New To The Coffee Table

After two library sales, I have amassed quite a collection of novels by Sheri S Tepper. I thoroughly enjoyed Six Moon Dance, so I am looking forward to trying some of her other works.

  

All descriptions from Goodreads.

Beauty

With the publication of The Gate to Women's Country, Sheri S. Tepper came to be recognized as a major science fiction writer. Now the author of Raising the Stones and Grass -- a New York Times Notable Book and Hugo Award finalist -- turns to Beauty, a fantasy with a story that is more, much more than fable.

Drawing on the wellspring of much-loved, well-remembered fairy tales, Tepper delivers a thought-provoking and finely crafted novel that thoroughly involves the reader in the life of one of the most captivating heroines in modern fantasy -- Beauty. On her sixteenth birthday Beauty is seemingly able to sidestep her aunt's curse. Instead she is transported to the future. Here begin her adventures as she travels magically back and forth in time to visit places both imaginary and real. Finally she comes to understand what has been her special gift to humanity all along.

For in Beauty, there is beauty. And in beauty, magic. Without our enchanted places, humanity is no more than an upstart ape. And this, we realize, is why Beauty must be saved, both in the fantastical world of Tepper's novel and in the actual world in which we live.

After Long Silence

Gigantic crystal formations tower over the landscape of the planet Jubal, inspiring awe in the Tripsingers and Explorers who have made these "Presences" their lives' work and hatred in the corporations who seek their destruction. Against a backdrop of startling alien beauty, Tepper tells a story of human perseverance for truth in the face of bureaucratic blindness and religious fanaticism.

Northshore (The Awakeners #1)

Come to the world of the River. A world distant in time and space, a world where the pace of life is counted by the tides of the great River; but where, is in the river itself, there are swift dark currents flowing under a placid surface.

Meet Pamra Don - a young woman scarred by her mother's death, lured to a priesthood where the truth must be hidden from the faithful. And Thrasne, a young boatman who trees from town to town, free from the iron control of the Towers of the Awakeners . . . as long as he never speaks his mind. These two, by design and accident both, are about to discover many truths.

And on Northshore, the truth can kill you.

Southshore (The Awakeners #2)

A world far distant in place and time, where the pace of life is counted by the tides of the great River...a world where the human colony has lived for millenia in uneasy peace with the native race - the Thraish, whose savage god has promised them a world of willing prey.

Pamra Don has learned much on the River and has become the visionary leader of great pilgrimage, carryiing the discontent of Northshore to lay at the feet of the Protector of Man. But the Thraish have at last taken note of Pamra Don and her crusade...and their vengeance will be swift.

Sideshow (Arbai #3)

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.

The Fresco

The bizarre events that have been occuring 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.

The Family Tree

Dora Henry is an ordinary woman living in an extraordinary time. Recently separated from an odd and distant husband, Dora looks back wistfully to when she was a little girl, to the times when the world was a simpler, greener place. But the once-fertile Earth of Dora's childhood has been overdeveloped. Now Nature, apparently, has decided to fight back.

As a police officer, Dora must investigate the bizarre, seemingly unrelated murders of three geneticists. In the course of her inquiry, however, it becomes clear that the scientists were killed by the same person, for reasons that are frustratingly obscure. Meanwhile, strange things are happening everywhere Dora turns: weeds are becoming trees, trees becoming forests, a city is transformed almost overnight into a wild and verdant place inhospitable to what humankind has become.

Within days, Dora's hometown has come to a veritable standstill as the thoroughfares are choked by foliage, and its citizens are forced to employ bygone means of transport and communication - walking and talking. But stranger still, Dora discovers that she herself can somehow communicate with the rampaging flora - and is, therefore, perhaps the only person presently living who holds the key to averting an unthinkable catastrophe to human life.

As Dora tracks the elusive murderer, the mystery of the trees begins to unravel as well. For the two seemingly disparate events are intertwined, much like the branches of an oak. And, as Dora gets closer to the truth, she comes to realize that the answer she seeks today may lie I'm the future - a future which is much closer than anyone dares to think.

Shadow’s End

The fragrant, sun-checked canyon lands of the planet Dinadh seem to be a peaceful backwater of the universe...except for one thing. A century ago, a mysterious force wiped out human life on all surrounding worlds, leaving Dinadh untouched. Every team sent to investigate vanished. Every attempt to contact survivors met with a devastating silence. Now the unknown force is back - and this time humanity's only hope for survival lies on Dinadh...with a woman who'd give anything not to get involved.

Lutha Tallstaff is a brilliant linguist, a devoted mother, and a reluctant emissary to Dinadh. Her 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 for Lutha, finding Famber, who also happens to be her estranged lover and the father of her child, is the last thing she wants to do.

At Lutha's side on this perilous quest is her strange and beautiful young son, a boy whose father denies his humanity but whose bizarre abilities will soon have far-reaching consequences. Reunited on Dinadh, the threesome find themselves traversing a planet dazzling in its cool springs and blossoming fruit trees, dangerous in its fountains of fire and rapacious winged wraiths. Yet only when they approach the planet's holiest place will Lutha discover the truth about their child, about the strange Ularians, and about the future of humankind. For she, her lover, and their son figure in a pattern of cosmic importance that will shake the universe - and their understanding of life, love, good and evil - to its very foundations.