- Mass Market Paperback: 560 pages
- Publisher: Eos; Reprint edition (Aug 12 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060538228
- ISBN-13: 978-0060538224
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.2 x 3.3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 249 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #679,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Fans will hail Hugo nominee Tepper's latest (after 2002's The Visitor), with its compelling story of an ordinary woman flung into extraordinary circumstances, but interesting ideas left undeveloped, awkward transitions from first to third person and unfair withholding of information may annoy others. Earth, incredibly overcrowded, has passed a new law prohibiting nonhuman life on the planet. Jewel Delis, dog keeper and member of an underground animal-rights group, wrangles her way to the planet Moss with several dogs, ostensibly to help her unpleasant half brother Paul, a linguist, figure out the peculiar language of the planet's varied inhabitants. Jewel finds Moss every bit as odd as advertised, with strange and dangerous plants, fantastic dances performed by creatures that may or may not be intelligent, and a group of humans descended from the crew of a spaceship that crash-landed years earlier. But figuring out how the Mossen communicate is only the beginning, as Jewel and her dogs get sucked into a portal, where Moss, Mars, the dogs, a missing alien race and Jewel's ex-husband collide. As usual in this author's novels, overt themes of ecology and feminism combine with thrilling mystery, and just as typically, a deus ex machina-here aliens stepping in to save the day-makes for a less than emotionally satisfying ending. Still, Tepper talks about important issues, besides excelling at world-building and at creating strong and independent characters.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
Tepper's new grand-space opera contains a mysterious planet that may or may not bear intelligent life but does host the remains of a fleet of Earth ships; several predatory cultures, human and alien; an implausible law that will eliminate all nonhuman animal life on Earth; and a heroine who is a true speaker to animals and is trying to find a refuge for them. The good guys are larger than life, the bad guys smaller (whining rather than bold villains), and everything in the book comes together in a magnificent climax. The profeminist, antimale, antireligious didacticism that marks so much of Tepper's work is present in full measure, but so is her extremely fine writing. Tepper's command of language and characterization should have readers busily turning pages right up to the climax, even if, now and then, they will want to install earplugs to soften the shrieking of axes being ground. Oh, well, Tepper's hefty following will happily receive this book, which, neophytes should be advised, isn't the ideal introduction to her. Frieda Murray
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
The moss world, so said one XT-ploitation writer who had reviewed first-contact images of it, was a Victorian parlor of a planet, everywhere padded and bolstered, its cliffs hung with garlands, its crevasses softened with cushions, every cranny silk-woven, every surface napped into velvet. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The moss world, so said one XT-ploitation writer who had reviewed first-contact images of it, was a Victorian parlor of a planet, everywhere padded and bolstered, its cliffs hung with garlands, its crevasses softened with cushions, every cranny silk-woven, every surface napped into velvet. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Poor variation on a theme,
By Ryan in Ypsi (Ypsilanti, MI United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Companions (Hardcover)
I came to this book hoping for another tight yarn like The Mosaic, but I came away rather dissatisfied. Some authors can keep a sprawling plotline from getting unwieldy, but I don't think that is Tepper's forte. While I greatly enjoyed the many alien races, the last third of the book turned them all into mere caricatures, along with almost all of the characters. I longed for the believable character development of Mosaic, instead of the patchy bits of insight we get into why Jewell was so stunted by Paul's influence her whole life. Jewell remained merely a plot device for me, and she had the golden touch, which is pretty lazy on Tepper's part. The bad guys are irredeemably bad, bad by nature, and stupid besides, and the good guys have no depth either. But I suspect character depth would get in the way of the plot. Yes, there's a strong plot, but it is all rendered moot by the Deus Ex Machina of the Phain and Splendor setting all to rights in the last couple pages. Wish-fulfillment is fun, but it's awfully light fare when untempered by ambiguity. If God gave you three wishes, that wouldn't help you understand the causes for the problems you were fixing with a wave of your hand. Advice? For a more complete experience, read The Mosaic, or Family Tree, but use The Companions for mere escapism.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thought-provoking, suspenseful, mysterious...but...,
By Auliya "An Avid Reader" (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Companions (Hardcover)
My favorite thing about this book? The way it took me by the shoulders and gave me a quick shake -- regarding dogs. It's hard to take them for granted once you fall into the main character's world. My least favorite thing about this book? The last half. It's zipping right along, then stumbles and becomes difficult to follow and, even given the setting, sort of implausible. I'd say that the content of the book is (perhaps as usual for Tepper?) better than the storytelling. I always find her books worth reading.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sheri Tepper returns to "Grass", only this time it's "Moss",
By
This review is from: The Companions (Hardcover)
In a novel reminiscent of her best-selling "Grass", author Tepper creates a complicated exobiology on a world "Moss" that has an abundance of perplexing denizens. At first, the explorers from the "PPI" or Planetary Protection, aren't even sure if what they are observing on Moss is an indigenous species. Rest assured, however, something is living there, and it may not be entirely friendly.Jewel and her half-brother, the slimy Paul, go off on an expedition to Moss. Jewel is happy to leave Earth, which is overcrowded and being threatened by a draconian leadership with the extinction of the sad remnants of non-Human species which take up too much valuable space. This novel is ambitious, complicated and darker in tone than "Grass" or "Family Tree" but is similar in ideology (ecological concerns, harmony with nature and all creatures.) The complexity of the system on Moss is like the complex interactions Tepper created in "Six Moon Dance" but with again, a darker tone. If you like imaginative science fiction that is not a re-hash of typical sci-fi generic themes, you will enjoy "The Companions" though it is not perhaps quite as good as "The Fresco", "Singer from the Sea" and "Six Moon Dance."
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