Like a lot of this author's science fiction it borders rather on fantasy and at some points severely strains the suspension of disbelief. Briefly, it is set in the far future on a human colony world where certain behaviour contravenes the moral code of the wider inter-galactic society, a code which is policed by a sort-of supermachine which is inhabited by three human brains, all with a tragic past. This Questioner arrives, bringing an entourage that includes two dancers as its human-derived intution has indicated that dancers will be useful. This is the case because certain indiginous folk called Timmys communicate largely by dancing and singing, and it transpires eventually that both of these are vital to the continued existence of the planet.

The story is very complex with a multiplicity of lifeforms and a strange and quite well realised society based around the artificially createdshortage of girls/women. There are several main characters, and the narrative switches between them. Some are better realised than others, or more sympathetic. There are a number of villains also, and their origin is quite complex, but the anticipated climax where these villains might be expected to make the crisis of impending planetary destruction even worse, fizzles out entirely and is resolved far too easily. The book struck me as an ambitious mess on the whole and although there were good aspects to it, I can only award a middle of the road 3 stars. ( )

I'm not always a fan of Sheri Tepper's sometimes heavy-handed fiction, but I must admit that she never fails to make me go "awhaaaaaaaat?"

Reading it while feverish and sick is also a wild experience.
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A great treatise on the different ways societies have dealt with the power balance of men and women. A wide variety of interesting characters. Creative aliens.

Some favorite quotations:

"...so long as you go on chewing yesterday's pains, you cannot eat today's pleasures...!"

"Our duty, as living things, [is] to be sure that pain is not our whole story, for we can choose to be otherwise...we can choose to dance."



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Tepper created a really interesting world in Newholme, colonized by humans. The culture of Newholme is one where women have all the power, and I found reading it right now to be very interesting. Men have to be veiled, otherwise women might be tempted and corrupted by the sight of a male face. The planet has been going through a series of ever more violent volcanic eruptions, and for this reason mainly, the Questioner, from the Council of Worlds, has decided to visit the planet. Recommended! ( )

20 years ago something in this book really annoyed me. I can't even imagine what it was now. Instead I feel this is [[Sheri Tepper]]'s most mature work, deliberate, sly, full of great 1 liners sprinkled into lessons and conversations. It is mythic fantasy dressed up in SF rig, as a quite motley cast is assembled over years in a quest to save the world. Tepper's brutal clubs and alien interventions are used more subtly and rather charmingly. ( )