they are also fulfilled, though the nature of the Quest changes as the protagonists become wiser and more knowledgable.

It's all a fairy tale, as one of the characters observes, but fairy tales do not reach happy endings on their own, as this book shows us. Someone has to make them work. The prophecies were made to come true --- doesn't that impy some sort of time travel? The characters must answer this question in the end.

As usual, Tepper throws in more ideas than she has time to fully develop, but this time, I didn't mind. The book worked as a whole, and the hinted-at ideas gave me the sense of a big, wide world with a real past. This book foreshadows some of the ideas Tepper works with in _Beauty_ and _A Plague of Angels_ (for example, being set in the far future after much of humankind has left the earth for the stars), but I liked _The Revenants_ better.

Like many books in the fantasy genre, there is an Evil with an Army of Darkness threatening to take over the world, but in this case the Evil is unusual, and we pity the Army of Darkness after we see who they are, and how they suffer. I liked the twisted way the Keepers fit their philosophy of Separation: faceless, sexless, and blind to the mythical.

All that, and there's even a sweet little love story in there, too. I love this book. Too bad it's out of print, but I'm not selling my copy. :-)

Her task in life is to use magical tears to awaken the dead,and then to work the zombies until their bodies decay and become food for the gods. The horror of her task is ameliorated by her ecstatic relationship with the gods, and her devout belief in the goodness of her work. Like most of Tepper's work, this story investigates a world jeopardized by uncontrolled consumption and disregard for the needs of others. The mysteries that float through the townships: the poisoned wood, the relationship between the gods, the rulers, the awakeners and the dead all come together to create a story filled with suspense. Perhaps the weakest part of the Awakeners story is the end, which seems almost trite when compared to the intricacy and the depth in the rest of the two books.

The Fresco will probably not take a place among my favorite Tepper novels. (I like Grass, Shadow's End, and Gibbon's Decline and Fall best.) Nevertheless, I did very little but read the book the Friday after Thanksgiving - it held my attention well, I wanted to find out what would happen to the characters, and I was at least mildly intrigued by several of the novel's driving ideas.

The book "suffers" (if you're inclined to call it suffering - I think that I am not) the usual infusion of very blatant social and political philosophy. This is a strange thing for me to get used to (even after reading more than half a dozen Tepper novels); I tend to agree (often passionately) with the essential social and political ideas Tepper works with, but I often find myself uncomfortable with her very direct use of these ideas in fiction. Something about very explicit politics seems to limit the power of great fiction. (And I'm not discriminating here - much as I love John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Charles Dickens's Hard Times, the authors' forthright use of politics always diminishes the feeling I take away from these books.)

Anyway, the usual ideas are present in The Fresco: a rather common woman becomes rather uncommon as she discoverers a greater sense of worth, or purpose, and so on. I really like this character, and I must say she is one of the reasons I did not take many breaks while reading the novel - she is not a terribly complex creation, but she is attractive, likable, and a generally useful protagonist.

Hm - I should have planned this review before I started writing! I'll close with a general recommendation: if you enjoyed Gibbon's Decline and Fall, please read The Fresco. The two novels have much common ground, and they go well together. If you have not yet read Sheri S. Tepper, I would start with Grass or Shadow's End, both of which exist in a slightly less political "realm."

I've never been able to pin down exactly what it is I like so much about Tepper's books, but I haven't missed one in many, many years. I'll look forward to the next!

There are parts of this book that are sheer genius-- the aliens "fix" social problems on Earth with things that I really wish I had the power to do (in some ways & on some days). It took me a while, though, to get "in" to the book-- I'm not sure why, but it's not a page-turner the way, say, Into Women's Country (another Tepper book) was for me. But it's definitely a thought-provoker. What if aliens could come down and change us, whether we wanted them to or not? What if politicians really had to "perform" the rhetoric that they espouse? (Put their money where their mouth is)?
A good, entertaining, quick read, not too complex, a little simplistic perhaps at times but worthwhile. If a "4 stars" is a "B" on the A-F scale then my rating gives it about a B+.

However, if you are contemplating this as the first book you've ever read by her, I would suggest that you start with the loosely knit "Grass" trilogy (Grass, Raising the Stones, Side Show). (I love that trilogy - have gone through several copies of each of the books -- they are very poignant and redeeming)

In The Fresco, Benita is a wonderful, sympathetic character, an "everywoman" who sees her way clear to becoming her own person. She is a heroine to root for. I loved the protagonist aliens, as they altered their appearances to be more "friendly" looking.

As always, I enjoyed the philosophy and theology which is present in all of the books that I have read by Ms. Tepper. It is thought provoking to think what would happen if someone or something came along and completely disproved our various holy books (bible, koran, rig veda etc.). Would we patch them back together and do what we could, or would we take the best of them, and approach the violent, ugly, "evil" parts with a grain of salt? Or would that someone/thing that disproved them, help us regain our sense of self?

Even if you are agnostic, or atheistic, you will enjoy the religious/philosophical commentaries woven into Ms. Tepper's books.

I enjoyed reading Sheri S. Tepper's "Grass" and "Raising the Stones," but this one isn't so great. The main antagonist organization is a little over the top. One person like this I can buy, but a whole political party? The book is somewhat depressing as well, and doesn't say much about the future besides "evil, bad, doom." However, I CAN read this book without getting incredibly bored or compulsively throwing it across the room, which is more than I can say about much fiction out there today. I heartily reccomend the aforementioned Tepper books, but I'd avoid this one.

Sheri Tepper returns (almost) to "The Gate to Women's Country" in "Gibbon's Decline and Fall." Evil stalks the earth; a truly Satanic figure is gobbling up men and women in an evil alliance with shadowy business and government leaders. A group of women, close friends since their college days together, fight the darkness in their own lives and ultimately for the entire world. This novel is set in our time and in our idiom. It does not have the mythical future-history quality of "Women's Country." It reads more like a bestselling spy thriller than futurisit speculative fiction. Ms. Tepper continues her outrage against the enslaving of women by men. In this novel, however, she ties much more than warfare and nuclear destruction to unbridled male dominance. She shows how the degradation of one half of the human race diminishes and ultimately destroys us all. Despite the feminist slant of the novel, the struggle of Good versus Evil make this more than a diatribe. The plot is far tighter, less unneccesarily complicated and very gripping. This is some of Tepper's best since "Grass" and "Women's Country.:

Like other Tepper books I've read, this one is excellent for provocative thoughts and insights, but only fair in terms of characterization and storytelling.

This book, for example, involves a group of original and well-detailed characters, but they are typically dealt with in obvious series or sequence. i.e. First her life, then hers, then hers, now hers, and finally hers. This may be a stylistic choice, but it can feel forced.

While Tepper's style does not seem to emphasize lush description or detailed scene-setting, sharing ideas is always central and handled well. In fact, during "Decline and Fall" I could not help thinking that Tepper wanted to write a book of non-fiction -- thoughts on male supremacy, feminist history, multiculturalism, anthropology -- but couched it in a millennial storybook for reasons unknown.

The best thing about Tepper is that you can LEARN from her books. You come away from them with ideas and new perspectives. Despite the fact that her books aren't going to provide a "wild ride" (i.e. for those who prefer David Eddings, Stephen Donaldson, Robert Jordan), they are going to be entertaining and thought-provoking.

Most importantly... In the middle of "Decline and Fall" I had that familiar rush: I didn't want the book to end.