Rating: 
Summary: Possibly her best book ever
Review: What an amazing book! It marks a long-awaited (for me, anyway) return to the more plot-oriented type of book that Tepper used to put out, as opposed to the thinly-vieled morality tales that she has produced from "The Gate to Women's Country" onward. Not that there isn't a lot of thought-provoking, controversial stuff in here...it's just a lot more integral to the story. And what a story! Marvelous characters, beatifully realized worlds and realities, perfect dialog. Combine murder mystery, epic quest, self-discovery, lots of trees, a love story and the biggest surprise I've ever been knocked upside the head by, all in one great book. I can't recommend this highly enough!
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant plotting and hilarious humor
Review: This is a Tepper book you could give to people who say, "Oh, but she just hates men." The author treats the sexes fairly, recognizing that some men are more human than some women and that some women are just plain stupid (eg acting like walking wombs!) The best thing about it, though, is the humor. Some parts are satirical in a way I think Jonathan Swift would have appreciated (you'll really laugh at the religion of 'Bubblianism' but the author is making a serious point with it!) Much of the treatment of magic is very witty as well (Sorc-a-Power...) Other jokes I couldn't tell you without giving away the plot, which brings me to the next great thing about the novel: its outrageous storyline and bizarre twist in the middle!Tepper is known for clever plotting and this is perhaps the best example; she throws one helluva curve ball halfway through and both the reader and the characters discover they have been misled to an extreme extent. (think The Crying Game if you went to see it not knowing the "secret"...) The only reason I don't rate it 5 stars is that the politics, while not as out in front as in some other novels, are sometimes irritating. Tepper seems to believe in harsh eugenics, that modern medicine is weakening us, and that some people are so hopeless they should just be allowed to self-destruct as a kind of mercy killing. Also, it is clear she believes humans are a cancer on the planet and most of us deserve the death sentence for what we have done. Nevertheless, the book is so entertaining (can't put it down!) that this can be forgiven, which is really saying a lot.
Rating:
Summary: Solid Work From Tepper
Review: In THE FAMILY TREE, author Sheri Tepper has combined an engaging mix of mystery, science fiction and fantasy to tell the story of Dora Henry, a police detective with several issues at hand. First, she must deal with the consequences of leaving her inattentive husband after several years of unhappy marriage. Second, the murders of three scientists and their mysterious connections to each other. But, foremost is a strange weed in her yard that puts her husband in the hospital and seems to be the precursor to incredible instant forests that grow up almost overnight, taking over suburbs and returning them to the wild. Alternating with this is an Arabian Nights-like adventure of an orphaned storytelling teenager turned slave to a Sultan. She is Opal-Ears and, disguised as a boy, is sent with the Sultan's son on a mysterious journey in search of a key that will stop The End of Everything. Along the way, several others join the travelers (in typical quest fashion) as we learn more about the cultures along Opal-Ears's route. Tepper throws in a number of surprises throughout the second half that will amuse the reader (including a few seeming jabs at a popular family film from a couple of years back) while environmentalist and feminist issues are unobtrusively discussed. If good characterization, strong female leads and a plot that keeps you guessing are what you like, this will more than satisfy you.
Rating:
Summary: Disturbing and thought-provoking; almost a masterpiece...
Review: While I would not argue for "The Family Tree" being Tepper's most engrossing book, it must surely count as one of her most ambitious to date - if, that is, one measures such things in terms of complexity of plot, departure from comfortable suppositions and desire to undermine and overthrow most readers' pre-conceived ideas and assumptions! Sheri S. Tepper is, of course, a past master (I should perhaps rather say, mistress!) of such matters and she handles it here with consummate ease. I don't believe that anyone could make it to the end of this work without finding themselves both surprised and shocked at some stage of the journey. I also found that a deep personal re-evaluation was needed by the end too: something else that Tepper is always supreme at provoking. The book does perhaps require a little more effort than most of Tepper's other works (except, perhaps, "The Revenants"): mostly, I think, because of the greatly disparate nature of the two parallel story threads and lack of obvious connections between them. Also, I think that Tepper deliberately prevents the reader from acquiring too comfortable a toe-hold in either world, purposefully allowing one to assemble an entirely false set of assumptions about where, when and who... only to have her take great delight at demolishing those assumptions, time and time again. Unfortunately, I think that the price that gets paid this time is that she also fails to make either world (or their coming together) entirely believable. If you're prepare to suspend belief, though... My only complaint of this book is that there are some intriguing plot elements which felt never to come to anything - just why does she go to such lengths to ensure that Opalears is dressed as a boy, for example? But then, so much of this book comes to so much more than one is expecting that I'm perfectly happy to accept these as smoke screens! Or even to accept that I missed their resolution in the cataclysmic happens that occur around them. Yes, Ms Tepper has done it again!
Rating:
Summary: Slightly heavy handed politics aside, AWESOME
Review: The other reviews already hit the highlights (awesome plot twists, thought-provoking, great word plays and subtle humor) and I thoroughly enjoyed it enough to forgive it the somewhat obvious political statements at the end. This is my first Tepper book (loaned by a friend) but it won't be my last! Even if it seems a little confusing at first, stick with it--do you want all your books to be plain vanilla?
Rating:
Summary: Reviews will spoil this book!
Review: If you like Sheri S Tepper, you can be pretty sure that The Family Tree is a good buy. It's considered one of her better books. It's certainly well-written and the plot is fascinating. If I say any more, I'll spoil the fun. You'll thank me for not saying any more, I promise you. If you don't know Sheri S Tepper, this book is as good as any to start with. Choose this one or Beauty to start with; they are IMHO amongst her more inventive books. Tepper writes allegorical sci-fi/fantasy crossover fiction with a deliciously dark horror element under its colourful surface. When you agree with her thinly-veiled politics, you will laugh with glee over the over-the-top imagery with which she expresses her allegory. When you disagree, she's likely to make you hopping mad at how ridiculous and one-sided her parables are. However, if you're anything like me, you'll also have some quiet admiration for her gumption, even if you don't like the message she brings. If that sounds like your idea of fun, you will find Sheri S Tepper monumentally entertaining and thought-provoking. I gave this book 5 stars because it was just so much fun to read.
Rating:
Summary: Twisty Fable
Review: When I first read this book, I thought the parts set on a future society where confusing. When I got to the twist, however,those parts turned out to be interesting upon a second rereading. The twist was so suprising that I immedeately reread the entire book from the beganing in order to gain a new perspective.It turns out that the futuristic chapters present a fable as interesting as "Gulliver's Travels," with as much bite. "The Family Tree" also adds enterest, in its chapters set in the present,by having mysterious happenings wheren, apparently, mother nature fights back. Overall, this novel presents a similar erie mood as the movie,"Sixth Sense", with as much as a suprise twist. In both, things are not what they seem.
Rating:
Summary: Really fun.
Review: As a compulsive ending-guesser, I'm rarely completely surprised or totally wrong. This time I was and far from being feeling mislead, I was totally delighted at Tepper's inventiveness. Stop reading these reviews -- they do give away some of the surprise -- and try out this book. The book begins with uncontrolable plants begining to take over towns and cities forcing people to finally respect nature's boundaries. Our heroine, Dora, respects the plants, but what will happen to people? A second plotline in a different world eventually collides with the first to give us our conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: Family Tree (Warning: slight spoiler)
Review: In one timeline, strange, perhaps sentient, trees begin to take over modern America. In another, which at first looks like fantasy, people go on a slightly nebulous quest. The twist is that the people turn out to really be animals... Tepper tries to draw out the device of not letting the reader know that the people in the future (as it turns out) timeline are talking animals. This requires some narrative contortions, and the result is an essential lack of visual description. In addition, I didn't find the animal society convincing, though the use of humans is a nice touch. Especially, the lack of opposable thumbs gave me trouble (we're not talking Uplift, here), but also the animal cultures seemed for the most part lacking in detail and color. I couldn't help thinking what Mary Gentle would have done with the same elements. The "modern" timeline involves Dora, a police officer in the act of divorcing her strange and compulsive husband, Jared. Environmentalist quasi-Dionysian (though gods of any sort are rather absent) religion makes an appearance as semi-sentient trees take over much of the landscape. I found Dora a little wimpy for a cop. Eventually, of course, the timelines merge, and produce some slightly improbable magical events. The revelation of what the future humans are, and have been up to, is a bright spot. Tepper's ideas are interesting ones, but logical flaws and an overall lack of "real" detail made this book less than successful for me.
Rating: 
Summary: Deeply Disappointing
Review: This novel is an unfortunate variation on the far-future, science fantasy genre. The plotting is silly and internally inconsistent, the characterization is poorly drawn, and the thematic material is inane. The novel comes across as a thinly veiled political manifesto for environmental extremism (of the Earth First/Environmental Liberation Front variety). Transforming political polemics into a novel is a challenging task, even for brilliant writers like Ayn Rand. Ms. Tepper isn't in that league, and *The Family Tree* suffers by the obvious comparison that it invites with George Orwell's *Animal Farm*. Apart from the politics, Tepper's novel is disappointing purely as a story. Other popular writers have taken the same fundamental plot device (intelligent animals), and have done far more interesting things with it: David Brin's *Startide Rising*, Dean Koontz's *Watchers*, and Richard Adams's *Watership Down* leap to mind, to name a few. Any of those will make a more entertaining and thought-provoking read than does *The Family Tree*.
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