The Family Tree

Rating:
Summary: Good until it gets cliched
Review: I was intrigued, until I got to about half way through the book, when half the characters were revieled as animals. After that the book became a massive cliche fraught with preaching and a predictable ending. Also, most of the characters were under developed and one sided. Other than that it was fun to read, all of it, so if you don't mind preachyness, then this is a good book.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of fun (except for the politics)
Review: If you're the sort of person who can accept frankly annoying politics as part of the plot without getting upset or offended, you should enjoy The Family Tree very much. The characters and their situations are intriguing, and the societies and beliefs of the future are great fun, not to mention the ABSOLUTLY AWESOME twist.
If, however, you really don't like being told that human beings are either savages intent on raping and desecrating Mother Earth, or else just plain stupid, know that this book will raise your blood pressure. BUT, you should still check The Family Tree out of the library and read it long enough to get to the ABSOLUTLY AWESOME twist, after which feel free to throw the book across the room.

Rating:
Summary: Awesome!
Review: Sheri Tepper writes fascinating, intelligent and original science fiction. This is my favorite of her books so far--it combines her usual style with some VERY unexpected surprises and humor. I was laughing out loud.
Tepper is a story-telling master!

Rating:
Summary: This book gets a bit silly...
Review: I love Tepper, but I found that this story starts out with an interesting premise, but begins to drag on and becomes increasingly unbelievable. For Tepper fans, if you haven't read it yet, go for it. It's still worth it.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: In some respects, _The Family Tree_ is a departure for Tepper. Much of her other work is relentlessly grim -- understandable given the subject matter. But in _The Family Tree_ it seems that the author has finally broken through to that place where things are so awful you just have to laugh. And laugh she does. _Tree_ has a great deal more humour than any of her previous work, and it straddles the fence between ecological manifesto and absurdist fable like a Wallenda.

It's not all fun and games, though. The planet is still going to hell in a handbasket and people still have difficult decisions to make. Women are still making stupid choices and propagandists both on the left and the right are still apt to destroy us all. But with all that, I felt this story was hopeful. Maybe not for the human race, but for the planet and life in general. For all her cautions about wrong action and evil intent, Tepper consistently presents the belief that, given the choice, most people will do the right thing. And that's a message we all can stand to believe in.

Rating:
Summary: An intriguing ecological fantasy
Review: "The Family Tree" starts out as a police procedural with supernatural overtones, then segues into a totally different tale that is reminiscent of the "dying earth" fantasies of Jack Vance, and then alternates the two separate tales until they finally dovetail. And when they do, the tale becomes something "very rich and strange" indeed.

Tepper, always clever, this time out falls victim to more than a touch of didacticism at the end. She has always displayed a certain mistrust of humanity, especially the male side of it, and those prejudices come through here, slightly soiling what otherwise would have been a perfect tale.

Rating:
Summary: Mind-Boggling
Review: Sherri S. Tepper is the Grand Wizard of the literary surprise. She loves to take all your pre-conceptions and turn them sideways.

In *The Family Tree* she outdoes herself; about two-thirds of the way through the novel she pulls a magic trick of legendary proportions. I found myself exclaiming "Holy Cow! I didn't see THAT one coming!" She also doesn't cheat; all the clues are there. Anyone who gives away the secret should be taken out and shot at dawn, along with spoil-sports who give away the endings of *The Sixth Sense* and *The Crying Game*.

This is a wondrous multi-layered Science Fiction novel told by a gifted story-teller. It's a murder mystery, a fairy tale out of the Arabian Nights, a treatise on feminism, and a cautionary parable about the dangers of over-population and despoiling the environment.

I occassionally found myself puzzled during the first chapters, asking "Why are these people acting the way they do?" Never fear: all is explained, and a splendid time is had along the way.

Rating:
Summary: I adored this book!
Review: This was my first Tepper book, and I adored it! Yes, my disclaimer is that I'm not a big fan of science fiction or fantasy, and yet, she kept me hooked. I was kept off-balance for most of the book - enjoyably so. I will never look at the creatures running around in the backyard in quite the same way again.

Rating:
Summary: Correction to previous review
Review: In my previous review I said that this book explored similar themes as Sideshow -- I really meant A Plague of Angels -- sorry. That's what happens when you read too many novels by the same author quickly.

Rating:
Summary: Surprising, intriguing and gripping
Review: This was the first Tepper book I had read, and I found it intensely gripping and interesting. Couldn't put it down till I finished it, and then I read it again, just to get a full perspective. I thought it was fabulous, with the convergence of the timelines feeding into the rich ideas and the slowly revealed secrets, even if I don't necessarily agree with her politics.

However, I followed it up by reading Plague of Angels, and reading those two one after another made me feel that Tepper was only exploring the same ideas over and over, which made Plague of Angels much easier to predict.

(Stop reading here if you don't want to know about the ideas in the book, especially if you haven't read this novel yet). I also found some of the political leanings expressed through the novels confusing. I noted that she seems to believe that much of technology is born out of humanity's bad side, but somehow seems to think it's a good idea for humans to toy with genetics of animals.