Most Popular Books by Sheri S. Tepper

“One of the most satisfying science fiction novels I have read in years.”—The New York Times Book Review Here is a novel as original as the breathtaking, unspoiled world for which it is named, a place where all appears to be in idyllic balance. Generations ago, humans fled to the cosmic anomaly known as Grass. Over time, they evolved a new and intricate society. But before humanity arrived, another species had already claimed Grass for its own. It, too, had developed a culture. . . . Now, a deadly plague is spreading across the stars. No world save Grass has been left untouched. Marjorie Westriding Yrarier has been sent from Earth to discover the secret of the planet’s immunity. Amid the alien social structure and strange life-forms of Grass, Lady Westriding unravels the planet’s mysteries to find a truth so shattering it could mean the end of life itself.

A female cop confronts near-future visitors in this "beautifully realized" feminist sci-fi novel "full of delightful surprises and sparkling wit" (Kirkus Reviews). Police officer Dora Henry is investigating the bizarre murders of three geneticists. Meanwhile, strange things are happening everywhere she turns. Weeds are becoming trees; trees are becoming forests. Overnight, a city is being transformed into a wild and verdant place. And, strangest of all, Dora can somehow communicate with the rampaging flora. A potential civilization-ending catastrophe is in the making. The nearer Dora gets to a murderer—and to the truth—the more seemingly disparate events begin to entwine. And the answers she seeks today to the salvation of humankind may lie in a far distant future. . .one which is suddenly much closer than anyone imagines. An exhilarating and enchanting novel that deftly combines fantastic invention with insight and a social conscience, from one of the most lyrical and important voices in contemporary speculative fiction "This out-and-out charmer is unquestionably Tepper''s best work so far." — Kirkus Reviews

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.

“Lively, thought-provoking . . . the plot is ingenious, packing a wallop of a surprise . . . Tepper knows how to write a well-made, on-moving story with strong characters. . . . She takes the mental risks that are the lifeblood of science fiction and all imaginative narrative.”—Ursula K. LeGuin, Los Angeles Times Since the flames died three hundred years ago, human civilization has evolved into a dual society: Women’s Country, where walled towns enclose what’s left of past civilization, nurtured by women and a few nonviolent men; and the adjacent garrisons where warrior men live—the lost brothers, sons, and lovers of those in Women’s Country. Two societies. Two competing dreams. Two ways of life, kept apart by walls stronger than stone. And yet there is a gate between them. . . . “Tepper not only keeps us reading . . . she provokes a new look at the old issues.”—The Washington Post “Tepper’s cast of both ordinary and extraordinary people play out a powerful drama whose significance goes beyond sex to deal with the toughest problem of all, the challenge of surmounting humanity’s most dangerous flaws so we can survive—despite ourselves.”—Locus

The acclaimed author of Grass and A Plague of Angels takes readers to a world distant in time and space, where the pace of life is counted by the tides of the great River, but where there are swift undercurrents. This magnificent novel was first published in two volumes--Northshore and Southshore--now

Hobbs Land was a quiet agricultural colony, a peaceful planet where men and women worked together as equals to provide food for other worlds. Once it had been home of the alien Owlbrit, who left behind only the temples where their strange gods had lived. But then the gods awoke. Peace. War. Heroism. Hate. And love. Raising the Stones weaves disparate threads to tell a story that builds to an inescapable climax. And, in a time when so many predict humanity won''t survive through the next century, author Sheri S. Tepper gives us an insightful look into what is the best in all of us.

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.

Atop a twisting, canyon-climbing road, a witch lurks in a fortress built strong to keep out dragons and ogres. In another part of the countryside, a young orphan is maturing into a beautiful woman in the enchanted village that is her home. Somewhere nearby, a young man is seeking adventure after running away from his family''s small farm. Suddenly a strange and terrible prophecy sets off a chain of events that will bring these three together in the heroic, romantic, and thrilling tale of an age-old battle.

“Tepper takes the traditional icons of fantasy, restores their resonance, and makes them her own.”—Minneapolis Star Tribune A century ago, a mysterious force wiped out human life on all surrounding worlds, leaving the planet Dinadh untouched. Now the unknown force is back—and this time humanity’s only hope lies with a woman who’d give anything not to get involved. Lutha Tallstaff’s mission is to locate the famed adventurer Leelson Famber, who has disappeared, taking with him what may be the only clue to the nature of the deadly threat. But Lutha cannot know that finding Famber will be the easy part of her journey. Through terrain alive with savage winged wraiths and fountains of fire, she will fight her way to the holiest place on the planet. And only then will she discover the shocking truth about the coldly inhuman force that threatens the future of mankind.

An Albuquerque bookseller is caught up in an intergalactic drama when aliens choose her as messenger of their wisdom in this feminist sci-fi novel. The bizarre events that have been occurring across the United States—unexplained "oddities" tracked by Air Defense, mysterious disappearances, shocking deaths—seem to have no bearing on Benita Alvarez-Shipton''s life. That is, until the soft-spoken thirty-six-year-old bookstore manager is approached by a pair of aliens asking her to transmit their message of peace to the powers in Washington. An abused Albuquerque wife with low self-esteem, Benita has been chosen to act as the sole liaison between the human race and the Pistach, who have offered their human hosts a spectacular opportunity for knowledge and enrichment. But ultimately Benita will be called upon to do much more than deliver messages—and may, in fact, be responsible for saving the Earth. Because the Pistach are not the only space-faring species currently making their presence known on her unsuspecting planet. And the others are not so benevolent.

It was many years ago that humans came and settled the world of Newholme-cruelly bending the planet to their will; setting down roots and raising up cities and farms and a grand temple to their goddess.But now the ground itself is shaking with ever-increasing violence. And the Great Questioner, official arbiter of the Council of Worlds, has come to this isolated orb to investigate rumors of a terrible secret that lies buried deep within Newholme''s past—a past that is not dead, not completely. And it will fall to Mouche, a beautiful youth of uncommon cleverness and spirit, to save his imperiled home by dicovering and embracing that which makes him unique among humans. For every living thing on newholme is doomed, unless Mouche can appease something dark and terrible that is coiled within...and surrender to the mysterious ecstatic revelry taht results when the six moons join.

“Sheri S. Tepper takes the mental risks that are the lifeblood of science fiction and all imaginative fiction.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, Los Angeles Times Her first new novel since The Margarets, The Waters Rising marks the glorious return of the extraordinary Sheri S. Tepper, the award-winning contemporary master whom Locus has called, “one of sf’s most distinctive voices.” The Waters Rising tells a gripping story of a future already ravaged and now in even graver peril when a dreadful, awesome killing power is resurrected from the past. Readers of Margaret Atwood and Marge Piercy will join with fans of literary sf in praising this stunning masterwork of speculative fiction from one of the acknowledged greats.

A good and proper aristocrat on the isolated, seemingly backward planet of Haven, Genevieve has been carefully instructed in the Covenants -- the ancient, inflexible laws governing the women of her class. She knows what is expected of her: marriage in her mid-twenties to a groom of her father''s choosing, childbirth at age thirty. And then soon afterwards -- as has been the lot of so many noblewomen before her -- perhaps death. But there is another Genevieve within who longs to heed the call of the sea -- though she has never once seen the vast waters that cover most of her homeworld''s surface. For an unheard voice is crying out to her across the centuries, drawing her ever-closer to a terrible truth hidden beneath a smoke screen of rules, tradition, and propriety. And it is Genevieve who must fulfill a forgotten destiny -- something inborn passed for untold generations from daughter to daughter -- or she and the entire civilization of Haven will be swept away on a cosmic wave of oblivion.

A wave of fundamentalism is sweeping across the globe as the millennium approaches, and a power-hungry presidential candidate sees his ticket to success in making an example out of a teenage girl who abandoned her infant in a Dumpster. Taking the girl''s case is Carolyn Crespin, a former attorney, who left her job for a quiet family life. Now she must call upon five friends from college, who took a vow to always stand together. But their success might depend on the assistance of Sophy, the enigmatic sixth friend, whom they all believed dead.

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.

On the planet of Elsewhere, the Council had always enforced the governing of each province in the manner the people had chosen, so long as each respected its neighbors'' local customs--and so long as the people remained within their homelands. Generations later, inhabitants have begun to question this tradition. The Council has received mysterious messages and reports of strange manifestations across the planet. Now, Enforcer Fringe Owldark has been sent with a small crew of seven, each possessing an unusual talent, to investigate their worst fear--the arrival of the Hobbs Land gods. Free will and the reality of God are just too of the timeless issues this courageous band of humans must confront as they strive to decide if complete tolerance and leaving others alone is evil. . .and what they should do if it is. Vividly imagined and exquisitely rendered, Sideshow is Sheri S. Tepper''s most controversial novel yet.

In her 35th novel, science fiction master Sheri S. Tepper boldly weaves together the storylines of eleven of her previous works—from King’s Blood Four (1983) to The Waters Rising (2010). In Fish Tails, two of Sheri S. Tepper’s beloved characters—Abasio and Xulai (A Plague of Angels and The Waters Rising)—and their children travel from village to village scattered across the sparsely populated land of Tingawa. They are searching for others who might be interested in adopting their sea-dwelling lifestyle. Along their journey they encounter strange visitors from the far-off world of Lom, characters from Tepper’s nine-book True Game series of novels—Mavin Manyshaped, Jinian Star-eye, and Silkhands the Healer—all of whom have been gathered up by an interfering, time-traveling, rule-breaking do-gooder to do one last good deed on earth before its metamorphosis is complete. For the waters are rising and will soon engulf the entire planet, transforming it utterly and irrevocably.