The Gate to Women's Country

Description

Classic fantasy from the amazing Sheri S. Tepper. Women rule in Women's Country. Women live apart from men, sheltering the remains of civilization They have cut themselves off with walls and by ordinance from marauding males. Waging war is all men are good for. Men are allowed to fight their barbaric battles! amongst themselves, garrison against garrison. For the sake of his pride, each boy child ritualistically rejects his mother when he comes of age to be a warrior. But all the secrets of civilization are strictly the possession of women. Naturally, there are men who want to know what the women know! And when Stavia meets Chernon, the battle of the sexes begins all over again. Foolishly, she provides books for Chernon to read. Before long, Chernon is hatching a plan of revenge against women!

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The Waters Rising: A Novel

Description

Acclaimed author Sheri S. Tepper returns with a stunning novel in which a dreadful, awesome, killing power is resurrected from the past . . . and only a dying woman, a child, and a man who has come to help them can prevent humanity's extinction

The Waters Rising

She is "one of sf's most distinctive voices" (Locus); a writer who "excels at surprises" (Oklahoma City Oklahoman) and "takes the mental risks that are the lifeblood of science fiction and all imaginative fiction" (Ursula K. Le Guin). The extraordinary Sheri S. Tepper creates bold tales, set in future societies, that offer provocative insights into our own world. The Waters Rising is her most ambitious and imaginative novel to date, a compelling saga of magic and science, intrigue and turmoil, war and peace, survival and extinction.

Long ago was the Big Kill, a time when the slaughterers walked the earth unseen, killing, departing, returning to kill again and again. Since then mountains have risen, deserts have fallen, the last of humankind has scattered; myth, superstition, and legend have replaced knowledge; and the great waters rising are changing the world.

In the west, the people of Norland live in small kingdoms, unaware that a hideous evil from ages past has been revived. Powers are being used. Curses are being laid . . . and the waters are rising as never before.

As forests drown, swamps become lakes, and roads disappear, houses—whole towns—are hitched to teams of oxen and moved upward. Misery is compounded when the Sea King declares war. No ships may sail on the new, growing oceans, and refugees from sunken islands continue to arrive.

And in Norland a cursed princess fights death, awaiting the one who can save not her, but perhaps humanity. She is tended by one fearful young girl, her servant and soul carrier, Xulai, a child of her own kind from the mystical kingdom of Tingawa. Upon her mistress's death, Xulai must return to their homeland to fulfill a sacred mission.

Accompanied by her protectors, Great Bear and Precious Wind, and guided by the mysterious wanderer Abasio and his talking horse, Big Blue, the band begins a journey to this land across the western sea where the waters' rising has long been expected. Their odyssey, fraught with peril and wonder, is long enough for plans to be made that are so strange, so audacious, that they are instantly dismissed; plans so potentially successful that an ancient killer must be awakened to stop their fulfillment.

Deeply original in scope and vision, The Waters Rising is a daring and remarkable work of fiction from a master of the craft.

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Grass (S.F.Masterworks)

Description

What could be more commonplace than grass, or a world covered over all its surface with a wind-whipped ocean of grass? But the planet Grass conceals horrifying secrets within its endless pastures. And as an incurable plague attacks all inhabited planets but this one, the prairie-like Grass begins to reveal these secrets -- and nothing will ever be the same again ...

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The Margarets

Description

The myriad alien civilizations populating far, distant worlds have many good reasons to detest the blight called "humankind" . . .

The only human child living in a work colony on the Martian satellite Phobos, little Margaret Bain has invented six imaginary companions to keep boredom and loneliness at bay. Each an extension of her personality, they are lost to her when she is forced to return to Earth. But they are not gone.

The time will come when Margaret, fully grown and wed, must leave this dying world as well—this Earth so denuded by thoughtlessness and chemistry that its only viable export is slaves. For now Margarets are scattered throughout the galaxy. And their creator must bring her selves home . . . or watch the human race perish.

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Beauty (Spectra special editions)

Description

With the  critically acclaimed novels The Gate To  Women's Country, Raising The Stones, and the  Hugo-nominated Grass, Sheri  Tepper has established herself as one of the major  science fiction writers of out Time. In  Beauty, she broadens her territory even  further, with a novel that evokes all the richness of  fairy tale and fable. Drawing on the wellspring  of tales such as "Sleeping Beauty,"  Beauty is a moving novel of love and loss, hope and  despair, magic and nature. Set against a backdrop  both enchanted and frightening, the story begins  with a wicked aunt's curse that will afflict a young  woman named Beauty on her sixteenth birthday.  Though Beauty is able to sidestep tragedy, she soon  finds herself embarked on an adventure of vast  consequences. For it becomes clear that the  enchanted places of this fantastic world--a place not  unlike our own--are in danger and must be saved before  it is too late.

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The Companions: A Novel

Description

Three planets have been recently discovered in deep space, and prosaically named to reflect their respective environments. Jungle, lush and foreboding, swallowed up an eleven-member exploratory team more than a decade earlier, while hot, harsh, and dusty Stone turned out to be phenomenally rich in rare ore, the most profitable new world to be found in a century. But it is the third, Moss, that could well prove to be the most enigmatic . . . and dangerous.

Enlisted by the Planetary Protection Institute -- an organization founded to assess new worlds for potential development and profit -- famed linguist Paul Delis has come to Moss to determine whether the strange multicolored shapes of dancing light observed on the planet's surface are evidence of intelligent life. With Delis is his half sister, Jewel, the wife of one of the explorers lost on Jungle. Working together, they are to determine the true nature of the “Mossen” and decipher the strange "language" that accompanies the phenomenon.

Yet the great mysteries of this bucolic world -- three-quarters covered in wind-sculpted, ever-shifting moss -- don't end with the inexplicable illuminations; there is the puzzle of the rusting remains of a lost fleet of Earth ships, moldering on a distant plateau. Perhaps the biggest question mark is Jewel Delis herself and her mission here at the far reaches of the galaxy. Leaving an overpopulated homeworld that is rapidly becoming depleted of the raw materials needed for human survival, Jewel is a member of a radical underground group opposing a recent government edict that will eliminate all of the planet's “nonessential” living inhabitants. And it is here, at the universe's unexplored edge, where the fate of endangered creatures may ultimately be decided -- though it will mean defying ruthless and unforgiving ruling powers to repair humankind's disintegrating relationship with the beasts of the Earth.

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