Sadly this one fell to bits before the end. The resolution didn't really make sense - *god* creates huge evil smelling jellyfish that eliminate people on worlds in one sector then proceed to eat up all the native life left ... and then brings back all the creatures people have selfishly killed off earlier and stored as patterns in a computer. I also didn't believe that the male songfathers would see 'living on' as big bats with big teeth as a type of immortality and make a 'bargain' with god to hand over their pregnant women to same ... not a keeper I'm afraid. ( )

Women as shadows.
All creatures as us
Humans first
PDD son. ( )

I really quite enjoyed the vast majority of this book. The characters are real, and the setting emerges from the characters' experience of it. The world has just enough plausibility as a possible future to be quite thought provoking.

Unfortunately, the gripping plot breaks down at the end. I expected revelation; I'm not actually sure what it was. I may well have to re-read the ending, and see if I missed something, or if it really did just sort of unravel instead of wrapping anything up. ( )

One hundred years before the story starts something wiped out human life on colonised planets in a certain sector of space, only Dinadh was spared. Now this is happening again and Lutha Tallstaff is sent to this planet where there might be answers. On the planet Dinadh Saluez is about to undergo a ceremony that all women take at the time of their first pregnancy and on Earth (now Alliance) Snark is a shadow, a person who has been unable to fit in with society. Ultimately the paths of these three women will meet.

Not my favourite Tepper but still a good read. Some of her usual themes of population growth; an ecological message and an interesting plot and good female characters. Unfortunately, as usual, most of her male characters are not very appealing or sympathetic though in this one at least I ended up liking the King, Jiacare.

Tepper is an author I keep returning to. She is not the most subtle of authors but I know what I am getting when I open one of her books and I like her story telling. ( )

Tepper's novel follows the stories of three women: Saluez of Dinadh, Snark the Shadow, and the above-mentioned Lutha Tallstaff. The three disparate women have one thing in common: victimhood.

Saluez is a victim of Dinadh's social structure and religious practices which often have tragic consequences for women. Snark, because of her anti-social tendencies, has been sentenced to a form of behavior control known as Shadowhood, in which she acts as servant to the mighty but is completely unnoticeable by those she serves. And Lutha -- strong, intelligent, capable Lutha -- is victimized by her own longing for Leelson Famber even in the face of utter rejection by both him and his family.

Lutha's mission sets her on a path which ultimately unites these women and brings them to a single destiny. Together their actions will determine their own fates and that of mankind. Along the way, Tepper paints us a vivid landscape of alien worlds and odd beings, strange politics and xenophobic religions, and she shows us the far-reaching consequences of seemingly minor acts.

A well-told, almost poetic novel. ( )